This is DISGUSTING!!! But good?

[shazam26]

Hey everyone, I have been treating Tanooki with Pimafix/Melafix for his barbels, and I noticed something gross in the tank last night as I was going to sleep. I only added the Melafix because Pimafix alone was taking a bit long, and I don't know how or why or what caused this to happen, but I saw a silver glint in the tank swimming. And I got close to look at it, here was a worm. It had a black front half, and a silver-grey back, with a circular head and a straight body. It was disgusting. I promptly removed it from the tank. I later found a smaller one doing the same thing, swimming upwards. I'm assuming they came from Lewellyn- and I heard that they left their host when dead, so I was frightened. But no, Lewellyn is intact. I rather doubt it came from either of the other fishes, none of them have been showing anything out of the ordinary- aside from Tanooki, with his barbels.
I'm assuming this is a good thing- worms are better out than in, hmm?
Does anyone have any idea what kind they were?

[rich]

I have an idea, but I´m out of words and so is my dictionary.
They are worms we call Planarien over here. You get them with foliage, lifefood or to shortly frozen frostfood into the aquarium.
In small numbers they aren`t to dangerous for the fishes but they try to nibble at them at night.
They should be collected when seen and the gravel should be vacuumed, when you change water.
If you treat your fish against worm parasites, they normally disappear as well.
You can also put some baitfood in a small jar with a little hole in the lid and lay that into the aquarium. That should catch most of them.

[mistergreen]

how big was the worm and was it round or flat looking?

[shazam26]

I see! I could see them from my bed- they weren't absolutely puny. The last one was rather small- but the first one was roughly half a centimeter? Perhaps a tiny bit smaller than that? It was flat, not round. And when out of water it sure wriggled. Gave me the heebie jeebies. Which is strange, because worms have never bothered me. I guess it's just me assuming what they do, as opposed to simply being worms.

[mistergreen]

hmmm. rich is right, it could be a planaria or a related flatworm... I've never heard of a planaria being that big. They're not parasitic. They eat bio-waste & bacteria. A few water changes usually clear them up.

here's a drawing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FlatwormZICA.png
they have primitive light sensor organs on their heads...

believe it or not, their ancestors are the ancestors of pretty much all complex animals on this planet.

[shazam26]

Ah, planaria! Strange, I remember working with them in the laboratory.
As long as the worms I found aren't doing any harmt o my fish- I'll just scoop them whenever I spot them. I had to treat the tank for a week, today is the 7th day. I'll be doing a nice water change and gravel filtering today:) Hopefully Tanooki's barbels have cleared up (they seem to have physically, but you never know what's left, right?) he still gets agitated by the medicine- he rapidly opens and closes his mouth, and will occasionally try to rub his mouth region along a decoration when I put it in. But this only lasts for a few seconds before he's back to normal.

As for Sir Loin and his ring, the coating is growing back nicely. It's already gaining back the olive/brown patch that was missing, and he's being a glutton, as usual. He was more mellow shortly after the incident, but now he's regained the need to be first to find and breathe bloodworms.

[mickthefish]

shazam, have you recently fed any live blood worm?,
only asking because from your discription it sounded like the last stage of development before it becomes a mosquito.
ive got to say ive been keeping fish for over 40 years and thats the only thing i can think of that resembles your intruder.

mick

[shazam26]

No, I haven't fed any live, all frozen Strange, huh?
I'd agree with the planaria theory, had I not been familiar with their appearance.