# Somebody help! What are these things????



## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

Help!! someone please tell me what the heck these are! When I did the cleaning of my fry tank yesterday I saw these crawling around in the bottom of the bucket. They are probably 1/4 to 1/2" long, and they stretch out and back when they move, and they move fast. I don't think these are detritus worms because they don't have hairs. Please God don't tell me these are leeches. Leeches completely freak me out (a childhood trauma as you could probably guess). Ugh! I haven't seen any on the fry thank goodness. They seem to be segmented in the middle, but no legs, and I can't easily see any mouth but like I said they move fast and it was hard to keep them in focus.

The only things that have been in the tank are fry and the mom, that's it. ALTHOUGH, now that I think about it, she is the one who died recently of that wierd bending disease. But that was a good 6 or 7 weeks after leaving the fry tank. The other thing this tank has had were plants that I got at Petco. They were in the plastic pots and there were a couple goldfish in the Petco plant tank. Last week I took the plants out of the pots and put them in the gravel. Could something have come in on the plants??

Sorry about the crude pics. I had to hold my son's camera up to the microscope eyepiece. Took us awhile to get these lol. When you touch these things, they ball up, then when they are on the mmove they stretch out, just like a regular leech. They look dark brown in the bucket but we had to light from above with the microscope so they look lighter.


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

doesn't really look like a leech in my opinion. leeches have a segmented body that would be very obvious to point out under a scope like that

but they do look like some sort of flatworm. strange...


have you treated the tank with any antiparasitic formula?


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

No a-h I haven't but you can bet your tookas _(is that a real word or only something my grandmother says???)_ that I am going to! As soon as someone tells me what to use. Ugh I'm gonna have nightmares all week.


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

lol


I've been using Seachem ParaGuard in my tank for a while now. I dose it once a week (along with the plant ferts) to keep any outbreaks from happening  hasn't effected any of the fish, inverts, or plants

Seachem. ParaGuard


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

I've got some of that, I'll give it a shot. Safe for nearly 2 month old fry, do you think? They are pretty good sized at this point.

THANK YOU!!!!


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

I dosed my tank 3 days ago, and my less than a week old Guppy fry are still swimming around  in fact they're getting more brave and venturing out from the plants and exploring, lol

as long as you don't overdose it should be fine. one capful per 10 gallons


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

OK thanks!!

I looked up the critters and saw a picture that looked a lot like it. It was a planaria. But another pic of a predatory flatworm looked like it too. I will try the paraguard and hopefully there will be no more of that kind of a surprise!


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

If its planaria it can also be caused by over feeding, which is easy to do in fry tanks. At the age and size that they are I would cut back feeding to once a day and just what they can eat in a couple of minutes.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

Thanks! Do you know how planaria would have gotten in there? on the plants or ???


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

1. Clean Your Aquarium. In particular you should clean your gravel with a Gravel Washer. 

2. Add Aquarium Salt to your aquarium up to a maximum of 1 Tablespoon for each 5 gallons of water. 

3. Don't Over React. Clean your gravel every day with the Gravel Washer. When you've removed 20% of the water, stop and top your aquarium back up with tap water. Repeat this procedure every day. 

4. It may take several days of gravel washing to get your gravel really clean. When it is finally really clean, begin removing gravel, until it is at most 1/4" deep. If you have an under gravel filter you'll need some more advice. 

5. Add Quick Cure. Each day after you clean your aquarium and wash the gravel, treat with quickcure. 

Repeat steps 1 to 5 listed above, until you don't see the worms any more. This procedure will take several days and require quite a bit of your elbow-grease, but it's the safest method for the rest of the fish in your aquarium. 

Reduce the amount you feed your fish, as well as the frequency of feedings. 
Planaria Prevention 
Don't overfeed. Make sure all the food you are feeding is eaten by the fish. If planaria do not have food to eat they cannot live.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Those are leeches!! I can see one crawling on your neck in your profile pic


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

They can come in on plants, the larvea can come in water that is in the bags with fish.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

Thanks Susan! Problem though is that it's a planted tank and I thought the salt would probably kill my plants. And I can't take down the gravel too far because some of the plants have grown into the gravel. But if I have to take them out of the tank for a little while I probably can somehow, maybe put them into a separate container. Just don't want to move the worms with the plants, into another tank or back into this one once the worms have been removed from the tank. 

I will definitely do another cleaning today. I have a gravel siphon, is that what you meant by a gravel washer?


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

jrman83 said:


> Those are leeches!! I can see one crawling on your neck in your profile pic


BEN!!!!!! You be nice or I will send them to your house in a baggie :fish-in-a-bag:


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

You don't have to mess with the salt but it shouldn't hurt the plants in that small amount. Yes clean the gravel with your vac. Do it daily for awhile. Quick cure also works just don't over dose. 
I wouldn't feed for a couple of days either. It will help cut back on them multipling.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

It's unlikely they are doing any harm, in fact if you poison them you are going to have dead worms and uneaten food in your tank. So unless you are just too freaked out by them I'd go for the cutting back on food.


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

I wonder if a group of ghost or cherry shrimp would scavenge around for them and eat them? they eat everything else it seems *#3


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## rtbob (Jul 18, 2010)

I would think cory's would gobble them up.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

Thanks everybody! I am a little less freaked out now. I am going to be diligent and get rid of as many as I can. Truth is I didn't think I overfed because at this point they eat so fast that its like a pack of wolves lol! But I realized I had not vac'd behind one particular plant in awhile and there was a lot of stuff in that spot and I believe that is where these guys were from. Also nearest to the newest plant. 

Never had shrimp, but I think they are so cool that at some point I might get a few!


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Shrimp or cories won't eat them.


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## Mark13 (Oct 21, 2010)

Planaria. Can be gotten rid of by putting a piece of rinsed raw chicken or fish into the tank (1/2 inch cube piece) for a couple of hours, then lift out by way of a gravel siphon. The siphon will scare away the fry and some of the planaria, but most of the critters will stay on the meat as it is siphoned out of the tank.

Repeat daily if possible over a few weeks time. Reduce feeding amounts, not the number of times you feed the fry. Fry need regular meals. Cory's will not eat them, nor will any fish I had ever had except Guppys. But the Guppy's will eat your fry also!!

This comes from a book called the Innes Book, last published in 1966. Someone I know tested it lately, and it works.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Actually at the age of the fry they would be considered juvies and can be fed just once a day. Its only the first couple of weeks that you need to feed more often depending on type of fry. Innes is a good book, but to me is a little outdated.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

Mark13 said:


> Planaria. Can be gotten rid of by putting a piece of rinsed raw chicken or fish into the tank (1/2 inch cube piece) for a couple of hours, then lift out by way of a gravel siphon. The siphon will scare away the fry and some of the planaria, but most of the critters will stay on the meat as it is siphoned out of the tank.
> 
> Repeat daily if possible over a few weeks time. Reduce feeding amounts, not the number of times you feed the fry. Fry need regular meals. Cory's will not eat them, nor will any fish I had ever had except Guppys. But the Guppy's will eat your fry also!!
> 
> This comes from a book called the Innes Book, last published in 1966. Someone I know tested it lately, and it works.


Thanks very much! Actually, these are juvenile guppy fry, some are getting quite big. I am actually going to be moving them shortly and at that point I might be able to more safely move the plants and get the gravel super clean.

The raw chicken won't contaminate the tank somehow?

I wonder if I place the chicken on something like a milk cap, then when I lift it out, if the planaria try to wriggle away, they will stay trapped in the grooves of the cap?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

They will move away as soon as you put your hand in there. That would be a slower process than just vac the tank everyday.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

ok, thanks! Did a vac again today and got a few. Also added some salt to the tank. We'll see how that goes  . Really appreciate everyone's help!


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

I think some creepy things in the tank is a sign of a healthy tank and they help keep the tank clean. Most well established tanks have lots of little inverts in the substrate, it's just that we often only notice them when there is a population explosion.


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## Mark13 (Oct 21, 2010)

susankat said:


> Innes is a good book, but to me is a little outdated.


Only a little bit of it is outdated, but most of it is timeless. If an idea works, it does not matter how old it is.

And, it even provides the correct pronunciation of "Betta" with a short "e", as opposed to most people today thinking it is "Beta" with a long "a".

To Niki7, in my post I did say to leave the meat in for only a couple of hours, this is to keep it from polluting. A few planaria will move away as your siphon picks up the meat, but most will remain attached.

To Niki7 and susankat, I did not mean this idea to be used as the only prong in a non-chemical quest to get rid of the planaria. Gravel vacuuming daily would still be required, but it really does get only a few of the critters, because they scatter away from the siphon. The bait idea gets rid of large numbers, because the critters don't really want to let go of such an attractive meal. *pcThe bait also allows you to get a head of the problem, instead of being behind the population growth curve, which is what
a good number of aquarists have trouble with.

The salt use will also work, but can be detrimental to species of fish, and to plants, so I try to give people the method that uses bait and gravel vac'ing.

I hate planaria.


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