# worms



## non_compliance (Dec 4, 2008)

I have free swimming whitish worms in one of my tanks. I'm hoping they're hydra or planaria... I searched "worms" on here and came up with a lot of stuff, but never really found something that was exactly like what I saw. Whitish worms maybe 1cm in length (maybe less) very small... near the size of 2-3 human hairs... no apparent head..

I have not been as good about my tank maintenance on this particular tank as there are daffodil fry in there, and I'm worried about sucking them up...

I just wanted to verify that they are harmless... they swim around in a squiggly pattern.. they don't swim very fast, but they writh and squiggle quite fast. They did not loop back over themselves.. just a constant squiggle... like many "S" put together...

I have not seen them on the glass or anywhere else... only free swimming.. and not attached to a fish (yet)

Is this a parasite nematode, or a harmless worm? I will be working hard on water changes to get things back in the clear.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!


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## non_compliance (Dec 4, 2008)

Also,

I looked did some GIS searching and they didn't really look like what showed up for hydra, or planaria... looked more like a nematode or a callamanus worm (only not red)

Any ideas?


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## unexpectant parents (Oct 1, 2009)

but first they may be fish sperm...our black moor male and little white and orange standard made a surprise for us after they arrived in our 50 gal...they were both about 2 inches from tip to tip...well before the first batch of babies showed we had noticed that on any given day there was a cloud of free swimming tails with heads...and only occasionally would they kick or squirm. but these were about a quarter inch, white with a distinctive head end. white could be called clear, if that helps. i never noticed their behavior on glass at that time. here tonight i had the distinctly unpleasant experience of viewing one of the new batch of sperm wriggle along the glass like an inchworm, lifting it's head every few seconds and reaching outward...essentially ick (not the disease Ick). of course my fish protection circuit triggered some research

i have gone back to look closely at my new friends. and now strongly suspect my two tanks are infected with nematodes. did i mention 2 tanks..i needed a home for the baby that survived..he was hatched on valentines day, and is now a radiant black dorsal to metallic gold at the lateral line to silver on his belly, and his fins are black with white tips...out of a batch of 40 or so, with our clumsy adaptations to their growing needs..oh, and multiple batches in the mix, floater tanks, fry tanks, mediums to an inch...well, after all the fuss, we thought we had a breeding pair, till the second to last one (female white like her mom) floated upside down for a couple weeks with a bloated belly, refusing food though i hand fed her right up until my trip to cape breton. Mom was responsible to keep the fish and cats alive, but she had not the grace to hand feed a silly little upside down fish. I have been hand feeding her father for about 3 weeks..2 sinking pellets for breakfast delivered right to his greedy lips, and 2 more at supper time...i had to do something as i had seen his failed attempts to feed while floating upside down in the most ungraceful way. he doesn't seem the least bit bothered by the method...tends to come looking for it like he always did, just upside down.

His belly is ridiculously distended behind his little low fins, before his anus, i could imagine about the size of my thumb, and this 'cyst'? if what holds him to the surface. after my reading tonight nematodes are something i need to consider.

supporting this are the small patch of red bumps along the crest of the mom fish's head that occasionally have looked like small worms erupting, or maybe abraded scales where she had been stressing over her upside down mate to the bottom of the single fake plant (took out 90% of the obstacles so mr. fish could make his dive-bottoming attempts. conversely this had resulted in a change in the general benthic nature of mrs fish...she is now perfectly adept at self regulating her bladder so she can sleep nestled next to her mr. she's become a pelagic fish..it's so odd to see her out of her nest...but truth be told i'd rather have her making babies down on the bottom.

ok..here we go on nematodes...

1: live life through cycles, typically infesting, but not necessarily infecting, whatever happens to eat them, including humans.
2: live on produce, livestock, fresh water, salt water, pretty much everywhere on the planet including glacial ice. good luck avoiding them...don't eat live minnows, nuff said
3: there are several related crawlies, gill flukes, segments, blah blah
4: they infect eggs (delightful)....we noticed the little tank was all 'spunky' with stringy swimmers, but again i didn't look to see if there was 'on the glass' movement
5: they live in the spaces in the host...if you can think of a name of some inside part of a fish, i bet there is a nematode happy to live there. this includes the intestine (most commonly among most common species) the air bladder, stomach, heart (not unlike dog heart worm) and so on.
6: there are a few veterinary level de-worming drugs possibly available...Flubendazole (best reviews and broad spectrum cure for many nematodes, ick, velvet) murmurings of a mythical 5% powder mix vigorously with water...this is about where i ended, with a generally unfounded optimism that i might find such a thing locally...yeah right. honey, where's the credit card, and i hope the fish makes it.

i had a really close look at my current little crawlies...they are about a quarter inch, not much bigger than a human hair, but big enough to distinguish separate colored regions. and they have a basic reddish hue even this small. and they move like a slinky, or an inchworm that doesn't need to make a fold. (think about that woowWOOwowooo). and then there is the whole lifting the head thing, just like some little bloodsucking leach or something...there is something fundamentally unpleasant about that kind of primal searching motion, you know what i mean 

so before you are just dismissed with the old pat response of hydras or whatever take a closer look at the worms...they might be sperms


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## unexpectant parents (Oct 1, 2009)

after doing a retarded amount of reading, i phoned first phoned my vet..they wouldn't share their fenben (fenbendazole). then i phoned the pet store...they wouldn't share their fenben either...but they did have mebendazole tablets for cats and dogs...taking the leap of faith, and a bit of calculations later, the tablets were dissolved (should have heated the water first)...we have a 30 gallon tank...we had 10 tablets (100mg)...take out 10 gallons and use all 10 pills. in other words...1 pill treats 2 gallons although i am going to use 3 in the 5.5 gal tank...i noticed a worm in the baby tank too...he was probably infected in the egg. there is low rick for overdosing, but the drug does kill off all the little buggers within 3 days...so just be patient. momma fish's red wounds were most likely caused by nematodes munching on her...within a day of the de-wormer, her affliction had already begun to heal, she looks good today.

the brand of de-wormer i used was Sergeant's Vetscription Worm-Away IV..about 13 dollars Canadian after taxes...

hope this helps...and i hope all my fish are still alive when i get back on Sunday.


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## unexpectant parents (Oct 1, 2009)

well, it's sunday, and none of the fish are eating, but i had read that...so today everyone gets a clean tank again...after a couple hundred dollars of medicine (most of it ineffectual) it's safe to say the biological filer is toast, and who wants dead nematodes in the mix.

mr fish isn't much different though, and without eating he might not have the strength to pass the mother nematode...the lump is much closer to his anus today it seems, and it is less well defined, but now we notice the base of his tail is bloodshot (maybe from constant straining, or from a massive infection as his intestine has ruptured "eep") i'm going to be patient, he's always been a bit of a brute, and this will certainly test his resolve. i will run another round of tetracycline if he gets sicker.

momma fish is back from her illness spending her time fretting alongside her mister. she put a bit of weight so i'm not as worried that the medicine killed her appetite. not having to compete with mister for floating pellets was good for her.

oh, did i mention i need to run the de-wormer again assuming he passes the mother worm. her body, even dead, protects the babies until she rots, releasing another viable infection. yay!

so in conclusion, my fish aren't cichlids, but nematodes are nematodes. keep a close watch on the glass of your tank. if you see crawlers, consider the simplest solution and de-worm, before the mother worm turns into a 4 inch ***************.


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## unexpectant parents (Oct 1, 2009)

the male died...spent 4 days not eating...started sloughing and passed away while i was at work. i did dissect him but found only huge air pockets in his lower abdomen instead of the suspected nematode queen. maybe it was the result of a bacterial infection. his swim bladder was normal sized and whole, so that is out. i found no stones in his tract either. bummer.

mrs fish (widowed) was cured of the velvet we failed to recognize, but now mebendazole is out of the tank and her poor little head is a mess of scar tissue. she hasn't eaten for almost a week now, and stays very still in her corner. she misses her mate.

so to give her some company i sent the baby fish, the new oranda, and the common pleco into the big tank. now everyone is sitting still on the bottom. granted the tank is unfortunately fresh, only a matter of a few hours before mother fish was added...dechlorinated of course, and the gravel was washed in warm water, fresh chips and charcoal. a dose or 2 of starter culture and they should be ok.

i would say that mebendazole isn't a bad way to go. i have to suspect the medicine buggered their appetite, so perhaps the dose should be 1 tablet/ 5 gallons premixed in warm water. it works as expected, killing pretty much everything in the tank but fish. i'm personally confused why there isn't a proper fish form of de-wormer. but the cat/dog version works in a pinch.


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