Worm identification

[Frecklefly]

Hi there. I wasn’t sure if this was the right place to post this or not. I have a 120gallon with barbs, bosemani rainbows and danios they are all quite healthy and have no issues. My parameters are pH 7, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 20 nitrates. My tank is a medium planted tank and has a small gravel. I use botanicals for tannins (acorns and cattapa leaves that I boil before putting in the tank). I have a canister filter that I clean every few months when the flow decreases.

I was cleaning my canister a couple days ago and noticed some reddy brown worms in the filter. I have done a lot of googling and they look similar to camallanus. But they are only in my filter as far as I can tell. No fish have worms hanging from them and there are none in the main tank.

Is it possible for camallanus to live solely in my filter? I have tons of pest snails living in my filter maybe they are a host? Any other ideas of what they could be?

[SteffeyJ]

Hello!
I dont know a whole lot of worms, but I've dealt with a few..
Do any of your fish appear bloated??
Have you introduced any new plants recently or anything that could have come from a pond??
Do you gravel vac??
I keep a 'pond tank' where everything in it came from a friends pond. As you can imagine, MANY MANY pest snails. But also, many many worms. And they look similar to this..
Would it be possible for them to be red worms??
Do they look segmented? (Hard to tell from the pic)
The worms in my pond tank look very similar, reddish brownish- blackish.. lol
I hope, for your fish's sake they are just red worms and not camallanus..
Best of luck!!!

[Frecklefly]

Originally Posted by SteffeyJ

Hello!
I dont know a whole lot of worms, but I've dealt with a few..
Do any of your fish appear bloated??
Have you introduced any new plants recently or anything that could have come from a pond??
Do you gravel vac??
I keep a 'pond tank' where everything in it came from a friends pond. As you can imagine, MANY MANY pest snails. But also, many many worms. And they look similar to this..
Would it be possible for them to be red worms??
Do they look segmented? (Hard to tell from the pic)
The worms in my pond tank look very similar, reddish brownish- blackish.. lol
I hope, for your fish's sake they are just red worms and not camallanus..
Best of luck!!!

I gravel vac every time I do a water change which is every week or two. All my fish are happy as can be no signs of sickness at all. I wouldn’t have even noticed the worms if I hadn’t cleaned my canister. I’ve googled everything I can think of. No new plants or anything. I was thinking maybe Asian freshwater leeches. I’m almost 100% sure they’re not camellanus thank goodness. They don’t appear to segmented and they inch along.