Babies?

Question
QUESTION: Hello Nicole. I have been waking up to little, snail like baby things stuck on my glass for the last week. At first I thought they were Zebra Danio babies,, but they have been coming back everyday.. I did not want the babies for now, because my tank is almost full anyway, and I do not have the experience for them.. So I let the fish eat them off the glass. Now it seems they keep coming back... There has been nothing added to my water or changed.. They came back after my water change on Sunday, and I do not know why. Could you please tell me what they are. And if they arnt babies.. How to get rid of them?
ANSWER: Hi there Garrett,

These little white eggs on the glass are something I have encountered, too. I used to be able to shine a flashlight at night and see a row of them on the top, just under the trim. By the next morning, they appeared to be gone. I don't know if the fish ate them, or what happened exactly.

Believe it or not they are just insect eggs, is the conclusion I have come to. Having live plants around makes your tank especially attractive to insects - for example right now, I have lots of aphids growing on my duckweed and water lettuce. I have no idea how they got there!

The fact is, unless you get yourself an apple or mystery snail which will likely consume the eggs at all levels, you can't do very much about these eggs. I trust you have not been lax with maintenance, since in all my dealings with you, you seem to always abide by a regular schedule of cleaning. You can scrape the eggs off with a credit card (I used the rewards card from a grocery store that is black and lets me see the eggs clearly) if you would like, but chances are they will come back until the cycle is broken by itself.

By the way, these eggs did spontaneously clear up and no longer appear on my glass. I can still feel them (they have sort of a hard shell on them, they feel like grains of salt) on the inside of my filter sometimes, but not like before.

I wish I had a better answer for you, but these eggs do seem to go as mysteriously as they came! Just wait it out or get yourself an egg-eater, that's the best you can do.

Take care,
Nicole

P.S. Zebra danios are egg scatterers, so they lay eggs on the gravel instead of against a vertical surface. They are one of the easiest fish to breed! You can read more here:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/articles/zebradanio.shtml

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QUESTION: I am not sure if I have explained my question very well.. They are not white, but more of a,, pinkish color? And they most definatly are not eggs, because they seem to have little antennas sticking out of them, and sometimes it seems as if they move, so I was thinking that they were freshly hatched? I have no live plants at the moment, so I do not believe they are insect eggs.. I am sorry for leading you in the wrong direction. If needed, I could get a picture of them, or try, because they are sortof hard to explain

Answer
Hi Garrett,

I've looked, but I'm sorry to say I can't find anything online that matches your description. I don't believe you are describing planaria, but that is probably the most common of the spontaneously appearing bugs FW aquarists routinely encounter. To be sure, type planaria aquarium into Google and see if any of the Images match what you see.

You can send me a picture if you would like, send it to naputnam **@** gmail.com (removing the asterisks of course) and I will be happy to take a look. You could also e-mail the crew at Wet Web Media, they often get questions like this. Although I am nearly sure they will not be able to help, unless you provide a pic that is tightly focused and not terribly blurry - (and also under 100 kb). This is the page that gets you to their e-mail address:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/WWMAdminSubWebIndex/question_page.htm

I will do my best to help in any way I can. I still believe these thingamabobs will "go" with time, after a few weeks of maintenance, and pose no threat to your fishes' health.

Be chatting,
Nicole