What is climbing up the glass?

[Anubia]

I would like to find out what is living in my Betta's tank uninvited. It looks like this (photographed on a piece of tissue paper) and slides around. It looks like it has a shell but it's flat rather than snail shaped. Fishy ignores it and goes back to his bubble nesting, but I would like to find out if it could be harmful.

[BalloonMolly]

I'd assume it's a freshwater limpet, which are harmless but indicate some amount of algae/waste present which they feed on. Not 100% sure though so check some photos online to see if they look the same

[Anubia]

https://aquariumbreeder.com/freshwater- ... tay-or-go/
I think you are right. I flushed it down the loo in indignation, but apparently they are harmless
My only concern, as they are so small and inconspicuous, is they might carry parasites.

[Anubia]

Interesting though, my plants all come from snail free sources. The non snail free source tanks don't have limpets in them (unless they are under the substrate).

[BalloonMolly]

That is interesting, and I'm not sure of the answer as I have many snail-infested plants in my tank One source suggests that they can hitchhike on basically anything so it might not necessarily be plants.

I wonder if anyone else could shed light on where else the critters come from?

[fr499y]

All I know is you don't normally get them in freshwater, so I'd certainly keep them if I got them

[black ghost]

They don’t host any known fish parasites so they’re perfectly safe, although they will eat baby shrimp… (will they? I might have read that wrong). Their numbers are governed by the amount of food available to them (algae, biofilm, etc).

[John Linklater]

Just looked them up. Quite cool wee things that I never knew existed so thanks for posting.

[Martinspuddle]

Damn it, I'm a bit late.

French bedbug I was going to suggest.

[Anubia]

To keep or not to keep? I've only seen two so far, but as Fishy is a batchelor Betta, the limpets might be getting a frugal diet. I'm glad to hear that they don't carry any nasties that might make him sick, thank you