Uninvited guests...daphnia?

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TJ

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Tim Johnson
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Can anybody identify these teeny-tiny critters? I found them in my Pachytriton brevipes tank while I was looking through a macro lens trying to focus.
 
At first, I was ecstatic, thinking my brevipes pair had "spawned" and that these were newly hatched larvae
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...but they are way to small to be anything of the sort. Are they daphnia? I've never dealt with daphnia so am not quite sure what they look like. But I can't see how daphnia could have been introduced to this tank as I haven't added any plants. The only thing I can imagine is that they came in with tubifex, which I occasionally feed to my brevipes. They're definitely not brine shrimp hatchlings, though they move similarly.
 
These are Cyclops. A small crustacean that has a similar lifecycle as Daphnias.I cant come any closer than to the genus. There are about 10.000 species in this group...

Martin
 
Thanks Ralf & Martin! Copepods, cyclops...different things? Whatever, as long as they're harmless, they're welcome
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Just don't want any harm to come to my 2 brevipes, which are absolutely precious!

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copepods is a division of crustaceans... i'm pretty sure they're edible... so if you have some larvae, now you've got some food!
 
Most people who culture daphnia can't help culturing cyclops too - these guys get in everywhere. They do make good food, though some of them are predatory (usually the bigger species - you'd know them if you saw them).
 
I was feeding copepods to larvae last year, as I netted a large quantity at a pond. The larvae ate them, but had a harder time catching them than they do with daphnia. No harm to your newts, and no harm throwing them in with your larvae for food.
 
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  • FragileCorpse:
    I also asked this as an actual question in a thread in case anyone wants to answer it there instead of here
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    FragileCorpse: I also asked this as an actual question in a thread in case anyone wants to answer it there... +1
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