red worm explosion

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Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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Mynn
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red worm explosion

Post by Mynn »

OMG, someone has to know what these are. :(

OK, so I have no fish in my tank. I had 3 figure 8's but won't get into how I lost them. The reason I mention this is because possibly the puffers were eating the worms and I never noticed them before.

Anyway, it's been about a week or so since I lost my fish. It's a fully planted brackish tank that has been up and running for about a year.

There are now many many worms swimming around in my tank. They look like they have made brown cocoons on my plants, wood, substrate and are now coming out. I saw one worm that was 2 inches long crawling along the glass in my tank. It looks like it is trying to suck stuff off of the glass. The smaller ones are attached to my marimo balls and look like they are eating them but it's hard to tell. I noticed the brown cocoon looking things before on my wood, but I thought it was just brown algae clumps.

The worms have really red heads that fade to pinkish/white towards the end of the worm. They look round and not flat.

I'd shoot some photos of them but I really can't find my camera. To be honest, I'm freaked out. They are EVERYwhere in the tank.

Someone please tell me what they are.
~75g bow front fully planted brackish (1.006), currently no fishies
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Myaj
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Re: red worm explosion

Post by Myaj »

Look in my gallery, there is a bunch of photos of some worms I found in one of my tanks. Turns out they are planaria and harmless. However, they are flat and have sort of arrowhead shaped heads, pretty easy to ID, don't sound like what you have.

If you can get a photo, that would be best (probably need a macro lens or setting). If its a parasite that would be potentially infectious to your fish, they won't survive long without a host most likely. Its probably something that came in on a live plant, or maybe some insect laid eggs in your tank and this is the larval stage. Watch to see if you open the cover and any weird flies or moths come fluttering out.
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Nick
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Re: red worm explosion

Post by Nick »

Rusty tubes? I have those. My puffers and betta eat them on site, so they mostly live in the filter intakes.
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Mynn
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Re: red worm explosion

Post by Mynn »

Seriously I'm getting really frustrated with these larvae. I know that's what they are now because I've squashed some adult insects that were on the wall by my tank. They are leaving brown funk all over my tank in the form of little cocoons that disengrate when they "hatch". I JUST cleaned all the brown funk out day before yesterday and it's back again. Prior to that, I removed all of my drift wood and had to physically scrub the brown funk off with a toothbrush. They are putting cocoons on my plants, they are everywhere!! I have to put my entire arm in the tank and wipe the cocoons off my plants with my fingers. It's really bad and that's a lot of leaves to wipe off.

Anyone have any idea how to get rid of these things? I don't have any fish at the moment and don't plan on adding any until the tank is ready.

I have photos of the cocoons in my album so you can see what they look like.
~75g bow front fully planted brackish (1.006), currently no fishies
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Mynn
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Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:33 am
My Puffers: Monotrete Abei - 1
Location: Indiana

Re: red worm explosion

Post by Mynn »

Well, I think I'm going to electrocute them. I don't have any fish so wish me luck. :P
~75g bow front fully planted brackish (1.006), currently no fishies
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Mareva
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Re: red worm explosion

Post by Mareva »

ok, if they are fly larvae like you think here is what you can do. I have a worm bin (for compost) and flies love the worm bin to put there eggs in so I know what you're ging through! It needs a little patience but what you have to do is block access in and out of your aquarium.
Flies go in, drop the eggs. Eggs hatch, grow, become flies. Flies get out of the tank because chances are they don't eat what's in the tank. Than come back to it to drop their eggs. So, if you block access in and out, flies have no where to drop their eggs. Flies from the eggs that hatched can't get out of the tank and die. You'll have to maintain this until all the eggs have hatched and died and until all the flies outside decide to leave. I know, it's a pain! Depending on how big the fly, you could put a screen on top of your aquarium so the air still gets in. It depends on your tank set up.

Good luck, hope this helps!
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