[vqfive]

I been getting my plants devoured! I first suspected snails. But never had this problem before with snails. Ever since I added Red Fire Shrimps to the tank. I now suspect the Shrimps. Does this look like work of shrimp. It happens during the night mostly.

 

[CoffeeLove]

Lol shrimp aren't going to do that, we all keep shrimp and no one said their shrimp are eating their plants.What fish do you have

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[BenderBendingRodriguez]

Yeah my shrimp have never touched living plant material. They will pick algae off of it but that's it. I'm betting on some kind of fish.

 

[Newman]

the culprit is not anything you can see. the plant is having dead tissue which is getting eaten by bacteria and decaying. older leaves will do this more than newer ones. to some degree this is normal.

 

[sbarbee54]

Are these all lower level to mid level leaves? If so it could just be lighting issues, as plants fill out lighting might now be getting down as far. I have this issue, and then I know it is tim to trim

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

Both snails and shrimp will eat decaying bits off plants, even off of Java fern which happens in my Ebi tank. I've watched the banquet.

Never have seen shrimp eat living plant material, though.

 

[vqfive]

Not old leaves new leaves healthy leaves from on top in middle. They seem to like certain plants more. Its not the fish pretty sure. If there is no algae or I don't give any special food for the shrimps could they be eating the plants. This happens with lights are out at night. I've been going in and checking periodically through out the night. All fish are sleeping. But shrimps are out in about. I been eliminating snails out of my tank. There are no significant snails left but maybe tiny tiny ones. And when I see them I smash them. But since the snails are just about 98% gone the plant eating has continued with seems even more now. The fish are Otos, SAE , CAE BN plecos. I have all those same fish in another tank but no shrimps or snails and no plants are getting eaten.

 

[AVN]

How well fed are your fish? You have a lot of vegetarian fish.

 

[sbarbee54]

It is not the shrimp, I suspect it is this guy "BN plecos", and some lighting issues. Your tanks looks pretty full. But when my bushy nosed do not have much normal food they feast on my plants

 

[vqfive]

Holy cow I found what it is. Its some tiny like caterpillar. I was looking at some of the leaves that were just recently eaten on. I started looking from behind the underside of the leave and notice some pieces of leaves stuck to the back of the leaf. I clip off the leaf and separated the piece of leaf and there was this tiny caterpillar looking worm. Maybe about 1/8" long kinda gray looks like its fuzzy. But they cut pieces of the leave and make like sandwiched home with the cut piece against the back of the leaf. Any one know what this is? Not sure How to get rid of it..

 

[Newman]

that would make some sense. sometimes we get these larva things in with plants. I forget what they develop into but the aquatic caterpillar stage does eat plants.

Here is one i found 3 years ago in my anacharis:

does yours look similar? (forget the color)

 

[Newman]

Some more info on them, here you go:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...urce=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=7LPPUN7qKcSW0QGjsICwAw

 

[vqfive]

Mine is tiny about the size of planaria. Would not have ever seen it if I didn't notice the leaf piece stuck to the back of the leaf it just cut it from. I'd take a picture but my camera cannot focus in on it good. I know I removed 3 of them. I clipped and removed every leaf in my tank that looks eaten on hopefully I removed some. Its the only thing I can do if I see new freshly eaten leafs now hopefully I can keep cutting out those leaves till I get them all.

 

[vqfive]

This is best picture I can take

I think its a Midget Larva
http://www.ecospark.ca/changingcurrents/midge

 

[Newman]

hard to tell. i still think its a moth species. dont midge flies(mosquito looking things) have very prominent segments and look like a mealworm? maybe your larvae are fully grown yet or maybe the moth is a small species. you can find out if you hatch them in a closed container.

yours is very small. mine was rather big and looked too much like a caterpillar.

 

[vqfive]

. dont midge flies(mosquito looking things) have very prominent segments and look like a mealworm? maybe your larvae are fully grown yet or maybe the moth is a small species. you can find out if you hatch them in a closed container.

yours is very small. mine was rather big and looked too much like a caterpillar.

They say there's 20K types of Midget Larva that are herbivores. This does look like a mealworm. I thought it looked fuzzy but its not as you can see it on my finger.
Well what ever it is glad I found the culprit this was driving me nuts. Now I can put back all my snails I took out. I was almost about to nuke all the shrimp with Excel:icon_sad:

 

[Sakuras]

I had that thing yesterday! I took it out but i didnt know it was alive. It was slimy when i touched it. Luckily i took it out or it would have devoured my glosso.