# extremely tiny white moving dots in aquarium?



## Josh40996

Sounds like copepods. Perfectly harmless.


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## Aceman

I have those in mine too, also have what look like tiny worms. I have no idea what those are tho


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## Josh40996

Those worms may be planaria, not a problem themselves but are an indicator of overfeeding.


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## Drewsplantednutz

probably a normal little bug or diatom. Make sure your not overfeeding, that will cause lots of unwanted guys.


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## Betta132

Copepods. They live in just about every planted tank ever. Harmless gunk eaters, good fish food.


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## I3raven

Drewsplantednutz said:


> probably a normal little bug or diatom. Make sure your not overfeeding, that will cause lots of unwanted guys.


I don't have any fish currently in my tank so it can't be overfeeding. Could it be a nitrate-related issue? I agree, I think it might be copepods after looking at images


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## Izzy-

They could come with plants, especially stringy bunched plants like moss or Riccia.

In fact that's how I got them.


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## I3raven

Izzy- said:


> They could come with plants, especially stringy bunched plants like moss or Riccia.
> 
> In fact that's how I got them.


That makes sense, I also introduced moss into my tank aswell when I changed the water. Have you tried to get rid of them? It seems like it multiplies in my tank by the thousands.


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## jeffturneraz

I3raven said:


> That makes sense, I also introduced moss into my tank aswell when I changed the water. Have you tried to get rid of them? It seems like it multiplies in my tank by the thousands.


I had tiny white specs on gravel surface, and to a smaller degree, the glass, but I also had the white worms. 

This was horrifying to me.

People made statements like, "sorry you seem to hate nature so much" when I asked about them but they can go out and get a copepod or detritus tattoo if they want if they are so in tune with worms but I never wanted either and make no apologies.

The copepods, a.k.a. tank fleas went away on their own, but I still have the worms. I only see them during a WC when I disturb the habitat by syphoning, trimming, moving water around...etc.

I have 2 tanks, with 2 "pests" IMO....high-tech planted with white worms, and low tech planted w snails. I dislike both but the snails I can handle if I have to. The snails...I overfeed, what can I say. I know why they are there.

The worms? I have no clue. 

No Planaria didn't work on all worms as I had hoped...hence its name I suppose.

I guess I have just come to accept them. Still so curious how in the hell the worms came in.


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## Krispyplants

Hah I feel the same way... I know that the copepods are what everyone talks about living in mosses and are great fry food. I agree with this because you can't always be there to monitor when eggs hatch but the worms... That's a different story. I've always wonder if I accidentally splash water into my mouth with one, will it multiply :confused1:


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## JohnEX

If they look like little dots, they're probably ostracods/seed shrimp. Copepods have tails.
I have probably thousands in my shrimp tank... I don't think they harm anything so I just let nature do it's thing.

Also, your question about them going away if the tank matures? probably the opposite, you'll likely see tons more and probably some other organisms as the tank matures.


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## HDBenson

What species of fish do you plan on adding? Just about any small fish will help with this problem as most smaller fish(one inch and smaller) are micro-predators. Also, cories will do a great job of cleaning them out of detrius hot spots you can get to with siphoning. I had a problem with flat ramshorn snails, copepods, and microworms etc. in my NPT beta tank. Once the fish were added this problem quickly corrected itself. I have a male/female betta pair, harlies, endler's and a pair of Elassoma zonatum. The fish wouldn't eat prepared food for the first two weeks until the "live food" population "died" back.


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