I just noticed a bug in my tank where I have some molly fry and a few otocinclus. It's about 1/4" long, kind of see through, with legs and what look like shells. It reminds me of those rolly polly bugs. It's randomly swimming around. My mollies try to eat it but weren't successful. I saw another just like that in my other tank a week ago.
Does anyone have any guess what this is and if I should try to get rid of it?
Its hard to say without a picture, most freshwater "bugs" are actually insect larvae.... some of these can be parasitic or even predatory.... so I would definitely net them out and flush them just to be on the safe side
Both are predatory, but the latter will eat your fry. The first is a Damselfly nymph, the second is a Dragonfly nymph. I had a huge infestation of Damselfy nymphs in one of my tanks, and in total have siphoned out 100+.
It looked like a rolly polly and it tried to roll up into a ball. I netted one out and it dried within a few hours. It's got some legs in the belly area. There are some spikes on both ends. It's more of an oval shape, rather than long skinny stick shape.
Similar but a bit longer, it's twice as long as it's wide. When it's all stretched out, it's about the width of my pinky nail, not the length. So, about 1/4 inch. It looked kind of like my shrimp (I have cherry, amano and glass) but shorter and less developed, like it's missing some stuff.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding... Yes, it looks a lot like that. From the research I've done online, it's not super descriptive of what they are. Are they ok to have in my tanks then?
I've not seen any in my tanks recently. I thought it might've been some larvae form of some land bugs. I soaked brown leaves to put in my tanks for my shrimp. I figured there were some eggs on these leaves that hatched.
I wouldn't be worried. They probably won't live in your tanks for long any ways. They don’t like high temps, and your fish will probably eat any stragglers. But if they do, they will eat the detritus at the bottom of your tank.
