red worms? or just fancy poo?

[Stuquarium]

hi guys.

doing a gravel clean on the tanks this morning i noticed this pretty think peices of discus poo.

i ignore it and vac it up, looking in the bucket after the 1st 20 litres i notice this peice off "poo" is wrigly around pretty serverly

its pretty much red in color. and after the waters settles in the bucket its still wriggling around..

i found another one in another bucket.. thinner shorter but still doing the same kind of thing.

do my discus have worms? (how do i treat it?) or am i imagining things?

[Bill T.]

I wonder if you have been feeding them some live blood worms? Some of these may have scaped into the substrate & lived on?

[Stuquarium]

nope never.

granulars, brine shrimp, beefheart and some flakes.

it certainly looks like a blood worm though now tha you mention it..

[Merrilyn]

They can also come in on live plants from the aquarium shop.

Nothing to worry about. They make good fish food. Just be sure to do a thorough gravel vac each time to keep the population down. :P

[Stuquarium]

even if i havent added a live plant for a month?

cool..
well i'll keep an eye out cheers

[Proteus]

BTW, you cannot buy LIVE Blood worms, and if you coould, I would suggest you never feed it to fish.

Prior to frozen bloodworms being packaged, they are rinsed between 1-3 times and UV treated as they carry pathogens which can be deadly it not removed.

[Merrilyn]

I think we mean live Blackworms :wink:

[marg]

Hi Ladyred, just the person I would like to talk to regarding worming.

At the risk of sounding dumb, I recall reading somewhere that Praziquantel and Droncit are the same thing. With that in mind I went to my Dog Meds box and found a pack of Bayer Droncit there. They are packed in silver foil, labelled droncit ad.us.vet 50mg praziquantel.

Is this the same Praziquantel that you talk about for worming, and if so, what ratio to water would you use?

[Merrilyn]

My concern is if the dog wormer is going to be water soluble. I guess it's probably the same stuff.

The dose rate is 100mg per 20 litres of tank water, according to the directions on the Aquamaster Gill fluke and Tape worm tablets, which is also Praziquantel.

I've never used this product (except on my dog lol). Maybe a quick call to the vet might be a good idea.

[marg]

Okay, I'll give her a call tomorrow and let you know what she says. I would say it would be water soluble though - it is a tablet about the size of a Disprin.

[PJP]

those red worms you're finding may also be leaches
they're sometimes in blackworms servings and they like to also hang around the roots of plants
I had them in my 4ft communtiy tank and probably still do cos they just stay in the gravel and the fish don't eat them either

I was told that they can be a problem but aren't usually a worry unless you see your fish getting ill