Worms, Friend or Foe???

[killforfood]

These worms are thriving in the gravel of my daughters tank and I would like to know if anybody could identify them. If they're a wholesome harmless snack for the Kuhli Loaches, well then fine but if these are parasitic I need to know how and what to use to irradicate them.

These photos are about the best I can do with my Canon A75. I'll be purchasing a new camera next year and will definately be looking for something that can do fine detail macro work as well as be waterproof for closeups while snorkeling.

For a size reference I would say the gravel runs about 5mm to 10mm.





Here's a shot of one wrapped around the tip of some fake grass.

[Mark in Vancouver]

Not sure what worms we're looking at, but if you treat the tank with levamisole, it tends to get rid of them. I recall a very old post from Erik Y. who dosed his tank with levamisole and watched in amazement as a cloud of worms emerged from his filters and got snapped up by loaches.

[mistergreen]

There are other meds you can find at the petstore that'll kill worms too. Levamisol is hard to find.

ps. don't get any meds with copper in it.. I personally think it does more harm than good.

[MoonPye]

Ironically I just found very similiar worms in my one gravel tank, that also has large size gravel. I found this info here:

http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/ ... ite_worms/

I wonder if it's what we both have? (I don't have any in my sand tanks.) I did a water change yesterday, as the website suggested, and vaccuumed my gravel. The website suggests there is probably too much gravel in the tank, making it very comfortable for the worms to live in it. I will be removing some gravel later today (I did think there was too much in my tank anyway.).

Hopefully this is what we've both got, it seems harmless enough, just a case of too much gravel and uneaten food getting caught in the spaces.

[Jim Powers]

Before you start medicating, you need to find out what these are.
Its hard to say for sure, but they look like they might be planaria to me.
If they are planaria, then you have no problem except maybe a little extra waste food in your gravel.
Keeping the gravel clean (vacumming and reducing the amount you feed) will pretty much take care of them. Also, many fish will eat planaria.

[killforfood]

There are other meds you can find at the petstore that'll kill worms too. Levamisol is hard to find.

ps. don't get any meds with copper in it.. I personally think it does more harm than good.

mistergreen,
My local farm store carries Levamisole so no problem there. They only have it in pill form though so I’ll need to reread chefkeith’s dosage info if I decide to use it.

Ironically I just found very similiar worms in my one gravel tank, that also has large size gravel. I found this info here:

http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/ ... ite_worms/

I wonder if it's what we both have? (I don't have any in my sand tanks.) I did a water change yesterday, as the website suggested, and vaccuumed my gravel. The website suggests there is probably too much gravel in the tank, making it very comfortable for the worms to live in it. I will be removing some gravel later today (I did think there was too much in my tank anyway.).

Hopefully this is what we've both got, it seems harmless enough, just a case of too much gravel and uneaten food getting caught in the spaces.

Moonpye,
I’ve looked at the planaria pictures on a few different web sites and have yet to see any that appear to be the same as the worms in my Daughters tank. The worms we have are slender longer and clear except for the white collar about 1/5 the way down their body. Do yours have the white collar?

I cannot discern any eye spots, triangular head, flatness of body or any green, brown, tan coloration at all.
I could go ahead and treat with Levamisole and just be done with it but I’ve read numerous times by persons more knowledgeable than myself that it’s never good to throw drugs at unidentified problems. Besides if they are a harmless snack I wouldn’t mind keeping them. I do have two conditions that the article mentioned, deep gravel and excess food. Both of these issues can be corrected easily enough though without drugs.

[Emma Turner]

Not sure if this is any help, kff? http://www.petfrd.com/forum/articles.ph ... e&artid=67

Emma

[killforfood]

Before you start medicating, you need to find out what these are.
Its hard to say for sure, but they look like they might be planaria to me.
If they are planaria, then you have no problem except maybe a little extra waste food in your gravel.
Keeping the gravel clean (vacumming and reducing the amount you feed) will pretty much take care of them. Also, many fish will eat planaria.

Thanks for the reply jim I didn't see your post until after I made the above reply. If they're Planaria then great but they sure don't look like the pictures that I'm seeing So far. Everthing in the tank appears to be in good health except the Danios are on a bit of a hunger and activity strike.
The P. Alternans are closest to the worms and appear to be doing great.
Heres some shots I took last night. Any excuse for some fish pictures, right

These guys are racing up and down the tank now daily.


Our male Ancistrus is proud of his new whiskers (to early to tell but his? tankmate is the same age and shows no whiskers, Late bloomer?).

And even prouder of his big stickers.


Mr. Smithi likes wood.


Mr. Smithi is very upset that I allowed a piece of gaudy blue gravel in his tank. Bleh

[killforfood]

Not sure if this is any help, kff? http://www.petfrd.com/forum/articles.ph ... e&artid=67

Emma

Emma,
The nematode photo on that website is the closest resemblance I’ve seen so far. The odds that these are a parasitic variety are probably high. My local farm store sells Levasole for $1.19 per pill. Each pill contains .184 grams Levamisole Hydrochloride. I’ll need to dig back through some old posts for proper dosage.
Emma, Thanks for helping with my homework.
Joel.

[Graeme Robson]

Your Homaloptera smithi does seem on the skinny side also.

Possible culprit, the nematode

[killforfood]

Your Homaloptera smithi does seem on the skinny side also.

Yah, I've only had him for a few days. The store owner said he's had him for over six months but nobody would buy him He's the only one I've ever seen in any store and don't know why somebody wouldn't snatch him up. When I first saw him in the store I took and posted his picture then and mention he looked a little sickly. He's in the wormy tank now which may compound his problems. I'll take a quick trip over to the species ID to review his favorite foods.

[killforfood]

Well I just reread shari2’s article on Levamisole and have come to the conclusion that each bolus (in my case fancy word for big fat horse pill) containing .185 grams is about right for each treatment of a 25 gallon tank. Hopefully filtering through a coffee filter will eliminate most of the cloudiness that comes from all the fillers in each bolus.
I’m going to proceed cautiously and if it looks likes things are going south fast like my experience with Melafix then I’ll do a massive water change and throw a big bag of charcoal in the filter.
Damn the torpedoes! Full treatment ahead!

Shari2’s article.
http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/l ... chloride-1

Chefkeith’s Levamisole calculator.
http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen/Levamisole.html

[andyroo]

KFF,
Re: Camera, both SONY and Cannon make realy nice cameras that one can get with a off-the-shelf housing. Camera about 3 bills, housing another 120 or so. Best price for a reasonable UW system you'll find and still very good for above water. Housings tend to be more trustworthy then UW package cameras.

[crazy loaches]

A while ago I posted an another forum about worms in my tank. They turned out to be nematodes and folks were telling me they were harmless. Dont really know never saw them much after that. But one of the distuinguishing traites of the nemetode I was told was that it swims in an 'S'. here is a few second long video of mine swimming around: http://tristan.homelinux.net/fish/movies/wormy.wmv