helobdella leech questions

[GardenStateGoldfish]

Hello all! I found some leeches in my 270g, no idea where they came from, but i have noticed them just this week (tank has been running for 18 months in an ecosystem style)

 

My questions are,

are they harmful to adult snails?

Are they harmful to young fish?

Will my adult fancy goldfish slurp them all up?

Are they dangerous to asian clams?

Are they detrivors?

Do they have benefits?

Are they worth trying to eliminate?

Thanks all for your help and time!

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

I have never had any in a tank but found this interesting to research online a bit. I am curious to see if anyone here has any direct experience with theses. It seems like they are non-blood sucking carnivorous species of toothless leech.

I would assume based on the labratory notes for care found that any worm, snail, possibly clam, and any dead meaty food might be consumed or attempted to be consumed by them. Small fish might be at risk while sleeping to some small degree but without teeth I assume they are basically sucking up meaty food that fits in their mouth.

Id bet goldfish or other fish would eat them if they happened to get one in their mouth. If it were me I might experiment with them and post my findings for future reference.

Full disclaimer no personal experience but based answers off of the limited research found :

are they harmful to adult snails? Are they harmful to young fish?Id guess possibly. (Maybe put one in a collection container, bucket, etc with a live snail and young fish and observe)

Will my adult fancy goldfish slurp them all up? Might do so unintentionally but i feel lile goldfish eat everything

Are they dangerous to asian clams? Possibly

Are they detrivors? They seem to be pure carnivore

Do they have benefits?  My guess is similar to snails these clean up dead or dying meaty foods

Are they worth trying to eliminate? Id bet thats easier said then done in a 270  They must fill a nitche in your current system balance. Its interesting to hear about them. I would think that most fish,crayfish, etc would eat toothless leeches since they are basically a meat disks. 

 

Care document

 https://sites.google.com/site/helobdellaprotocols/leech-care

[GardenStateGoldfish]

@mountaintoppufferkeeper

Thank you so much for the detailed reply! Thats mostly good news, i do not mind if they pick on some of the ramshorns but i wouls be really upset with them if they attack my clams! But i am a big ecosystem guy so i will wait and see what happens, there are very few so i am thinking this is a relatively new probably, i only noticed them when i took apart my filter on the tank, they were kind of isolated down there and now i let them out >.<