# Hitchhikers.....What are they?



## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

I've been having some very odd insects invading one of my tubs in my mini fish room.

It's the only tub affected although there are 3 others in very close proximity...So what are these creatures? They look like tiny white mini flies and although they look like they have wings, and look like dead and fallen in the water, they tend to be moving their legs?

They are actually tiny. I've zoomed in on them below


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## zozo (28 Apr 2018)

Could very well be you already called them by name.. <The Whitefly>  There are several sp. Are considered a common pest. You would need a small pocket microscope to get a closer look for proper ID. If it is whitefly than the eggs and nymphs are on the leaves causing damage, not in the water afiak.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

Thanks Marcel.

There is absolutely nothing on the house plants.All these are in water and there's barely any plants in there, mostly algae of all kinds. . It's my hillstream tub.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

Also, they twitch their legs while floating on the water surface. The ones on the picture got caught on the wooden branches and the algae that's infesting it currently.


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## zozo (28 Apr 2018)

As said get a pocket microscope 60x to 100x mag.. They are rather cheap nowadays, even clip ons for the mobile phone.. Than you can get a closer look much easier to identify.. Such a blury pic doesn't tell us much, other than it seems to fly and it is white. 

They likely come from outdoors, most houseplants aren't very susceptible to pests, tho the softer leaved plants are, for example a Banana plant, is very delicate and rather susceptible to all kinds of pest like spider mites and louse. Whitefly is i believe considered from louse family..


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

I'll turn off the filter and try to get a better picture.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

Here's just one of them on zoom


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

I don't know if that's any better...


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

They're surely breeding somewhere but I can't identify where. I sucked up all of them yesterday from the surface via a water change and today there are lots again. They get attracted to that particular tub...... There's just one emersed peace lily in this tub and it's got nothing visible on its leaves. I also have a few stalks of anacharis floating that aren't doing great due to the mass amount of light I am blasting the tank with. There's lots of algae in there and lots of surface agitation so not sure why they've chosen that particular tub as they've got a choice and if they fly, they can infest any of the others easily....Maybe its the red hue of the light? Although I am reading white flies like yellow...The youtube video I watched showed that the larvae are clearly visible on the underside of plants but I can't see nothing on mine...


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## tam (28 Apr 2018)

I'm not sure what the scale is - are they spring tails just really close up? They don't usually look winged though.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

Well, the zoom makes them look huge, like flies but they're tiny....Not sure how to tell how much zoom but my phone is Samsung Galaxy S7 plus and that's the max size on max zoom of the phone


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

They do appear to have wings and legs....I did feed with some live food a month ago so I could have added something....Perhaps in my bigger pond whatever appears gets eaten as there are fish hanging near the surface. The hillstream loaches don't go catching anything moving in the water. But then again I've got 2 open top planted shrimp tanks those flies could have infested and they haven't....


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

They also appear to always count 3 wings on any pictures ?.....strange....It's not 4, not 2 but 3. And look at those long legs....





And I don't know if its the picture or what but some appear to still have some sort of "larvae" looking bodies...

Look at this monster


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2018)

Here is a bunch of them together. If anything, besides the wings they also have very long legs...
Also, when not zoomed and I look into the fish tank, they look like tinywhite flowers, lol


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## dw1305 (29 Apr 2018)

Hi all, 
They are the adults of an aquatic midge or moth, the adults have got caught in the surface film as they emerge from the pupae. You can tell if they are midge, or moth, by the number of wings, moths have four wings and flies only two. 

If they have four wings (two pairs), they are almost certainly the <"Water Veneer" (_Acentria ephemerella_)>. 

If they have two wings (one pair), they are a midge, and midge would be my guess. 

cheers Darrel


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## sciencefiction (29 Apr 2018)

Thanks Darrel, I hoping you'd show up.

When when I google aquatic midge I come across pictures of midge sp. TANYTARSINI and mine look very similar. The tank is also ridden with algae so its something that gets attracted to that is my guess...

Here's a picture in wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanytarsini

And in the below it says they love algae....

https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/...gs2/true-fly-larvae/midges/chironomid-midge13

However, I managed to get a short video of one of them for better ID, if possible. What do you think?


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## dw1305 (29 Apr 2018)

Hi all,





sciencefiction said:


> However, I managed to get a short video of one of them for better ID, if possible.


Non-biting midge (like Tanytarsini), but they are <"notoriously difficult to identify">.

cheers Darrel


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## sciencefiction (30 Apr 2018)

Thanks Darrel.


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