Hello, hope someone can help me to identify these bugs in my big fish tank. I was kind of scared when I saw these bugs from the photo I took. I don't know if they are harmful to my kids or not. If they are harmful, I will just get rid of whole fish tank. But I don't konw how to deal with it right now, since there are a lot of live plants, fishes and shrimps in my big aquarium tank.

One month ago I saw some "black dot" (like a pencil dot size) attached in my fish tank side glass. I don't know what they are and where they are from. There was not that many before, so I didn't pay too much attention. Now there are so many as you can see from the attached photo. They are also all over the leaves of the aquarium plants right now, look like they are sucking nutritions from aquarium plants.

Have you ever seen these bugs???
Thanks for any suggestions!!!!!!!


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Those "bugs" are drain fly larvae. That means your water supply is contaminated. No biggie though. All it requires is a thorough tank cleaning. and adding filtered water. Depending on tank size add Amquel+. Its a form of stress reliever for fish. Also kills all larval staged creatures. (if you have broods in your tank you might not want this) But anyway that is my suggestion. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.....
HMPKFAN <---------Here to help!

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Hope that helps.

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Wouldnt a lot of fish consider this food??

No. Not at all. These larvae will kill fish if ingested..

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ouch nasty stuff

I don't think they are drain fly larvae, drain fly larvae look more like maggots or mosquito larvae, yours look like mites. I've got something like that in my tanks too, It's possible they eat plants but I think it's more likely they are just cleaning up left over food and other waste, probably quite helpful really. In reality a healthy tank normally has loads of little critters but we just don't see them, most are completely harmless, in fact without things like bacteria in the filter we couldn't keep fish alive at all. You have a population explosion going on probably from over feeding your fish. If you cut back on feeding and hoover your gravel regularly they will likely all but disappear naturally with a little time. You can also poison them if they gross you out but I wouldn't recommend it as it can cause other problems.

Thanks guys and thanks Snail. Like Snail said, those are Mites.

Yesterday I got a reply from a Biology professor. He told me those are aquatic mites. He said they are actually a type of soil mite (oribatid mite). They feed on algae, and they are certainly not harmful to the fish or shrimp. However, they could harm the plants.

The reason they outbreak these days is because I took out half tank of plants one month ago, which broke the balance of my fish tank, and made the algae outbreak until now.

Now I need to use some medicine to clean them up.

Thanks guys!

Personally I wouldn't use meds, when your algae problem goes away so will they. If you get rid of the mites you might just have an algae problem instead. Plus the poisons used will kill other inverts like snails and shrimp and are not great for your fish either, they could even effect the bacteria in your filter. Mosses and marimo balls might get a little nibbled on so if you have lots of moss you might want to be more drastic but I think most plants won't be effected much. If you do go for poison watch out for a mini cycle. You could try some algae eating shrimp or snails, they might be good competition for food.

Thanks Snail!
Nice suggestions! I also have this concern since I have red shrimps.
I may try to use baking soda or salt to eliminate the mites after I remove shrimps, fishes and plants. That would be much safer for shrimps later on. Since there are too many mites, I would like to rebuild the tank this time.

Something like this happened to me once and I didn't do anything. After a month or so the population of mites crashed. I still see the odd one once in a while but they are very few. You might consider waiting a little longer before you tear down the tank to see if they go away on their own.

Thank you! I will wait to see what will happen in a month. Hope they will decrease by themselves so I don't have to do anything.

Let us know what happens, it would be interesting to know.