What are these worms

[Cinnebuns]

I had 3 mystery snails die in this tank in a short period of time. They were active housed with glo tetras. I tried SOOOO many things to figure out what killed them and found nothing. 

I have since rehomed the glo tetras. The tank has been empty for about a week. I decided to do a water change and put 1 mystery snail in to see if it was the tetras that were the issue. After pouring in the first bucket, and thus disrupting the substrate, I saw these thin, long worms.

What are they?  Did they kill the snails?  Where do they come from?  Are they harmful to cats or humans?

Maybe horsehair worms?

https://youtube.com/shorts/-rC4epKmnsU?feature=share

The link is a diff video. Idk why its showing different. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Aqua junky]

How long are they?  Think I may have the same in my Taiwan bee tank.  They may be Planaria and if so Ive heard Cory say 100 times cut down the feeding and if your really concerned throw in a few guppies and they will wipe it clean.

[Cinnebuns]

On 4/12/2022 at 8:08 PM, Aqua junky said:

How long are they?

I'd say about an inch and a half

[Cinnebuns]

I looked up pics of planaria and mine look thinner honestly but idk

[Cinnebuns]

Lots on Facebook are saying detris worms. Good news bad news. Good its harmless. Bad cause I still don't know what killed those snails. 

[Guppysnail]

You may never know unfortunately.  Size is based mainly on diet with many snails. You can’t determine their age by size because of this. Yours may have been older when purchased. I have had young juvenile mystery snails almost twice the size of adults I got from a friend before. I took most of the batch my niece hatched accidentally and mine grew twice as fast and remain twice the size of the two she kept and of those the ones in fry tanks are larger than ones fed a regular portioned diet. I’m sorry for your loss. Most worms and hitchhikers are not actually harmful. 

[Cinnebuns]

I'm still not completely convinced this is either detris or planaria. It's def not planatia as it doesn't have the flat head. The reason I hesitste to agree with detris is because of how long they are. Any pic I've seen of detris is much smaller. Would love any input on this. This tank has me worried. 

[Guppysnail]

I can’t see the video bad eyes. Do they look like any of these

https://www.google.com/search?q=long+freshwater+worms&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

Follow the included links to see more

[Cinnebuns]

My fear is that they kinda look like horsehair. But I'm not entirely sure. I feel like horsehair is even longer and these are somewhere between. Idk maybe I just have detris that have been there a long time and grew bigger. 

[Torrey]

Not detritus, and definitely not planaria. @Biotope Biologist or @Odd Duck do either of you recognize the movement?

@Cinnebuns I doubt they are responsible for the snails death, though. .. and I understand your concern because society trains us to be suspicious of the majority of things that naturally occur in nature.

What were your water parameters? How long had you had the mysteries? What were the mysteries eating?

Most problematic parasites either cyst up to survive long periods of time without a host, or they die off without a host. They rarely swim in a more active fashion without a host, so I am not inclined to think these are parasitic worms... I'll defer to a specialist in that regard.

If you don't feed the tank, your beneficial bacteria colony will crash, and if you do feed the tank regular fish food there's a good chance the worms will reproduce. So I would get some plain ammonia and dose the tank with a little ammonia every other day, leave the tank empty, and observe for a few weeks. That will keep your cycle going, and not feed any critters in the tank. That will give you time to hear back from more people, and see if anyone has a solid ID and best path to take forward. If no ID, and if neither Odd Duck or Biotope Biologist say you need to nuke the tank, in 4 to 6 weeks anything that contributed to the mystery snails demise should be gone, and I would look for plants that meet my tanks parameters, scape, and start restocking after a few weeks of it being scaped. Of course, I recognize not everyone likes plants like I do...

If you don't feel comfortable with that approach, you can drain the tank, wipe the sides with H2O2, fill just high enough to cover the filter, and dump in some H2O2 and run for an hour (or even overnight). that will kill anything left in the tank. Siphon/stir the bottom up really well once the H2O2 is in the tank to eliminate the worms if they are concerning you. Then drain the tank and refill, and restart your cycle before adding any livestock.

I'm sorry about your snails, it's hard to lose any pet, and especially hard to lose multiples at once.

[Cinnebuns]

On 4/13/2022 at 6:06 PM, Torrey said:

What were your water parameters? How long had you had the mysteries? What were the mysteries eating?

So this is what's confusing about their death. I have TONS of snails in my main tank and never a problem so I don't think it's a husbandry issue. Parameters were perfect short of maybe you can nit pick the nitrate but not with plants. Ammonia-0. Nitrite-0. Nitrate-10. PH-8.2. GH-19. KH-12. I even tested copper and 0. 

The first mystery snail I had for about a month. I had an issue where some food ended up rotting right next to him. This caused an ammonia spike of which he got a bad dose of since he was right next to the rot. Water change, good gravel vac, and many air baths later and he was doing great for like 2 days. Then he did move for weeks. I did 2 sometimes 3x a week water changes in fear it was nitrate. I did almost daily air baths, sometimes multiple times a day. 3 weeks later he died.

The day he died a friend wanted to get rid of 2 so I took them. The first day they were active and fine. When I woke up the next morning one was floating and one was in active. Air baths, water changes, Yada Yada, found dead after about a week. 

Now, it's POSSIBLE that the first one never got over the ammonia poisoning and the 2 I got were already sick. I tend to wanna cross off all possible issues before assuming that and identifying these worms is a part of that. I also tend to think that if that were true, the 2 at the end wouldn't have been as active for the first 12 hours. 

This is likely nothing, but again I'm trying to figure it out before dunking another snail in the tank of death. About a month ago I put some unhealthy Java moss in the tank. Ever since I have a lot of dead plant waste I am constantly cleaning up. I get it all good then within a week I see some clinging to the filter intake or floating. I would assume tho that if that were an issue it would show up as an ammonia spike. But idk. 

[Torrey]

On 4/13/2022 at 5:29 PM, Cinnebuns said:

This is likely nothing, but again I'm trying to figure it out before dunking another snail in the tank of death. About a month ago I put some unhealthy Java moss in the tank. Ever since I have a lot of dead plant waste I am constantly cleaning up. I get it all good then within a week I see some clinging to the filter intake or floating. I would assume tho that if that were an issue it would show up as an ammonia spike. But idk. 

I know I had an ammonia spike, because I had a fish die. But I have enough beneficial bacteria that the spike of a plant death, a fish death, or food fouling the water (happened when I got covid, and wiped out my shrimp) can be dealt with by the beneficial bacteria before I can test.

That has been my experience at least, especially in smaller tanks. Due to the tiny amount of water, a spike can be really high, sudden, and disappear almost as fast. Only time I catch it is if I have test strips and I am home to test every hour around the clock (I was actually compiling data for 24 hour nitrate fluctuations, and test strips are easier than shaking my arm off with API, so I got more data... no clue what intuition made me decide to also test ammonia), so I know it does happen... and livestock suffers when it happens. Part of why my smallest tanks house amphipods and small snails instead of anything that can produce noticeable waste. An hour after I fed my tank, I had an ammonia spike.

[Cinnebuns]

On 4/13/2022 at 7:19 PM, Torrey said:

I know I had an ammonia spike, because I had a fish die. But I have enough beneficial bacteria that the spike of a plant death, a fish death, or food fouling the water (happened when I got covid, and wiped out my shrimp) can be dealt with by the beneficial bacteria before I can test.

That has been my experience at least, especially in smaller tanks. Due to the tiny amount of water, a spike can be really high, sudden, and disappear almost as fast. Only time I catch it is if I have test strips and I am home to test every hour around the clock (I was actually compiling data for 24 hour nitrate fluctuations, and test strips are easier than shaking my arm off with API, so I got more data... no clue what intuition made me decide to also test ammonia), so I know it does happen... and livestock suffers when it happens. Part of why my smallest tanks house amphipods and small snails instead of anything that can produce noticeable waste. An hour after I fed my tank, I had an ammonia spike.

I don't remember the exact number tbh, but I do remember the API test wasn't super high. Probably 0.5 ppm tbh. But I know since he was laying right next to the rotting food he got a higher concentration than that

[Torrey]

On 4/13/2022 at 7:41 PM, Cinnebuns said:

I don't remember the exact number tbh, but I do remember the API test wasn't super high. Probably 0.5 ppm tbh. But I know since he was laying right next to the rotting food he got a higher concentration than that

Snails are even more susceptible to ammonia than fish. 0.5 ppm ammonia is sufficient to burn fish gills and reduce the fish's resiliency for future water quality or de-oxygenation events. For mystrey snails, I imagine it's even more of an impact. Even my pond and bladder snails would have a higher risk of death with 0.5 ppm ammonia, and the higher the pH/temp of the water, the more damage even low doses of ammonia cause.

 Here's a great chart and expalantion regarding toxicity... but it doesn't fully cover how events that aren't toxic immediately can still damage lungs / gills/ slimecoat or external tissue in in snails.

 

[Biotope Biologist]

That’s a nematode and if you are suddenly having snails die it likely is a parasite of them. 
 

Fenbendazole is an effective remedy, use a smaller dosage with snails then what’s on the package

Edited April 14, 2022 by Biotope Biologist

[Torrey]

On 4/13/2022 at 9:06 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

That’s a nematode and if you are suddenly having snails die it likely is a parasite of them. 

Biotope Biologist thank you for the ID!!!

@Cinnebuns I was incorrect on the potential for them to be an issue, I apologize.

Biotope Biologist, would the H2O2 approach be the best method for eradication, since nothing is left in the tank?

[Biotope Biologist]

On 4/13/2022 at 8:10 PM, Torrey said:

Biotope Biologist thank you for the ID!!!

@Cinnebuns I was incorrect on the potential for them to be an issue, I apologize.

Biotope Biologist, would the H2O2 approach be the best method for eradication, since nothing is left in the tank?

Nematodes that actually parasitize aquatic snails are considerably rare, so most aquarists hopefully should never have to deal with them. Usually they use aquatic snails as primary or secondary hosts that then infect mammals or waterfowl. 
 

I updated my post with likely the least intrusive medicine I know. Maybe @Colu could help me out on the medication side of things.

[Colu]

On 4/14/2022 at 4:15 AM, Biotope Biologist said:

updated my post with likely the least intrusive medicine I know. Maybe @Colu could help me out on the medication side of things.

The most effective treatment for nematode worms is fenbendazole here's a couple of medication containing fenbendazole you can also use panacur c as that contains fenbendazole it not snail safe if you plan on adding snails back in this tank in the future run active carbon for a couple of weeks and do reqular water changes to dilute the medication as it can linger for a couple of weeks @Cinnebuns

Edited April 14, 2022 by Colu
Typo

[Cinnebuns]

Ty so much guys!  Huge help!  Since the tank is currently occupied and I have no rush to do so, I will take my time and make sure it's fully flushed out. 

@Colu @Biotope Biologist since it is only a 10 gallon, which I could likely find used for cheap, I'm wondering if it would be safe to use the filter and heater but toss everything else. Substrate, decor, tank all gone. I'm wondering if honestly that might be cheaper than treating the tank. Especially considering I'm not attached to any of the decor. The filter isn't amazing but buying a new filter and heater would be some expense that could change the decision. 

[Cinnebuns]

 

@Colu @Biotope Biologist 

Now that I say that I do have some paracleanse on hand and that's it's active ingredient. Too tired to math I think haha

Edited April 14, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Cinnebuns]

@Biotope Biologist I just thought of one more thing. It sounds like what you are saying they do, IF they are parasitic, is infected the snail in hopes it gets eaten by mammals or fowl correct?  The reason I ask is for concern of myself or my cats. It sounds like it requires a way to get into the digestive tract. That means I'm safe cause I don't make a habit of drinking tank water. My 13 year old cat is safe but I have a curious 10 month old cat that is a little too in love with the tanks. I can't say if she has or has not drank the water.   

 

[Colu]

The eggs of nematode worms can be in your filter media and your substrate and other things in the the tank you could empty the tank get rid of the filter media substrate then  sterilise the heater and filter and tank with a 10% hydrogen peroxide solution then rise with dechlorinated water and leave your heater filter and leave your tank empty for a couple of weeks to  dry paracleanse active ingredient is praziquantel and metronidazole doesn't treat nematode worms  

Edited April 14, 2022 by Colu

[Biotope Biologist]

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On 4/13/2022 at 9:11 PM, Cinnebuns said:

@Biotope Biologist I just thought of one more thing. It sounds like what you are saying they do, IF they are parasitic, is infected the snail in hopes it gets eaten by mammals or fowl correct?  The reason I ask is for concern of myself or my cats. It sounds like it requires a way to get into the digestive tract. That means I'm safe cause I don't make a habit of drinking tank water. My 13 year old cat is safe but I have a curious 10 month old cat that is a little too in love with the tanks. I can't say if she has or has not drank the water.   

 

I should clarify. There are species of nematode that only parasitize aquatic snails. There are others who infect aquatic snails as part of their life cycle. These nematodes make it into the digestive tracts of mammals and waterfowl through ingesting of the host snail. The two nematodes are very different and very specialized. 

[Cinnebuns]

@Biotope Biologist I keep thinking of things lol. 

I have had issues with dead plant matter in this tank. Is it possible that's why they are there and what they are feeding on?

[Odd Duck]

Definitely looks more like some kind of nematode, most of which are not parasitic.  It’s for certain not a planaria, leach, or other more common parasite of snails.  Fenbendazole is effective, but will wipe out many species of snail and may make it impossible to keep certain species of snails in the tank for a very long time unless the substrate and any absorbant hardscape is replaced.  I’m not at all sure that horsehair worm is correct, but it’s not a species I recognize.

On 4/13/2022 at 11:36 PM, Cinnebuns said:

@Biotope Biologist I keep thinking of things lol. 

I have had issues with dead plant matter in this tank. Is it possible that's why they are there and what they are feeding on?

Yes, they could be feeding on dead plant matter.  It’s far less likely to be parasitic than be a free-living nematode minding its own business, living its best life, just trying to clean up some debris.