What in the hell is this thing?
 

And how quickly do I need to kill it?

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l8...328_181116.jpg

Just got home and found this nasty thing swimming atound in my 10g planted shrimp tank.
Its about the size of my adult pumpkin shrimp, maybe a bit longer. Fast.... ugly....
Mosquito larvae?
I cant find it now that i have my little net....
Dammit...

Looks like some kind of Damsel fly or Dragonfly.

Almost looks like a mayfly

KILL IT WITH FIRE

I don't even own a lighter....
If i catch this thing.... i will go buy a fire starter just to kill it.

Damsel fly nymph, dragon fly nymphs are usually more oval through the abdominal area. Those tail like extensions are actually it's gills.
They're aggressive towards smaller fish/fry and will capture them in their pinchers

I had dragon fly nemphs that turned into dragon flies, pretty cool IMO.

They hitchhike on plants. cool looking but i believe they will eat and kill shrimp or possibly tiny fish. I had one in my shrimp tank way back when

I keep finding more. Disgusting creepy things.
I am NEVER not bleaching plants again.

I thought fish ate those things? Feed them to Red ?

This is in Shark Baits tank. Red has a very large colony of Red Rili shrimp that have outsmarted him. He wouldnt be able to catch these disturrbing bugs.
Ive been flushing them after murdering them with hot hot tap water.

Yup, best to eradicate these predatory juv. bugs before they eat your tank's livestock for supper. Not knowing exactly what type of dragonfly or other species it is, makes it unsafe to release them into the wild cause they can cause a lot of harm to the local aquatic fauna as an invasive species.

The problem Is i dont see more then 1 at a time. I will catch it and kill it and then spend half an hour looking for more, with nothing, then suddenly a week later i fill find 1 more. I would have thought id see multiples at a time of there were eggs hatching. But their all about the same size. Their all creepy and ugly. And their all very spaced out as to when i find them.
I only have 3 pumpkins in that tank and i havent lost any yet since finding these stupid things. And the Betta is mildly disabled and wont eat them lol.
I dont have dragonflys in my house so they would have had to come in on the plants.
Never buying plants from Rogers and never not bleaching. Urgh

it's a damsel fly nymph, you could just have eggs in your substrate or on plants (where they prefer to lay eggs) and are seeing the results of them hatching out. They may be local or they may be from where ever your plants came from. Disposal should be either feeding them to larger fish or kill them and then toss them in the garbage.

It's that time of year again! Tasty morsels can be found everywhere for the fish!