Yet another "what is it?" question..

[TankGirl]

This morning right after lights-on I was peeking into a cave in my 12-gal puffer/barb tank and saw a slender, white thread-like thing waving in the current, like a plant root would if it was out of the substrate. Then I realized that 1) I have only java fern in there, and 2) there is minimal current in that cave! I watched carefully and yes, it was ALIVE!

I was so freaked out that I took the tank completely down and cleaned the tank, decorations and sand, preserving my specimen. Luckily I had some Bio-Spira on hand and just set the tank back up like it was a new setup, and put the puffers back in, moving the barbs into the 44 since they are getting crowded in there. But anyway...

I have the thing in a dish and it is 3 inches long and looks just like a white thread, without any variation in diameter from end to end, though one end appears to be slightly pointy. Hubby has the digicam with him at work today so no pics, but it really does look like a white thread, except that it can move on its own. It was burrowed in the sand completely when I went after it. I have read about tiny white worms that burrow in the substrate, but this is, no lie, 3 inches long. It was the only of its kind in the sand. I recently put some tiny ghost shrimp in there for my puffers so I guess it could have come in with them, but otherwise the tank has been sitting like this for almost a year, with no new plants or anything. Any ideas?

 

[snapcrackler]

I'd say it's a horsehair worm.

Is it active & wriggly?

yes they are freaky looking because it's like a hair that came alive

 

[TankGirl]

It is not terribly active, not "writhing" or anything, just gently waving back and forth, like a thread waving in current. I will have to do a search on horsehair worms!

 

[Tigerlily]

eeeek eeeek EEEEEEK!

8O

(Jeez, I'm such a girl sometimes... hope I don't find anything creepy like that anytime soon!)

 

[TankGirl]

It has totally creeeeped me out, and I am a medical person who has seen it all, even leeches used to keep muscle flaps alive!!!

My husband is tickled and thinks it is just the coolest thing, and can't wait to get home and see it. 8O I hope I can stand to have the thing sitting on the counter in the plastic dish until he gets here...

 

[Allivymar]

Heh, welcome to the world of nematodes.

Nematodes are ubiquitous; its written if you remove all the stuff in the world except them, for example, you'd still know where the trees were cause there would be an outline in nematodes.

Most of em are harmless; they show up when theres something to eat; usually found in puffer and oscar tanks, although I've certainly had my share of outbreaks. Realised I had em when the white things I thought were roots coming up in gravel vacs were moving by themselves LOL There are those that are dangerous to fishies, like anchor worms, but those found in the substrate are harmless, just icky.

You've likely eradicated them by redoing the tank; the best way to get rid of em is reduce the amount of food for em, although I discovered clown loaches think they're yummy.

 

[snapcrackler]

hehe... well i wonder what yours is, the horsehair worms I have seen in our pond are really squirmy and very active.

I will be interested to see the picture

I have a 10g snail/betta/frog tank that has some lake-harvested plants in it, and man there's some weird stuff riding around in there right now.

 

[TankGirl]

I did not think nematodes got this big! I have had the tiny ones on the glass before, back in my old days of infrequent gravel vacs, but this guy is a whopper. It looks like a giant size round worm that dogs get. Anyway, you can believe that I am going to be even more vigilant. I generally give my sand a stir every water change (every 3 days) but obviously the cave did not get it often.

I think this tank is going to become my krib tank, there is a mated pair at my good LFS that I have my eye on. When I removed the tiger barbs for the bigger tank, the puffers are now fighting a lot and I am concerned about an all out bloodbath. The territories got disturbed when I moved everyone out, and even though I put things back the way they were, the dynamic is different without the barbs. I might just return them to the LFS, who has been getting a lot of requests for them but they don't carry them generally.

The cave will do well for krib spawning but I won't want to vac inside it for fear of disturbing the kribs, so I hope I can keep things clean enough that this does not happen again. Little weensy worms are one thing, 3" is another story! My 10-year-old just got home and she wants to take it to school. Good riddance....

 

[Allivymar]

Heh not to be totally gross, but heres a link to the internet nematode webpage. You'll note, some species get to be 8 meters long LOL you're guy is just a weenie compared to that http://nematode.unl.edu/wormgen.htm

Mine were a good 2 inches long when I found em; they might have gotten larger but the loaches chowed on em.

 

[TankGirl]

Well I did not see that site on my google search (or did not get to it yet) but I found a very similar article on Aquarium Frontiers Library and now my biology is slowly coming back to me... These are the same things that live in the guts of animals, so no wonder they look like the worms that puppies have! I had just never seen them this big in an aquarium, especially when there was only one (thank goodness). I sifted the sand completely and rinsed it thoroughly, and found no more. It is also noted that they prefer sand to burrow in, so that was the perfect little home for him. I know I overreacted by nuking my tank, because when I had them before I just upped my water changes and was more careful about overfeeding and keeping crud off the gravel, and they disappeared. However, if I kept him in there I would have had to name him.

P.S. Thanks very much for your help - I do feel better now!

 

[Madame_X]

Tankgirl, by any chance, do you have ghost shrimp in this tank?

I discovered something similar in my tank last week. I was worried that it might be a reoccurrence of camallanus but it just didn't look right to me. Then the next day, my ghost shrimp started swimming laps around the tank over and over. He was clearly stressed out but I figured it was due to the plant ferts I had just added to the tank.

Well, I looked over about 10 minutes later and noticed about a 4" white worm coming out of his body! 8O Needless to say I was quite freaked out about it and ran for the net.

Funny thing was I had taken a picture of the shrimp earlier in the day and I should have noticed it. Look at the picture of the ghost shrimp in my gallery--you can see it inside of him.

I Googled everything I could think of to find information on this and all I could find was that it was a common parasite that appears inside of ghost shrimp and usually kills them when it comes out. When it does, it looks for another shrimp to infect, but I could find no evidence that this would affect my fish in any way. This particular shrimp was quite large so he survived, and since I saw it I was able to remove the worm from the tank. He has no evidence of worms inside him anymore--but I'm keeping my eyes on him!

 

[TankGirl]

I am amazed - that is EXACTLY what happened!

I kept telling my husband that the only thing new in the tank in months was the ghost shrimp that I just purchased about two days before, and maybe this thing rode in with them. The other incidental occurrence in the tank was the remarkable die-off of ghost shrimp! I could not figure out why the shrimp were dying, and nothing was eating them, even other ghost shrimp (sorry folks, but they do usually chow down on their fallen comrades). I did not really think much about the shrimp, but I did decide to discard all of the remaining shrimp in case they had some kind of problem.

I looked at the picture in your gallery, and that is just what this thing looked like. I know it is still a nematode, but of the gut-dwelling variety. Apparently they spend some time in parasitic mode and some time on their own outside a host. I never noticed it in the shrimp, but like you, I could have easily missed it.

Thank you for your story!

 

[Allivymar]

Well...YUCK LOL

Good thing to know tho! I'll definitely keep this one in mind.

 

[TankGirl]

I think everyone who purchases ghost shrimp should have a look at Madame_X's ghost shrimp photo - it is a public service!

 

[Sati]

Thanks, I'm going to go and vomit now. Bye

 

[TankGirl]

Well this will make a great story to tell at the table at Thanksgiving! You can't have too many of those...

Everyone thought they had me trained to refrain from telling my medical stories at the table, now this!