In my stream (which is 2-3 inches deep) on the rocks that stick out a bit, I have dark grey, maybe blackish, gelatinous looking blobs. I have ALOT of them. Yesterday when I looked, some of them seemed to sprout teeny tiny tails. These things are no bigger than a quarter inch and they have been there for atleast a month or two.
There are no frogs in my area (that I am aware of.). On the internet I have researched: mosquito larvae and tadpoles and snail eggs...they do not look like either one.
Is my pond I have 4 goldfish and trapdoor snails.



Wrong Category, Robyn, will you move this post to the right place? Thanks.

Hi,

I'm not an expert :D , but I have turtles, and I feed them with fresh-water crayfish. These are dried ones, but once I saw some alive,and they lived under stones, in the water. They look like the way you discribed yours. I'm not sure, just guessing...

I hope you could understand what I wanted to say..(my English is not too good)

keszi
from Hungary

Keszi, your English is better than many Americans. I don't think Karen has crayfish though.

Karen, can you get photos of the blobs with tails? If you had said they were just jello blobs, I might have guessed they were bryozoans (colonial animals) but the "tail" has me perplexed. Do the tails wiggle? Can you describe the blobs more? I have photos of various eggs at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/egg.htm

I will move this post.

Robyn,

today the ones with the tails were gone...unless I had difficulty with the time of day. I usually check the pond in the am.
I am going to email a pic.

Are leeches a possibility?

I remember swimming in the Russian river, N. Calif. with my cousin. They were all over the rocks. As I made way down the water falls I thought I was sliding over algae, but then seeing tiny black blobs on me when I got out, my cousin said they were leeches. I never stripped so fast in my life. They looked very similar to what you described (more black than grey). Not too sure about a tail, but remember they had a tear-drop type shape to them.

John

Well, these are kinda small. I don't know if they are leeches, but leeches are gross so I hope they are not.

I send Robyn a picture and all she can see are "pond snails"...What do pond snails look like? That tiny?

Oh yea, pond snails can be very tiny. If they're snails, you should be able to make out their shell.

The leeches were very small, seemed like only about a quarter inch or so.

Johnnyboy,

How would leeches get in my pond? Would they come in on plants? I do not see any shells on these things.

I have mailed Robyn more pictures. She gave me a few ideas,after doing research I am guessing the things are blackfly larvae. I looked at a bunch of pics on the internet. Also pond snails that are really small are living there.
Unfortunately I do not know how to upload one. :(

I got some better photos of the "gelatinous blobs" which I was thinking were large and blobby. They seem to be small and skinny. They look a lot like caddisflies, or rather, their houses. The "tails" may have been their heads sticking out of their homes in order to collect foods going by. Caddisflies build little houses from mud, plant material, etc. in fast moving water and live inside them. It's hard to tell for sure if there are little houses on the insect larvae. If not, they might be blackfly larvae.

Most leeches in ponds (at least mine) are not parasites but eat detritis (dead plant and animal material). I have a lot of small leeches on rocks, etc. in my smaller ponds but few in my main pond with all the fish since fish will eat them. I've never seen one attached to a fish or other animal. They're often in the filters. I probably got them with live plants that I added but animals (herons, raccoons, turtles, etc.) can also carry them from pond to pond.

Oh, ok, while typing this, I got another response from Karen. She was in fact referring to the pond snails as "gelatinous blobs." She is used to big snails I guess but baby pond snails are very tiny as are some species of adults. Here are the two photos that she sent me with text that I added in the areas of the snails and the insect larvae.





Karen, you say they do not have shells but have you picked one up? If you do, you should see they are hard.

:o :lol: Pick one up?!?! :o :lol:

I am afraid to touch them! :lol: :o


Thanks Robyn for putting the pictures up!

Oh Karen, they won't bite ya. :D I have it easier at picking up the really small babies than the adults..remember we are alot stronger than their shells. :( My waterfall is loaded with black pond snails. My first year I had the tan colored, then last summer I put in the Mystery snails ( which all died ), but now all my 'common' pond snails are black. Snails are nothing to the creatures that live in the bottom muck. Wish I had a pic, but I got some pale color earthworm LOOKING things with red veins down center and when you touch them they blob and stretch. I pulled up a piece of slate that had fallen in...now those are gross.

LOL Sadie, that is gross. The wormy thing,
I can touch big snails easy. I am afraid I will hurt the little ones because they look so delicate.. I do not care that they are there. I didn't know that pond snails were so small.
After posting yesterday, I dreamt about flies...

Did the "worms" look like these two cranefly larvae next to a medium-sized green frog tadpole? They like to "blob and stretch." I picked them up.

I remember not getting too close to them, used a twig to push and pull at them. The gross factor was way too high. lol But they're part of my eco-system and not hurting anything so I left the rest alone.

Oh yeah, those are gross.