Worm problem

H

heather

Guest
lately i have been getting these tiny white worms on my glass( about one mm and a little longer) i called a local pet store they said they might be nema todes that just normally live in the gravel or something related. they had a treatment for them but they didnt know if it was axolotl safe. i have cleaned my tank countless times and i even bleached the gravel( i had noticed that they came up when ever it was disturbed)my axos tend to up root plants and that disturbs the gravel too! i have no idea where they came from or exactly what they are. i am so mad at the stupid things and i can see them on my axies.

does any one else have/had this problem??
how do i get rid of them??!
 
If they're the worms I'm thinking of, they're usually a sign of poor water quality. Overfeeding and not doing regular water changes can contribute, or they could have been brought in by a new plant you added, it's really hard to tell without actually seeing them.

Bleaching your gravel is a bad idea, especially if the gravel is really porous, as you might not be able to get all the bleach out of it when you rinse. It'll also kill all of the bacteria living in the substrate. Have you tried using a gravel vac to suck them up, or a sponge to wipe them off the glass?

I had some little white worms, about 1-2mm long with my chicky bettas once, but I upped the water changes and they went away (the fish also loved eating them!)

Sorry I can't give you a better idea of what they are, hopefully someone else will know for sure!
 
If you are patient you will probably find that these worms will disappear in a few days time.

It appears to be syndrome quite common with new tanks. Personally I think they come from the live food we use.
 
the pet shops say that all tanks have them they just normally live in the gravel and when the gravel is disturbed they tend to come up.

leah>i had them even when i was using plastic plants. i tried using a gravel vacuum, that didnt work all it did was make tons tons more come up, im pretty sure that my water is fine, my filter works real good and it is crystal clear all the time. and the whole bleach thing you shouldnt worry about, we must have rinsed each rock 400 times and we were using a very diluted solution of the bleach to begin with (1 part bleach :4 parts water)
 
mikki> i had them even when i was feeding them only pellets and all they had before that was brine shrimp at IU axo colony
 
Hummm interseting... can you get a photo of them and maybe we can help a little more?
 
Most tanks harbor a plethora of bugs and microscopic creepy-crawlies. They could very well be planaria or any host of 'normal' tank fauna. Keeping uneaten food and waste cleaned up is a good way to cut them down. But even if your water is crystal clear, there could be a boom in nitrites or ammonia, which could be coming from these animals. You should have water testing kits and test periodically (once a week, or two weeks after the tank has cycled).
 
getting a picture might prove to be difficult, they are so so tiny and almost translucent im not sure if my camera will even focus on them!
i will try though
 
I HAD THESE!!!! I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

They suddenly appeared after I got my second axolotl, well I'd never noticed them before that anyway. I know excactly what you mean when you say that they are so anoying and that you are getting mad!!!! I was ready to throw the whole tank out - axi's and all!!!

No matter how many times I cleaned the tank they always came back! There were soooooo many - hundreds of thousands and then some more!!!!

I finally got rid of them - i'll tell you what I did each time and you might be able to work somthing out.

Ok, when I first found them I just left them cause there were only a few and I wasn't too worried. But then about 3 days later there were so many all over the glass and plants and stuff, even on the axolotls, so I took the axi's out and put them in a clean bucket with clean water. Then I just rinsed all the gravel and plants and washed the glass with really hot water and left it all set up, without water and axi's in the hot sun for a whole day. Then put fresh, clean water and the axi's back in. This didn't work, cause they came back after a day or so!!!

I did exactly the same thing again - but this time as soon as I noticed them (get them why there arn't many, well so I thought!!!) Didn't work - they came back almost as soon as I put new water in the tank!

I then did a really good clean out and scrubed and scrubed and scrubed everything!!!! THE BUGGERS CAME BACK!

Ok, well I had to do somthing different this time cause I was getting so mad at them - and myself cause nothing I did worked!! I did numrous water changes and full clean outs before I thought of this one.

I got some Condies Crystals (Potassium Permanganate B.P.) from the chemist - just ask them - they will know what it is. I was told that it will clean the glass really well. It is fine little dark purple crystals, and I took the axi's out (make sure you do this cause it will probably make them sick if not kill them) and left the whole set up going - filter and airstone, and I left it like that for a day. Don't use much of the crystals, just enough to make the water go pink/light purple, only a small pinch - and use a spoon or wear gloves cause it will stain you skin brown and I mean STAIN for days!!!!!!! Don't worry if the water turns brown after a bit - this is just what it does.

Ok, so then I took everything out and rinsed it in hot water, then I got a huge cooking pot and boiled salty water and put the gravel and pebbles and plastic plants in it and boiled the <font color="ff0000">&#149;</font><font color="ff0000">&#149;</font><font color="ff0000">&#149;</font><font color="ff0000">&#149;</font> out of it!!!! I had one real plant - which I thew out at this point. I have a sponge filter - so I replaced all the sponge and charcole and boiled the plastice bits, I also threw out the old tubing in the tank and the airstone and got new ones. I got enough water to fill the tank and boiled it too and waited for it to cool a bit then set up the tank and put the hot water in it. I then waited almost all day for it to get back down to room temp.

I had seen some of the worms on the axolotls before so I didn't want to put them back in their tank and have these little pests breed again!!! So I got 2 buckets - one already had the axi's in it. I filled the other bucket with clean water and picked the axis up and put them in it - I didn't transfer any of the water - then I cleaned out the bucket they had just come from and filled it with clean water and transferred them again - I did this several times (it might be a bit stressful - some would say dangerous for the animals - but I didn't know how dangerous these worms were and if they were causing them any discomfort - so I think it was nessary. Then finally I put them back in their tank and for the next week or so I did a 70-80% water change every day and fed the axi's in anoter tank.

It must have worked cause they havn't come back again and that was over 6 months ago. But I do a full clean out once a month or so, that is boil the gravel and plastic - scrub the glass and everything I said previously except I havn't used the Condies Crystals again because I found
that they stained the gravel slightly.

Anyway, it was drastic but it worked and my axi's are fine, so I hope this helps!!!!

GOOD LUCK!!!!!
 
THANK YOU SO MUCH MARY I WAS SO WORRIED BECAUSE I WAS SEEING THEM ON MY AXIES TOO! I AM GOING TO TRY TO FIND SOME CONDIES CRYSTALS AND KILL THOSE LITTLE F- i shouldnt say it - BUT THANK YOU!!!
 
It's ok - hope it helps, but I think boiling everything in really salty water was part of the solution too.

GOOD LUCK!!!
 
Guys...err Gals.. don't get over excited by these worms. I have had them in my tank before. First time same as Mary I boiled the gravel and contents and really cleaned up. But beggar me they returned within days. A few days later they just disappeared and I never saw them again. I am absolutely cetain it was nothing I did.

For my own part if it ever happens again I just intend to take out my axies and throw in a few of my feeder mollies and let them feast.
 
Mikki>mine dont dissapear like yours do....at first you see only a few and it doesnt bother you much but then the next day there are thousands of them. The next day there are even more!
i dont use feeder fish so that wouldnt work...
 
Only a suggestion and I am not certain it will work:
Can you put your axies into a couple of lastic tubs or another tank for a couple of days and see if these things die away.
Or leave them where they are and try a small dose of myaxin or protozin, small bugsd have mor surface area and are much more prone to chemical 'warfare'.
 
ok a bit off the subject - but mik, how do you get such cool pics of your axolotls when it's mouth is open??? I could sit there for hours with the camera ready to go and they wont do anything exciting and then when i leave or put the camera away they do cool stuff!!!! I've seen them "yawn" but never been able to take a picy. How do you do it???? This is the second pic of yours where the axi has it's mouth open!!!!
 
lol see new pic thread for the answer to that one about mouth open, Mary. But I am rubbish with camera but found if use miny tripod with my Canon s50 it's passable, because i can edit 5 mega pix piccy down to a close-up.
 
i had these on my fish. theyre called planeria. salt dips get rid of them on the axies as well as a really good water change with a gravel pump to get rid of any uneaten food etc. hope everything goes ok
happy.gif
 
Yep just read a few net-articles on them. Amy seems to have it right and the gravel pump twice a week seems to be the reccommended solution. Thanks for the name of the wee sods, Amy, gave me sumthing to look for.
 
Ok, I thought that I was worm free!!! But no!Yesterday I got a new tank - so when I was setting it up I pulled out all of the plants in the old tank to put into the new one - these plants had pretty established roots, so it disturbed the gravel. This morning I didn't notice anything, but thisafternoon!!! WOW!!!! They must have been living in the gravel, because they are huge!!! Well actually they are pretty tiney - but huge compared to the ones I had last time! I salt bathed my axi's and put them in my new tank, and put the goldfish in with the wormy things - they can have a feast, then I will clean out the tank and then put them back in there and that will be their new home! The new tank is huge! Now they have more than twice the room to swim around in.

STUPID STUPID WORMS!!!!!!! I HATE THEM!!!!!!!
 
Mary if t's any comfort I transferred 3 axies to a tank I had been conditioning for weeks with Mollies (see picys of moonpie thread in Common name, toger and Axies forum).

Wouldn't you know it yesterday I find a load of these planeria on the glass. It seems they feed on detritus in gravel. I shall just use gravel filter/syphon as usual and watch them disappear. Worm's are natural it's not always a good idea to try and control every aspect of an enviroment.
 
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