[Teebo]

I know I have harmless flatworms in my tank that my Betta eats, but I also have noticed these very fast moving jittery things that the Betta does not eat. I took this photo with a maco lense, they are not harmful right? Seems like if I vac every other week instead of weekly they appear more, yet my bio-load is very light. I also see something I think is different at the surface, sometimes on my Frogbit as well.

 

[shaman.]

Cyclops sp. Not harmful.

 

[Teebo]

Thank You. Are they like saltwater "pods" ? I assume my Betta would eat them if they were larger. Not sure anything else does, shrimps, snails, etc?

 

[Doogy262]

Thank You. Are they like saltwater "pods" ? I assume my Betta would eat them if they were larger. Not sure anything else does, shrimps, snails, etc?

snatched from the web...Livebearing fish, Bettas, Barbs, and Tetras, and even Discus will relish Cyclops as an occasional supplemental food. Bottom feeding catfish will quickly consume any that drop to the tank floor. Cyclops also makes an excellent conditioning food when preparing breeders for spawning.

cyclops are tiny copepods, or crustaceans, that are found in many freshwater and saltwater bodies of water. They derive their name from the single eye located in the middle of their head. Another name often used to refer to this tiny crustacean is Water Flea, due to the resemblance of the young Cyclops to fleas found on land.

 

[WaterLife]

Yeah, those are cyclops/copepods. Nice pic of these little guys! What did you use?

They are harmless, though I have heard of some carnivorous copepods (small as they are though, I would doubt they cause any noticeable issue).

Most fish will eat them. They are generally only present in a large enough colony if there aren't enough predators to keep their numbers low. Snails and Shrimp won't eat them, or at least make any sort of noticeable decrease in their population, since they are popular in shrimp tanks. Overfeeding increases the cyclops population (good if you use them as live food, bad if you just don't like the site of them).

If you want them gone, just feed less or add more fish to eat them (you can scoop out some copepods too). Not feeding the betta, should have it hungry enough to devour the copepods more.

Water fleas is usually a common name for Daphnia though, bit different from the typical copepods.

 

[Teebo]

So something like a SW Goby would eat these? Nothing gets along with my Betta or should I say he gets along with nothing so I am limited on what will eat them. He is so spoiled on NLS he wont touch them, but eats larger worms he sees he loves those.

This was taken with an iPhone4S using a cheap $15 lense kit off eBay for phones. I was trying to take a photo of my snail when I realized how clear they were so I figured now was the perfect time to investigate.

I pretty much target feed, almost nothing goes uneaten so its a battle.

I will try to take a photo of the ones that dwell on the Frogbit

 

[WaterLife]

You mean throw some copepods into the saltwater tanks?

There are a large variety of copepods. There are saltwater species and freshwater. I am not sure if a freshwater copepod can adapt to saltwater or vice versa. I found this thread though
amphipods and copepods in a FW tank? - The Reef Tank

If you dump some FW copepods into the SW tank, you can find out. Even if they die, I am sure the SW fish would still eat them. Use a fine mesh net (shrimp net) to scoop out some of the copepods.

I know very little about saltwater. I don't know what your SW Goby eats, but it may very well be a micropredator so it might eat the copepods (pretty much if it eats meaty things, it will).

The copepods are harmless, so no big worry. You can leave them be or just scoop them out (they will just repopulate though).

 

[Teebo]

No I mean it's just the same thing that they eat, I just learned about copepods being a food source for SW fish last week. Particularly I was interested in Mandarin Gobys so coincidentally I had been doing some copepod research.

 

[Betta132]

These are freshwater copepods, they'll die pretty much immediately if tossed into saltwater.
You don't need to add something to eat them, they're completely harmless. Just leave 'em alone.