Help! There are little white worm thingy's on the glass, my Axie is Itchy! Please help!

R

rheann

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I have noticed that my Axie's tank has little white worms on the glass and she keeps scratching her gills! What did I do wrong to get these things in the tank!? What should I do? Please help! Should I give her a salt bath? if so, how much salt and how much water, and how do I get rid of the worms in the tank!? I will read all I can, anyone please help! My husband also noticed that My other tank the 20 gallon which hasn't finished cycling and has nothing it is also has a few! What is going on!? I don't want to lose her......
 
theres something about this in another thread, cant remember which though, it is recent.... if shes scratching it wouldnt hurt to do salt baths. take the tank water and put it in a bowl with enough to cover her. its two teaspoons of salt a litre. keep her in there for ten minutes or so. id starts off with once daily and if it doesnt improve go two twice. just make sure you use the tank water because fresh water might not be the same temperature and stress her even more. not sure what to do about the worms though sorry
 
Tomorrow is Momorial Day, and there will be no stores open that I know for sure, but I will try and go see so I can get some medicine, but just incase is there anything I can use at home that will help? I don't know how serious the problem is, the worms appear to be on the glass and in the sand, and I believe that the worms got transfered to the other tank when I took sand from the 10 and placed it in the 20, but I washed it first so I am not sure what is going on. They are so very small, I can hardly see them, and there is also little brownish specks on the glass with the worms, and they are driving her crazy! She keeps straching and trying to rub her self into the sand to relieve the iching. Was it the Earthworms that brought in the parasites? This is all I feed her besides just a few tuba-fix worm cubes, but I stopped feeding those right away after I was warned they can cause health problems. These worms are so gross, and how can i properly get rid of them permenently? I am so worried for her. I know she is suffering, and I feel like dirt because I thought I was doing so well taking care of her. I also do not have any live plants in the tank, or anything living with her in the tank, But I did keep a small gold fish in the tank for a short while before I placed her in there to help the cycling a little further, but have since removed it. Could this have contributed?
 
Thank you sharn. I really hope I can get rid of these worms!
 
I am keeping her in the fridge right now (not sure how long I should, or if I should be doing this)I am trying to keep her relaxed, I think that the worms are from me over feeding perhaps, and also from when I have distrubed the substrate a bit when I did a water change and was cleaning her tank a bit. I only did a %20 water change, and that was yesterday, but it wasn't until tonight that I noticed her swimming around way more than usual, and seemed to be itchy, but these little worms, I have read in a lot of posts are harmless, but is it normal for them to make her itch or is something else going on? They appear more around the area where the water flow is the strongest on the class near the filter, and I think maybe the little specks are possibly algae or something else, but I am not sure. What should I do with my Axie in the mean time? Should I just keep her in the fridge or take her out? should I clean the tank all out?
 
I wouldn't use tank water at all. Make sure you have freshly dechlorinated water - roughly the same temp as room temp. Two teaspoons of salt - thoroughly dissolved in two litres of water - ten minutes only. Take her out, put her in fresh, dechlorinated water and pop her in the fridge. I don't have any experience with wormy things either, but this is what I would do.
 
Thanks so much anne. I took her out of the fridge, she has finished her salt bath, I had her in there for 10 minutes. The little 2 gallon tank I have her in right now is fresh water, I added declorinater to it, and hopefully she will be ok and I can get the worms under control. She seems to be doing a lot better right now, and she doesn't look itchy at all now, but unfortunatly, when I was taking the Thermomitor out of the 10 gallon, (thermomitor is made of glass) it accidentily got bumped up a little too hard against the tank wall and the Thermomitors glass bottom broke, so now I am out one Thermomitor, and I am so miffed because it didn't even get get bumped that hard and it already broke. I was trying to clean it to put into the little temperary 2 gallon for my Axie so I could monitor her temp. i will do water changes on it every day until the 20 gallon has finished its cycle, because I am not risking putting her back into the tank if it turns out these worms are harmless because of the possible murcery floating around in the water yuck! There are a few worms floating around in the 20 gal, so I hope that they are harmless, because then it will be even longer before I can get her settled again, I hope she isn't too stressed or scared right now, she seems very relaxed, I hope this isn't some sort of sign of stress. Poor little baby. If anyone can help on the worms, or have had problems with them, any help will be most appreciated. thank you so much everyone for all your help.
 
If I was you I would be doing 20% water changes everyday. Try to post some pictures. They are probably a type of larvae. What exactly has he been eating?
 
20% water changes daily on a cycled tank will do much more harm than good.

Keep with the fridge and the salt baths (when you can get the salt). If problem still reoccurs, you might have to dismantle the whole tank and clean it.
 
They sound like planaria to me. I haven't heard of planaria being an irritant to axolotls.

Since the tank is freshly cycled, I think it is just the bloom of planaria that often happen in a new tank when food is added. That means there could be a change in the water quality.

Have you checked your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate today?

When you put animals into a newly cycled tank there may not be enough good bacteria to handle the waste produced. This will change as time goes on soon there should be enough balance.

Make sure you clean out the axolotls waste as soon as you see it. Take out any uneaten food with in 30 min after feeding.


The planaria population will go down as the tank balances out if you keep up with regular maintenance; 20% water change weekly, and partial substrate cleaning. It is a good idea to never change the filter media on the same day as the water changing and substrate cleaning. Your filter holds good bacteria as does the substrate you don't want to remove too much and make the tank cycle again.

You do not have to worry about the air stone in the fridge. I would remove it.
 
I forgot to add that; since you have removed the axolotl from the tank and are keeping it in a smaller container you might want to just keep it in the smaller container for a week or so and see what happens in the tank. And see if the axolotl is still itchy while in the smaller container and not in the tank water.

I still have my young axolotls in plastic shoe box sized (6 litre) containers on my kitchen counter. I change the water twice a day as they tend to poo twice a day because they are being fed twice a day.

I would not dismantle that tank and waste all the time you have spent cycling it. You can correct the problem with out tearing it down.
 
Thanks guys, I went and bought a microscope earlier to see what these things are. They are vey long, transparent, they seem to have pointy heads and look like worms. They move around a lot, and don't look like planaria from the pictures I have seen. I think I will have to take her to the vet, but first I will do some more research to see just in case, and find out what these things are. If they are parasites, then I shall rage war upon the little beasts. I do not know if any pet stores are open today, but some stores are, so I will see if they will know what I am talking about. i will keep you posted. right now she is in the fridge, and I haven't fed her yet today because I am not sure if it is her food that is causing the parasites or something else. perhaps she had the parasites when I bought her, i don't know. Thanks guys
 
I think what I have is nematodes! I saw pictures over the net and this seems to be what I have, as I have looked at it under the microscope several times, but I am still trying to find out if they are bad or not. nematodes seem to live in plants and the ground, and having fed earthworms to my Axie, it would seem that these little buggers came from the earthworms, but I am still not entirely sure, and I do not know if they are harmful. i am still trying to find out research. Does anyone know about these things? are they harmful? Thanks again guys
 
They look like the nematodes, and not the Planaria, I found an exellent picture of what mine look like, here is a link http://www.unice.fr/html/passeron/coursJDV/Posidonia/images/especes_matte/NEM_Nematoda_g.jpg
the Nematode on the very far left with all of the little hairs is what looks like is in my tank. from what I have read so far, they come from the soil and plants or live in these things, and I believe that my earthworms happened to have them with them. these worm thingy's look nothing like planaria as far as I can tell, and I hope that these nema thingy's aren't harmful. I will keep you guys posted. thank you Cynthia agian for your help
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I am so happy! I found out what these little suckers are! They are Tuba-fix worm babies! I took a water sample in to the store today to see if the nitrate and amonia levels could possibly be high, and they were normal, so then I told a (an educated) employee that I think I may have nematodes or planaria and showed her what was in the water samples, but that my axie was so very itchy. The employee said that the water condition was fine, and said that the worm things were tuba-fix worms, and that they cling to the glass and when very small will iriate fish and aquatic creatures because they will attatch them selves to gills, simply to just hang on to something. She also gave me some medication that she said is safe to use for my axie, just use really hot water with some bleach if needed. there were a few in my 20 gallon because on account I had moved some sand over to the big one (though i washed my sand)so i really think that my problem is solved, and the medication seems to be working. Thank you Cynthia so much for your article, for finding it for me, and it helped me a great deal. From what I have read about the article is that they are harmless, but what appears to be in my tank according to the employee are baby tuba-fix worms (are these the same thing?) and that they are what causing my axie to itch. I am very relieved, and have learned a great deal. Thank you again, and I will be very careful not to over feed. I still have to drain all the water from the 10 gallon just to be save of murcury, and i took a sample of the water from the 20 gallon and the employee sais that Amonia is 0, nitrite 0 and Nitrate 0. So it is safe to put her in there, once I make sure about the tuba-fix worms. I would hate to have such things crawlilng all over me and making me itch! poor Axie!
 
Here is a picture of what I have finally been able to come to terms with, a Tubifex worm. Thank goodness!
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I am so relieved because I found out through a friend that Nimatodes can be parasites or bring parasites. Thanks again everyone!
 
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