Little red bugs in my fish food!?

[Mad Mantis]

I have been feeding my two blue damsels tiny chunks of frozen food but decided it was too much of a pain in the *** to do everyday. So I bought some New Era flake food from the LFS on Sunday. I fed them Sun and Monday and forgot to feed them yesterday after a water change. I went to feed them today and all sorts of little red bugs started crawling out of the food. Luckily I put the lid back on and only a few actually got out. They look like tiny red beetles. I never left the container open for more than a few seconds while getting out a flake or two and I kept it in a dark cabinet in my cool central air house.

So a few questions.

-Anyone know what these are? I tried to Google it but couldn't find exactly what they were and other people only had brown or black bugs in their fish food.
-Are these harmful to my tank? One fell in my tank and the damsels picked at it but wouldn't eat it.
-Are these harmful to my house? I'm afraid they were so small one could have fallen out and gotten int he carpet without me knowing. I did catch the two that fell on the table and fished out the one in my tank.

Should I be worried? I want to take a picture but they really swarmed out once I opened it and am afraid that even more will get out.

 

[SynDen]

Well I don't know what the bugs are, but I would take it back to the fish store

 

[sethsolomon]

Sounds like clover mites. Never the less, toss that container of food.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Thanks for the reply's guys. I just called the store and they never had any complaints/heard of it. He's going to call his sales rep and ask him about it. I have it in a zip lock bag right now but have to go out of town for a few days so can't return it until Sunday.

Sounds like clover mites. Never the less, toss that container of food.

I was looking at some pictures of those earlier, but they are way smaller than that one pic of the guy holding a bunch, and look more like beetles than mites. Although if they only just hatched int he last few days they might still be pretty small and look different.

The worst part about this whole thing I found one crawling on my shirt about five minutes after the incident. Now everything I brush against or tiny tingle in my skin I think it one of those things. I have serious creepy crawly bug issues apparently lol. (But can scuba around great whites no problem, I find that ironic.)

 

[jahmic]

If the store doesn't help you out, contact the company directly and I'm sure they'll take care of you. I'd contact their QC directly either way...whether or not the sales rep knows of the issue they should still be informed in case they need to check other containers in that lot.

I'd start by copy/pasting your post here: http://www.new-era-aquaculture.com/contact

Oh...and good job not tossing that food all over the place. If that happened to me I'd have bugs and fish food all over the floor...

 

[Walter White]

Yep bugs freak me the **** out! Id scream throwing the food and bugs all over myself then cry a little.

 

[Mad Mantis]

If the store doesn't help you out, contact the company directly and I'm sure they'll take care of you. I'd contact their QC directly either way...whether or not the sales rep knows of the issue they should still be informed in case they need to check other containers in that lot.

I'd start by copy/pasting your post here: http://www.new-era-aquaculture.com/contact

Oh...and good job not tossing that food all over the place. If that happened to me I'd have bugs and fish food all over the floor...

Thanks for the link! I will def do that right now. To be honest I'm surprised I didn't empty the whole thing on the floor as well. I will hopefully post pics when I get back to town and before I return it to the store. Thanks again everyone for all the reply's.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Yep bugs freak me the **** out! Id scream throwing the food and bugs all over myself then cry a little.

I hate bugs more than anything. Like I said I've scuba dived with great whites, not big ones mind you but the juveniles that come closer to the reefs, and that should have been scary. I touched one on the nose once when he was "investigating" me. I am more terrified of these tiny little bugs.

 

[aztecdreams]

Maybe meal bugs? Toss that thing in a baggie then in the freezer so you don't have to worry about them escaping and planning a take over of the house

 

[FinsUp]

I'd have dumped the food and bugs out all over the place, then woulda burnt my house down with the flamethrower that is my preferred method of eradication.

 

[Mad Mantis]

I'd have dumped the food and bugs out all over the place, then woulda burnt my house down with the flamethrower that is my preferred method of eradication.

I am still considering the "flamethrower method".

Luckily the wife says none have escaped or are even in the zip lock bag. The more research I do I think they might be the brown carpet beetles everyone talks about but had only just hatched recently so they were really small and red. We will find out once I get back to town.

 

[Mad Mantis]

So I got back today and returned to the LFS and opened the container. All the bugs were dead. I have no idea why, but there was just a bunch of dead ones. I tried to take a picture but my camera wouldn't focus for some reason.