[AHHH WORMS IN MY WORMS!!!]

On 12/28/2022 at 6:59 AM, Aiden Carter said:

This is the first time I’ve seen anything besides black worms in my black worms. And I usually use a syringe to get out the worms

Huh, maybe your past sources had cleaned the leeches out… which is a blessing. Every single time I bought blackworms come with them friends LOL…. And you gotta take them out or they will kill your culture in no time, they make the water faulty and stinky in one day

[Inherited a 20g tank with planaria!!]

Wow, interesting method for the plants, I never heard of it until now. Won’t be necessary for now though, as I resolved just throwing away the plants I got from this person, they weren’t many and I have same ones in my other tanks.

[Inherited a 20g tank with planaria!!]

I hope I don’t make it too long to read… Sooo, someone gave me a 20 gallon guppy tank, broke it apart to bring it home, at the moment all guppies are in a 5 gallon bucket, and plants are in another bucket. As I was working on the tank at home (it still had one inch of water in it because there was a few fry I couldn’t scoop out) I saw a couple of planaria on the glass. (Photo attached)

So, I decided to give this tank a fresh fresh start and took all the substrate out and cleaned the tank completely, at the moment is clean and dry. BUT the guppies are at the moment in that 5g bucket with old water from the aquarium. I really don’t want to risk transferring planaria to my other tanks, as I have shrimp in several of them, so I wanna make sure and get rid of it. 

Aquarium co-op has this Expel-P (levamisole) med. and claims it treats for planaria, but reading in other websites, apparently levamisole doesn’t treat planaria. 

What should I do? Do you guys think there’s any chance I transfered planaria to the bucket?, should I treat the guppies in the bucket and then add them to the tank? What is your med of choice for planaria? Thanks in advance!

[AHHH WORMS IN MY WORMS!!!]

Usually blackworms come with leeches. Every time I buy some, I usually take them out of the bag and put them in a tupper, most times the leeches stay attached to the bag, then (and as they say above, it’s a tedious process), I move them around and with tweezers I take leeches out, you can also move them around and dump them in a second tupper, leeches will stay stuck to the walls, so I rinse it with water with aquarium salt added to nuke them. Then do it again, move worms around, dump them back to the first container, rinse leeches with salt water, and so on until you get rid of them all…. Now, planaria is a different issue and I wouldn’t know if with this process you’d get rid of them, because I’ve never found planaria in my blackworms before. BTW Thank you. New fear unlocked.

[Fixing my algae outbreak]

Nope! They leave them totally alone. I’ve ordered amanos from different places including my LFS, so I have many different sizes, from tiny about a neocaridina sized one, from inch, inch and a half big. They are still young. When I added them, one of the puffers was curious towards a shrimp, the shrimp spooked a tiny bit, and the puffer hauled ass to the opposite corner. Since then, they never ever have bothered them. In fact I’ve seen my amanos stealing their bloodworms! I know it’s hard to find cleaning crew for pea puffer tanks and a lot of experts will tell you there’s no compatible species, so I kinda agree/disagree… I don’t guarantee that amanos will work in every pea puffer tank, but at least in mine worked to add really big ones, so they learned to leave them alone, I think. So either I am lucky, or just like with bettas, it depends on their temperament. Worth a try, I guess, my only suggestion is to start with big amanos.

[Fixing my algae outbreak]

Amano shrimp, otos and florida flagfish are good for a smaller tank. SAE’s are effective algae cleaners as well but they get large. I had 6 small in my 60 gallon, they grew quite large so I gave 4 of them to my LFS. They are great at cleaning bba! Florida flagfish and amanos are what I have in my 20 gallon puffer tank, amanos are good at it but I found out that they were cleaning everything but hair algae. I put a pair of flagfish in two days ago and they are doing amazing, also I know they can be hardy fishies. 

[Fixing my algae outbreak]

What about florida flagfish? or Otocynclus? I just added a pair of florida flagfishes in my 20 gallon puffer tank and they are doing a great job eating all the hair algae away ❤️

 

[Red spot disease, or something else?]

2 hours ago, Colu said:

It looks like a bacterial infection I would Quarantine and continue treat with maracyn and aquarium salt 1 table for 2 gallons

Thank you, I will keep her on qt with meds and see how she goes today . 

[Red spot disease, or something else?]

5 hours ago, Mr_Manifesto said:

This could've been an injury, or it might be something internal, either way   

I would just keep the treatment up and monitor everything.  Not much but to wait and see at this point.

It is most def not an injury. It has become a bit worse every day. I noticed she’s got super tiny little  red dots on her body... she’s on qt now with meds... lets see how she does today 

[Red spot disease, or something else?]

So I found out this white molly has what I believe is red spot disease (correct me if wrong)

I have qt her in a 2.5g ...(my hospital tank is full of angelfish babies)

 I thought at the beginning it was like, ...her guts showing or something because she’s so light colored she looks a bit translucent , but I noticed her head slightly changed to pink ish... but today is red and her side has a red spot too.

 

I am treating with erythromycin, and added a bit of aquarium salt. But any other advice appreciated   

 

She's one of my fav fish, I have her in a 60 gallon community tank. I have her with 2 veil angels, 2 more mollies, a hillstream loach, a yoyo loach and a bunch of black neons (8 or 9) and zebra danios (also 8 ish), 8 ottos, 10 nerites and a shitload of mini ramshorns (the itty bitty ones). It's a heavily planted tank. Everybody else is perfectly fine. There is no aggression from anyone (I observe a lot)

 

Parameters:

pH 7.4, ammonia/nitrites 0, nitrates 25-30 ish.

I did a wc yesterday, 50%

Thank you in advance!

 

[How long it takes for popeye to heal?]

Update on the popeye...

After 2 rounds of Maracyn, with one day in between treatments like the box says, he still has unilateral popeye (check his left eye in pics below), no cloudiness, he's very energetic and shows appetite. I read a lot about epsom salt, I've been giving him 15 min epsom salt baths, dissolved 1 tbsp in 1g of his own tank water, then I put him back, I've been doing this for 5 days now, the eye does not look as swollen as before, but it is still swollen. 

If anyone could help me about what to do now? should I just leave him alone and see if it heals by himself? I've been doing weekly water changes to keep the tank as clean as possible. I attached a pic from 9 days ago or so for comparison.

[How long it takes for popeye to heal?]

On 9/27/2020 at 1:05 PM, Struggle said:

If I remember correctly it took about 10 days for my killifish’s pop eye to completely heal with Maracyn. I followed the directions on the package and I wish you the best of luck!

Did you dose Maracyn for the 10 days? I've been reading that I could even take months to heal... I have no idea how to do or how to proceed, for now I am gonna do the 5 day treatment. I've also read about epsom salt baths, I hope someone can tell me more on this, it's the first time I treat this type of disease.

[How long it takes for popeye to heal?]

Well, I got this betta for my 20 gallon long tank. One day later I notice he has an eye swollen, so I treated for Pop eye for 3 days with Maracyn. Question is, how long it takes for it to go away? How do I know the treatment is working? 
Please send me your best advice... I’d appreciate the help.

Should I treat again? This is him today after one week, the swelling doesn’t seem to be gone and I am not sure if it has increased. Also haven’t been able to find out online how long it takes to see any improvement.

Water parameters 0 Ammonia, 0 nitrites, around 5 nitrates. Planted tank.  Last water change was 2 days ago around 50%  I keep him at 79 F

He’s been very active the entire time, btw. I’ve been feeding him bug bites, and frozen food. 

[What do you use to treat planaria?]

1 minute ago, Mmiller2001 said:

Those do not look like Planaria. I agree.

Well, little update. I finally have added a few corydoras and a betta to this ecosystem and holy remedy... little buggers are gone. Whether they are Planaria or Rhabdocoela, they are no more... or at least I can't see them LOL.

[What do you use to treat planaria?]

1 hour ago, ange said:

It's difficult to tell based on the size/res of your photo but I believe you may not have planaria. Rhabdocoela are a common aquarium flatworm and are a normal part of a healthy ecosystem. They look very similar to planaria and lack the pointed head region.

Interesting. Thank you! Yes they are very small at the moment, so it was very very hard even with a magnifying glass to try and see if they have that pointy head and crossed eyes.

[What do you use to treat planaria?]

2 hours ago, Ben_RF said:

I have used 1 gram of panacur c.  Typically I have had to do two treatments to clear it up.  I will only use this in shrimp tanks, because to be perfectly honest in any other tank I give thanks for it as live fish food along with detritus worms. 

But isn't Panacur harmful to snails? I wouldn't use it since I have ramshorn snails

[What do you use to treat planaria?]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

I like that sort of stuff in my aquariums, as it provides food to fishes and is otherwise harmless. Other people find it unattractive.

So in the end it is a personal decision.

Thank you @Daniel... Honestly my concerned raised as one of my LFS girls pointed at me that they had planaria in that tank and "they didn't know what to do yet" .. tho it was a tank with only shrimp and snails in there, no fish... makes sense now once I have done some research. In many websites it sounds concerning, as they can "attack" shrimp and sometimes fish, they get in their gills and it can irritate them, blah blah... makes sense what you say and it makes more sense that I had a few planarias in there since my tank didn't have fish either. Let's see how it goes with the new buddies, hopefully they will keep them at bay. 

[What do you use to treat planaria?]

I have a brand new 20g long tank, heavily planted and fishless cycled it for 2 weeks. I introduced 5 baby ramshorn snails, as I noticed a lot of protein and biofilm building in the tank, plus all the decaying plants (dwarf saggitaria sheded a lot from transplanting it to the new tank)  ...and I just noticed what could be planaria. Two or three tiny tiny worms cruising slowly through the glass... Not entirely sure if they are or not, but they could be, as one of the tanks at my LFS has planaria in it and they might have cross contaminated other tanks, and somehow I might have transfered it to my tank. Yesterday I added one betta and 3 albino corydoras, as I read online, fish most times eat them and keep them under control, also that planaria will thrive if there's overfeeding, which is not my case, however all the waste from the driftwood and plants could be an issue. 

What are your thoughts?