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White worms in the tank.

23 16:16:33

Question
My husband just discovered the planaria worms about 10:00pm last night.
By 2:00 am every fish in that tank was dead. Do you think there could be any connection with the white worms? It was a fairly new tank. We've had it for a couple of months. No ich, the tank was well maintained. Another thing, we caught a crawdad at our local pond about a year ago and have had it in our other tank since then. He was then moved to the new tank about two months ago. He also died. The crawdad got pretty spastic right before he died. We are just really baffled by this occurence. If the white worms didn't kill our fish, any guesses on what it could have been??


Answer
The crawfish is the likely culprit. The only problem with mixing wild and store bought fish is that the wild fish are use to specific conditions and may also carry certain parasites that the other fish cannot handle, and vice versa. The worms, which I assume look like little tiny white worms on your glass and gravel, should not have had this affect. Those tiny white worms are simply signs that your tank is alittle overdue on a good cleaning. They are not bad and have never killed anything in my experience. The only way to rid yourself of these ugly guys is to regularly clean and make sure you do not overfeed. Again, the little white worms should not have caused this problem. Also, the crawfish could have also killed some of your fish before it died. The thing about crawfish is that they should be kept alone or in a tank with an equally aggressive fish, which there are not that many who fit the specifics.

Bottom line, the crawfish, being wild, could have brough something the fish in your tank could not handle and that is why they died. Also, the fish in your tank could have given something to the crawfish that it could not have handled. The worms had been in your tank for a while, you just did not notice them. Just because you noticed them the other night does not mean they were not there for a while. The worms should have not had a fatal effect on your fish and are not the problem. I suggest completely cleaning the tank and re-placing the gravel and filter media. In the future I also suggest not adding any wild fish to any tank with store bought fish. I hope this helps. Please feel free to let me know if you need anything else or have anything else to add to help me pinpoint more specifically the problems you had. Good luck.