Identify free-living organisms before treatment: evidence dossier
This is the audit trail behind one practical guide. It keeps the linked studies, supporting authorities, named uncertainty, search trail and public changes together without copying a second bibliography.
Guide purpose: Hydra, planaria, flatworms, detritus worms, photographs, movement and treatment-evidence limits.
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Download this guide's 6 linked evidence records: CSL-JSON or RIS. Both retain every record's support and limitation notes.
This is an inventory, not a confidence score. A direct study is still limited by its animals, experimental unit, water, treatment, duration and endpoint. Record counts do not prove consensus, completeness or a universal care rule.
- Linked evidence records
- 6
- Direct Neocaridina
- 2
- Direct controlled experiments
- 1
- Supporting authorities
- 0
- Named open questions
- 0
- Public research changes
- 0
Registry reviewed 2026-08-12. Next scheduled review 2027-02-12. Read the editorial method.
Morphology or taxonomy
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Kusmintarsih et al., 2025. E3S Web of Conferences 609: 02003.
Source taxon as published: Market-labeled Neocaridina denticulata and Neocaridina palmata; no host-identification method reported
Study shape: One hundred market-labeled N. denticulata and 100 market-labeled N. palmata were transported in market aquarium water. Gill and cephalothorax material was scraped onto slides and examined by microscopy for organisms reported as sessile bdelloid rotifers, Vorticella sp. and Zoothamnium sp.
Experimental unit: Individual examined shrimp, clustered within an unreported number of sampled aquariums from one seller and one claimed river source
Environment: Two hundred shrimp sampled across more than eight aquariums operated by the only ornamental-shrimp seller at one fish market in Purbalingga, Central Java, Indonesia
Endpoints: presence of reported organism group, host label, reported sex, gill or cephalothorax location.
What it can support: In this one-seller sample, the authors reported at least one of the three organism groups on 156 of 200 examined shrimp, including 78 of 100 under each market species label.
What it cannot support: Aquarium identities and sample counts, collection dates, host-species identification, sexing method, microscope magnification, diagnostic key, stain, image vouchers, molecular confirmation, examiner blinding, confidence intervals and the named statistical test were not reported. The two market labels were reportedly kept together, and the analysis did not account for aquarium clustering. No tissue damage, respiration, behaviour, growth, reproduction, mortality, transmission, treatment or causal disease endpoint was measured. The 78 percent result is not a trade-wide prevalence estimate, does not validate a home diagnosis, does not prove every detected organism was parasitic or harmful and does not establish a treatment indication.
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Controlled experiment
Adjacent biological evidence
Tiwari et al., 2025. Integrative and Comparative Biology 65(6): 1489-1497.
Source taxon as published: Dugesia tigrina, Dugesia dorotocephala and Lumbriculus variegatus; no Neocaridina
Study shape: Starved planaria encountered injured or uninjured short and long blackworms in thirty-four recorded behavioural trials.
Experimental unit: One planarian-blackworm behavioural trial
Environment: Thirty-five-millimetre freshwater Petri-dish predation trials near 21 C
Endpoints: grip and wrap behaviour, feeding success, prey injury and length context.
What it can support: The tested planaria used adhesion during blackworm capture, and prey injury changed the observed interaction.
What it cannot support: Blackworm capture does not establish predation on Neocaridina eggs, juveniles or adults, and body shape alone cannot identify the aquarium flatworm.
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Morphology or taxonomy
Neocaridina identity evidence
Kakui and Komai, 2022. Aquatic Animals 2022: AA2022-1.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina sp. aff. davidi
Study shape: Associated worms and host shrimp were examined for a regional record and taxonomic identification.
Experimental unit: Collected host or associated worm specimen
Environment: Field-collected host and associated worm specimens from Hokkaido, Japan
Endpoints: worm identification, host association, regional occurrence.
What it can support: A method-based record of Scutariella japonica associated with the source host identification.
What it cannot support: Occurrence does not establish aquarium prevalence, severity, treatment efficacy or identification from a distant white shape.
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Controlled experiment
Adjacent biological evidence
Rivera-De la Parra, Sarma and Nandini, 2016. Journal of Limnology 75(s1).
Source taxon as published: Hydra predators and cladoceran, copepod and rotifer prey; no Neocaridina
Study shape: Hydra predation was compared across named zooplankton prey, and Hydra-conditioned water was tested against Daphnia demography.
Experimental unit: Predator-prey culture vessel
Environment: Laboratory freshwater predator-prey cultures
Endpoints: prey capture, prey susceptibility, Daphnia population growth.
What it can support: The tested Hydra captured several zooplankton taxa and affected one Daphnia population endpoint under the laboratory conditions.
What it cannot support: No Neocaridina life stage was tested, so the study does not prove that aquarium Hydra kill shrimplets or quantify colony risk.
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Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Weber and Traunspurger, 2016. Limnologica 59: 155-161.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Shrimp and comparison microcosms were sampled repeatedly, followed by endpoint stomach-content examination of 40 shrimp.
Experimental unit: Model ecosystem for community effects and individual stomach for content observations
Environment: Forty-two-day freshwater model ecosystems with repeated community sampling
Endpoints: meiofaunal density, biomass, secondary production, community structure, stomach contents.
What it can support: Shrimp changed measured meiofaunal assemblages, and stomachs contained detritus, algae and several meiofaunal groups.
What it cannot support: The study did not test fish feces, aquarium sanitation, nutrient export, named pest danger or a whole-tank algae-clearance rate.
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Morphology or taxonomy
Adjacent biological evidence
Van Steenkiste et al., 2013. PLOS ONE 8(3): e59917.
Source taxon as published: Dalytyphloplanida flatworms, not Neocaridina
Study shape: Complete 18S and partial 28S rDNA sequences were analysed with maximum-likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic methods.
Experimental unit: Taxon sequence or specimen represented in the phylogeny
Environment: Molecular phylogenetic analysis across marine, freshwater and symbiotic flatworms
Endpoints: phylogenetic placement, freshwater transition reconstruction, symbiotic-lifestyle reconstruction.
What it can support: Flatworm lineages and life strategies cannot be inferred from a generic worm-like aquarium silhouette alone.
What it cannot support: The phylogeny does not identify a phone-video organism, demonstrate predation or determine whether an observed flatworm threatens shrimp.
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