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Hello everybody!

NoOne

New Member
Joined
22 Apr 2015
Messages
11
Location
Birmingham
Hi, I've just moved in Birmingham and I haven't got anything here at the moment, but I've got a 5 gallon bowl in my hometown (Lyon, France) with inside Lomariopsis lineata, Fontinalis antipyretica, Fissidens fontanus, Riccia fluitans, Lemna trisulca, a few Lemna minor and Nymphaea glandulifera. The scavenger squad in it is composed of waterlouse, scuds, ramshorn snails, tadpoles snails, faucet snails, ostracods, tubifex and fingernail clams.

I am looking for Utricularia gibba, Wolffiella gladiata and Ricciocarpus natans, if anybody can help?
 
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I used to have ostracods in my tank but, unlike you, I really didn't want them. I used to live in Savoie and got my water from the bassin tap in the village so guess that's how they arrived - I spent hours trying to find how to get rid of them - only to find that it would be nigh on impossible. So coming back to the UK I thought I'd try thorough washing of each individual plant leaf, inspecting the roots and stems, quarantining of plants in different groups, and continually moving plants into different containers with new water - and the same again back in the UK. I swore a lot when I found four ostracods when I set it all up again 5 months ago - I syphoned them out individually and, amazingly, nothing since. I still can't believe that I got to them before they started to multiply.

They are extraordinarily bombproof, prehistoric things - you've got to admire them really (but in someone else's tank where they're welcome!)
Good luck with the plant hunting Dandaman.
 
Hi Jaxpot
Actually I didn't introduce these ostracods, they came on they're own to squat the bottom of my tank! But I decided to leave them. If you want to get rid of them, just introduce a betta... I used to put one in a tank full of them. They didn't last an hour!
 
Well that's interesting if they ever reappear in the future. I heard that if fish eat them, their outer cases are so hard that they pass through undigested - and the eggs are protected this way. Definitely worth remembering should the need arise.
 
Hi all,
Yes, and their eggs are nearly undestructible...
You often find Ostracods in big puddles, buckets of rain-water etc which you know have been dry for extended periods of time. A lot of species are parthenogenic and have eggs that can survive desiccation for several years, blowing around in the dust until they end up in water. One female is then all you need to re-populate a whole water body.

cheers Darrel
 
Unbelievably adaptable! I think they colonized every water system...
 
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