Temno flatworms on yabby with eggs

[Lach_Lan]

I have a tank with two yabbies, one male and one female. I’ve only had it for a few months but recently I’ve noticed what’s turned out to be little temno flatworms on them both. I tried a salt bath but it didn’t work and today I went to redo it with more salt but I found that the female one has eggs. Am I able to do a salt bath on her still or will this kill her eggs? Am I better off just leaving them alone? Any help Is appreciated, thankyou

[ADsnail]

Hi - don't worry. Yabbies (called crawfish in the northern hemisphere and crayfish by cajuns in the U.S. south) attract different worms sometimes, but temnos are what's called "friendly flatworms". Meaning they don't harm the yabbies, they're just hitching a ride to to take advantage of other organisms (their meals) attracted to the yabby. They don't feed on the crawfish itself.

A salt bath is really the way to get rid of them, so I'm surprised it didn't work. A full 5 minutes of dip is required, and while that's going on, cleaning the tank - full clean, as much as possible, meaning water change, wipe the glass, rinse filter, and vac - is a good idea. If you do all this (and if you didn't, you can do it again, the whole deal) that should be the end of it.

Keeping in mind that no one is in danger, it just looks icky and unsightly.

The salt won't harm your female; simply put, eggs are on the inside and salt is on the outside of her shell. The main risk is the stress of putting her through this.

So, choices:

Leave the temnos until after the children are born, so as not to stress her? Then you'll have cleanup at some point with a whole lot of crustaceans (I wouldn't put the babies in a salt bath, their shells are too soft. I'd just set them aside and pick off any worms by hand).

Another salt bath now with full clean? How to soothe your female if you think she's stressed - croon lullabies to her?

Or leave the whole matter alone, as again, no one's being hurt, it just looks bit like horror film in there?

[ADsnail]

There's an additional issue too: a high risk of cannibalism in these fellows. Male/female, parents/children, children/children. So you will have some separating to do after they're born, which would be the opportunity to clean everyone and everything and eradicate the whole problem.

[Lach_Lan]

Hey mate thanks for the reply.
I’m not sure about other crayfish but yabbies carry their eggs under their tail so if I put her in a salt bath the eggs will also be exposed to the salt water. I think I will probably just leave it until after the eggs have hatched as the babies will be getting moved to another tank so I can just clear out the adults tank of the worms.
Thanks for the help and information

[ADsnail]

I stand corrected. Thanks for teaching me about that difference!

[ADsnail]

I just consulted with my friend the crawfish expert--all crays carry their eggs under the spinnerette, it turns out. I don't breed them but he does; he had to do a salt bath on a berrying cray once. I don't know if I would chance it but that one time turned out fine for him--all parties survived.

[Autumnsky]

Lach_Lan, what did you end up doing? How's it going?

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

How much salt did you use and what sort of salt?

Salt baths are generally useless because you stress the animal by chasing and catching it, then putting it into salt water, then catching it and putting it back in fresh water. You are better off adding salt directly to the tank and leaving it in there for 2 weeks.

The Salt we use to treat fish is sodium chloride that is free of anti-caking agents.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.