Pet Information > ASK Experts > Exotic Pets > Turtles > Turtle and worms

Turtle and worms

22 16:38:56

Question
I have had my eastern painted male turtle for about 14 years now. I have him in a well filtered tank - I recently noticed these brown tiny worms about 3mm long and as thin as a peice of hair.   I have not fed him anything but Reptomin food pellets from Petsmart for months and suddenly I find these worms at the bottom of his tank and the bottom of the filters (they look dead) no movement seen.   But there were hundreds of them.  I drained the entire tank and disenfected everything.  I am keeping my turtle in another tank to see if the worms come from his feces.  Do you know what they are?  Could a bug or fly have laid eggs in my tank?  I can't believe this has happened after all these years with no problems.  What is your experience with this?  Thanks for your time,

Lindsay

Answer
Ah, the mystery worms. This happens to many keepers and no one is totally sure where they come from. The two main theories are some batches of pet food are contaminated, or they are coming from the turtle (all turtles carry some parasitic worms internally, but for various reasons, they may just dump a bunch at a time.)

They do not seem to be a real problem. Clean things up and don't sweat it much unless it happens several more times.