Today's leech

D

dawn

Guest
Here is the leech I found in today's tank tidying.
I just have to keep a lookout for them!
This thing is bigger than the Notos it was in the tank with. Yuck-o!! How could it not be a threat to them?
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How did such a large leech make it into your tank?

Leeches are sometimes specialized to certain hosts, some leeches mainly suck on fish, others mainly on mammals, and others mainly on herps. Some leeches are not even parasitic, but are actually predatory. It's tough to say for certain what species of leech you have there, as I'm no leech expert, but its possible it wasn't designed to suck on, or eat newts.
 
That doesn't look like the leeches that come with my blackworms. Are you sure it didn't come in on a plant or something?
 
Wow, I don't see how something like that could come with live blackworms, although anythings possible.
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I keep finding them, this is the 6th or 7th one now. I don't have any other explanations to where they come from. I do sometimes put wild plants in, but only in the one tank, and I've found these in both my "pond" tanks. How does this differ from the ones you get, and do they get this big?
 
Oh, and Ryan, they come really really small, so you're not aware of them. Then they grow insidiously in your tank until they become huge devouring monsters.
 
The ones I get look like a planaria or flat worm but they aren't planaria. They are pale looking.
 
I see those in my blackworms too, when I first buy them. Do they still look like that when they grow up, or do you pick them out before then? What's the largest leech you've found in your tank? Maybe they turn dark over time on a diet of blackworms, since they (the blackworms) are dark.
I see an experiment implied here, but I know I don't want to do it!
 
I agree with Michael, this is not the kind of leech you get in blackworms! I had a tank that was infested with blackworm-type leeches at one point. The largest ones were about an inch long (when stretched out), and they always continue to be flat and gray. This is really something else.

I always hesitate to tell anyone to take apart a whole tank - very few infestations warrant this kind of drastic action. But unless you can find something besides newts that these are feeding on, this might be such a situation.
 
I would lose my head if I saw one of those. I like newts, snakes, mice, spiders, I could NOT deal with a leech!! GOOD LUCK!
 
Hey Kara, the first time I saw one I broke into a cold sweat. I can only deal with it because I have to!
After I saw the first one, I got one of those vacuum tank cleaners and thought I'd gotten them all out (three in the top tank, two in the bottom). That was last summer. The total now though that I've found is 4 in each tank. I am pretty thorough with that gravel cleaning system, so I'm thinking I have to figure out then how they're getting in. I'm certainly going to be more discriminating about putting in "wild" plants, and now with all my new tanks of exotic newts, I won't be putting ANYTHING questionable in them!
 
I'm going to do that, take the tank apart. I was wondering how far I need to go. Do you think they could be reproducing in my tank? and if so, how much do I need to get rid of: do you think I need to get rid of all my plants? I have some that are growing really well in there. Or maybe just rinse them very well? I am also going to put it back together without gravel so I can see them if they start to grow. Also, do you think I need to change my water (i.e. do they have microscopic eggs that just float around), or do you think getting rid of the gravel so I could find them earlier would be enough?
thanks
 
Some leeches lay eggs on the gravel in small clumps, from a leech that size.. it would definitely be visible to you. Others lay eggs on to each others underside, where the young leeches develop for a certain amount of time.

I believe leeches are hermpahroditic...correcty me if I'm wrong... regardless they still require two leeches to reproduce. I would think if you have more leeches of that size established in your tank, you would know. If somehow at this point, you're still have random giant leeches pop up... I would definitely get rid of all the gravel, plants, and water to start fresh because it sounds like you have a problem occuring completely out of sight, and it'd be hard to pin point the problem without trial and error.
 
I agree with Kyle. For now, I think it's enough to remove all substrate (rocks, sand, gravel) and either replace it or sterilize by boiling. Also, you probably want to clean out the inside of the tank. I'd keep the plants. But if the leeches reappear, you'll have to dispense with everything.

Don't forget that the tanks will have to cycle all over again. For the first couple of months, you need to test for ammonia and be extra careful about cleanup.
 
To add something to what Jen said, you can keep the water, siphon it into a large container and put it back in, and also try to give the filter a quick wash, I wouldn't boil your bacterialogical filter.

However, I don't think the leeches are going to hurt the newts, rather, the newts will probably eat one if you tweezer feed it.
 
Don't you think that leeches that size could hurt newts? Something bit the hands off of a couple of my newts and then I found a couple of leeches like the one pictured. I'm convinced that they did it, because there was nothing else in the tank that could have hurt them. I know that Jenn seemed sceptical, but do you still think that, now that you've seen one of those monsters?
 
Its tough to say, I haven't heard of a leach hurting a newt in the past, newts are not likely to be "bitten" by a leach or allow them to suck on them. It seems that I put a leach that big in my waltl juvie tank, the worst that would happen is the newt may choke on it.
 
When I tried to catch them with a net or tongs they swam wildly about the tank, so quick that I don't think a newt might have much of a choice to allow itself to be bitten. And the way they gripped the container I put them in before I threw them in the garden, and the way they gripped (hard!) on the finger of a friend of mine brave enough to do that, I think they could easily rip off a delicate spindly gossamer newt arm.
 
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    Dear All, I would appreciate some help identifying P. waltl disease and treatment. We received newts from Europe early November and a few maybe 3/70 had what it looked like lesions under the legs- at that time we thought maybe it was the stress of travel- now we think they probably had "red leg syndrome" (see picture). However a few weeks later other newts started to develop skin lesions (picture enclosed). The sender recommended to use sulfamerazine and we have treated them 2x and we are not sure they are all recovering. Does anyone have any experience with P. waltl diseases and could give some input on this? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.
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    sorry I am having a hard time trying to upload the pictures- I have them saved on my hard drive... any suggestions-the prompts here are not allowing for downloads that way as far as I can tell. Thanks
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