Help! Good or bad worm?!

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

Putfile - Strange Worm

:/ These thigns have been popping up here and there.. they mainly seem to come out at night.. so far I have not seen one attack/stalk a fish but it is just a blind worm.. anyway.. goldfish do not eat them and cories or SAEs will not go after them.. so i mainly jsut net them and flush them..

what are they? is it a bad worm or a nothign harmful worm? :/

as you can see they are pretty big.

[JenThePlantGeek]

Bad worm.

That, my friend, is a leech. I've never had to get rid of these critters before, but like most inverts I'm sure copper would kill it.

[Lissette]

God that gives me the CREEPS "Shudder"! I'm really phobic.

Good luck getting rid of it.

I'd definitely nuke the tank. But that's just me.

[whitepine]

they feed off the blood of animals (including human animals ) ie parasite! any large cichlid would eat them.

[fshfanatic]

Copper the tank. That is a leech.

[leonpetty]

How would a leech appear? Hitchhiker?

[crazie.eddie]

Looks like a leech, but wouldn't a leech find a host to suck the blood off the fish? If you don't see a leech on a fish, then you should see some wounds on them at least.

It does look kind of creepy, but I've heard of planaria getting into tanks. I've never seen how big they get, but I know some people do feed them to their fish. I would try to examine the mouth to see if it's leech like, but I doubt it is. Maybe bring soak it in alchohol and then take a good closeup of it.

[dhavoc]

thats no planaria, i have those in abundance in my shrimp tank, a nasty looking pest but a harmless one. the worm in the video is definitly a leech, like those above, i would nuke the tank. it will attack your fish as that is the only food source available to them.

[epicfish]

*shudder* I don't think I'd ever be able to clean the inside of my tank if I didn't nuke it.

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

a leech? how the devil? and how do I get ride of them? copper? won't that kill everythign inmmy tank? -_- ugh..


what doe s aleech bite look like?

can someone explain the tank nuking process?

[Mori]

Not all leeches attack fish. The leeches that attack fish are not necessarily going to attack humans. They tend to be fairly host specific. Some aren't even predaceous or parasitic at all.

You probably have a snail-eating leech, as you have plants, but no other exposure to the great outdoors. To confirm (if you want to before introducing chemicals to your tank), put a leech in a jar of tank water, wait a day or two so it can get good and hungry, and drop in a pond snail.

I kept one on my desk for a few weeks--it was fun to watch it swing around and nab a snail.

It may be a bad leech of course--but it may be a good one.

[JenThePlantGeek]

There is a medicine on the market (at least it was a few years ago when I worked at a LFS) called Coppersafe. It treats external parasites like anchorworms and it has the added benefit of killing pretty much all inverts. You can also use products like "Had A Snail" which I believe are copper based. Treat as per the directions on the medicine, but keep in mind that copper-sensitve plants will not be happy for awhile, and you could be introducing an ammonia spike because of the dead snails and other kritters in the tank. Do a series of good water changes after the medicine has run its course and hopefully this will get rid of your leech.

Mori - snail eating leeches? I've never heard of that. Leeches are pretty interesting to watch though. One of my most vivid memories of 8th grade biology is when our teacher dropped a goldfish in a jar with a leech. It turned my stomach at the time, yet I couldn't look away. I wonder how snail-eating leech would react after 2-3 days of hunger if you dropped in a feeder rosey red or something? Would the snail eaters still go after fish if that were the only thing available?

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

mm.. well one thing I notice is the ones in my tanks can;t walk on land like these.. these are so nasty! Leech - Google Video they are definatly all coming after these guys..

anyway... I have not seen anything on my fish.. though 2 of my cories seem to be missing but that is jsut because I have so many hidding places I am sure.. all the cories I can count and see have no sign of bitting and are nice and fat. as for snail eatting.. if it is a snail eatting it is not doing a good job.. on the down side.. their as many many larve scattered all over on the bottem of rocks... grr..

Jen - Coppersafe.. wll it hurt fish or the bacteria in my filters?

Also, I just made a leech trap.. I suppose if they go in it theya re bad leeches.. I out some freeze dired blood worms and ground beef in.. raw of course.. we shall see.. though I pray theya re not fish attackers.. as there are many.. though it seems like they might not be.. I appear to have all my fish.. thoguh 2 are still un accounted for.

[JenThePlantGeek]

Coppersafe should be safe for fish, (non-copper-sensitive) plants, and biofilter if you follow the directions. Good luck getting rid of these little beasties!

[Mori]

I have no idea if Prazi would work (it's for flukes, so goldfish folks often have it), but it's probably gentler than some of the other stuff. They're a whole different phylum though...yet the stuff is billed as an antihelmintic. Nah, skip the Prazi unless you have it around and want to do a little experiment for us.

I wonder if salting the tank would kill 'em. Good or bad leeches, they're kinda gross.