How to catch all the shrimp in a tall curved tank, so I can get rid of the leeches? Please give my your thoughts.

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist Really, you think it is a snail leech? Bummer.  So I should take down both tanks and clean them? 

I was planning on a salt and vinegar scrub. Do you think that will kill eggs as well as adults?

[Biotope Biologist]

Have you noticed any snail death(I may have neglected to read this?) I’ve read mixed things about whether they actually predate or parasitize snails. And now that I’m down the rabbit hole I’m finding that the young of Glossiphonia will actually attack and parasitize Erpobdola punctata……

 

I am nerding out at perhaps an inappropriate time. I don’t know if taking down the tanks will actually get rid of them. Especially since they are likely also hiding in snail shells. I think the best you can do is manage their population and collect and remove the adults when you can.

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist not a lot of snail deaths.  but there are some empty shells. I have been thinning the ramshorns and bladder snails out for someone who sells them to puffer owners. I am wondering if these leeches tending to go after them rather than try to chase down the mystery snails. Now that the ramshorn and bladder snail populations are getting lower, they might seek out the mystery snails. The tank had low calcium for a while, so the snail shells where very weak. That and old age is what I thought might have caused the deaths. One mystery snail looked like it was missing part of a foot for a while. but I haven't noticed it lately.

(The tank kept getting cloudy so I pull a bunch of plants and put the through reverse respiration in hopes of increasing the flow and clear the tank some. That didn't work, so I pulls the drift wood. I haven't seen much of the substrate in ages because of all the plants. Tank is still cloudy, but I think it is improving.)

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist I don't mind you nerding out (or as I grew up with in college "knirding out").

My half cylinder has neocaridina shrimp and random snails. My 55 has fish and mystery snails and random snails. I have had problems with pH dropping in both tanks. I think from the potting soil, so I was planning it take down the tanks to fix the pH and the leeches at the same time. The tanks have had the leeches for awhile, and have not done a lot of damage, but the shrimp colony is not growing much, and now that I have collected a lot of random snails from the other tank, I am worried the mystery snails might be in danger.

[Biotope Biologist]

The pH dropping might be more related to the plants respiring and general biological processes. The soil pH is low 5.5-6.5 depending on the soil, but I would think overtime it would stop acidifying the water. I use organic soil in my tank, but my water has stayed pretty consistently high in gh and kh and my pH is stable at 6.8-7.0. Granted I do have high gh and kh from the tap to help stabilize the pH. I would think that crushed coral would be enough to offset this? But everyone’s tank is a little different.

 

As for the snail leeches. I believe you might be correct on the pond and ramshorn snails being easier prey. The mystery snails they would only be able to parasitize if anything which is stressful but not going to ‘kill’ them perse.

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist I was planning on emptying the tanks and tossing the substrate and cleaning the tank, while keeping the snails in a bare bottom QT tank to look for leeches. and put everything but the fish and the snails through reverse respiration. You think the leeches will come back anyway?

I could leave all the random snails out for the person who sells them. I have moved healthy snails in to my two temp 15 gallon tanks with the cory fry. I figured those tanks were leech free because I didn't move plants or filters or substrate.  If the snails might have been carrying the leeches, then it does look hopeless. 

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist We switched to RO/di system because our tap had way off the scale Mg, no Ca and lots of ammonia. So now I am using equilibrium, but it doesn't last very long with all the plants and livestock and potting soil. We never drank the water here. but now that we have RO/DI, we drink that rather than luggin drinking water in to the cottage.  We are at the swampy end of the lake. No one drinks the water here. Wonderful wildlife. Lots of semi floating driftwood so only very minimal slow boat traffic. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by KittenFishMom

[Biotope Biologist]

Ah I see! Remineralization could be a better bet? Sounds like a beautiful home! I’ve always liked the swampy end of lakes for the critters, but yeah not so great for the water quality.

 

I managed to completely eliminate my leeches by just removing the adults. I know mine were natives that didn’t come in on plants so I just dropped them in a creek. I have a hard time killing things I find….. cute. I’m not sure if the juveniles didn’t have a good food source or if they got eaten by fish but they never came back.

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist We have 2 cottages/camps, side by side to sell this summer. They are on the swampy end of Owasco Lake in NY. It is a wonderful place if you know anyone in the looking for a great place to watch wildlife. The Great Blue Herons stand next to my baited minnow traps and pick off the minnows as they approach the traps. The shore is about 20 feet from the front of the cottage we are keeping. If we move too fast inside, they take off.

I am pretty sure flagfish will eat leeches, but they tend to pick on other fish. I got some females shipped from Florida this winter. They kept spoking the peppered corys. I rehomed the flagfish. Now I wish I had had kept them separately.

I don't release things from my tropical tank. I don't want to spread a pathogen to the creatures in the lake have very been exposed to.  My first aquarium was 120 gallon for native fish and creatures. I was very careful not to put anything in the tank that didn't come for the lake or the soil around the cottage. In the fall, I rehome some including mudpuppies, to a nature center and others to a DEC display tank. That was when I found out it was illegal to keep native species in NY, so I went tropical. The DEC person wasn't in enforcement, so I didn't get in trouble. He was happy to get the well fed healthy fish.

P.S. The camps are less than half the price of anything else on the lake. The are not showy expensive places, just fun campy places.

Edited April 12, 2023 by KittenFishMom

[KittenFishMom]

@Biotope Biologist I sometimes wonder if I bought native NY fish from a breeder outside the of NY if it would still count as keeping natives. I had some much fun studying the eating habits of the fish I would catch while fishing. I had 75 perch in the tank at one point in late August. 70+ bullhead fry I netted while the parents were guarding them. That is where the "KittenFishMom" name came from. They were so much fun to raise. I had never had fry before and did a lot of research very quickly to find out how to feed them. In the spring and fall I have the tank full of big bullheads. I was alway adding things from the minnow trap.  Lots of fresh plants from the lake filled with little yummy creatures.  It was so much fun.

[r3dbullxxx]

I know this is old and all, but I think it's not a leech, it's this: https://katherinedarrow.blogspot.com/2013/08/water-tigers.html 

[r3dbullxxx]

On 4/11/2023 at 4:49 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

How do you know they are snail leeches vs a different type of leech?

When I watched her video it sounded like those leeches killed her snail in 24 hrs. Are your leeches killing that fast?

She got hers from putting outdoor things from ponds into her aquarium.

Freshwater leeches are the most common that I've seen in 30+ years....I've never had any come in on snails/mysteries....but, I have caught them wild attached to plants and shrimp, and when I got a mini-colony of bloodworms to begin cultivating. It has a distinct pattern, and this isn't it. If you google it, it's got a stripe and it runs down the middle. It also moves like an inchworm....front-end then back-end, repeat...it doesn't wiggle to move...it "inches". 

 

Now...it is possible that the wild leeches are attacking/killing the captive bred snails because most things wild have a killer instinct that captive animals can't compete with...I run and mod a bunch of groups on FB and breed certain things...mystery snails being one. They are easy enough to remove, but you don't have this. 🙂IMO, you have these, which are beetle larvae:

 

 

 

 

but then again, I could be wrong: 

Edited April 7 by r3dbullxxx