What is this fish parasite??

Tonight while feeding some baby angelfish my wife noticed something in their
tank. There was a very hard to see "thing" in with the fish. The thing was
much smaller than a human hair and was .25" in length. It had a bump at one
end that I would presume is its head. It was white all over.

After finding this in our baby tank, we looked at our 75 G. adult tank.
Amazingly, we spotted one of them near the top of the tank. It was the same
as the other, but was .5" long.

The fish stayed away from this and did not try and eat it. (They get live
baby brine shrimp regularly and are used to live foods.)

What is this thing likely to be? Is it a concern? How do we get rid of
these? I'd assume they're more that we're not seeing.

Tony

"Tony" wrote in
:

Tonight while feeding some baby angelfish my wife noticed something in
their tank. There was a very hard to see "thing" in with the fish.
The thing was much smaller than a human hair and was .25" in length.
It had a bump at one end that I would presume is its head. It was
white all over.

After finding this in our baby tank, we looked at our 75 G. adult
tank. Amazingly, we spotted one of them near the top of the tank. It
was the same as the other, but was .5" long.

The fish stayed away from this and did not try and eat it. (They get
live baby brine shrimp regularly and are used to live foods.)

What is this thing likely to be? Is it a concern? How do we get rid
of these? I'd assume they're more that we're not seeing.

Tony




Might be Hydra. See if you can get one under a microscope or high-power
magnifying glass to see if it has tentacles. If it is a Hydra, my book
(Baensch) says they need live food to survive. So you should be able to
starve them by stopping feedings of live food for a while. My book also
says they are only a danger to fry -- not adult fish.

Meph

"Mephistopheles" wrote in
message ...
"Tony" wrote in
:

Tonight while feeding some baby angelfish my wife noticed something
in
their tank. There was a very hard to see "thing" in with the fish.
The thing was much smaller than a human hair and was .25" in length.
It had a bump at one end that I would presume is its head. It was
white all over.

After finding this in our baby tank, we looked at our 75 G. adult
tank. Amazingly, we spotted one of them near the top of the tank.
It
was the same as the other, but was .5" long.

The fish stayed away from this and did not try and eat it. (They
get
live baby brine shrimp regularly and are used to live foods.)

What is this thing likely to be? Is it a concern? How do we get
rid
of these? I'd assume they're more that we're not seeing.

Tony




Might be Hydra. See if you can get one under a microscope or
high-power
magnifying glass to see if it has tentacles. If it is a Hydra, my
book
(Baensch) says they need live food to survive. So you should be able
to
starve them by stopping feedings of live food for a while. My book
also
says they are only a danger to fry -- not adult fish.

Meph

I recognize the description and have those things in my Angel tanks as
well. I am sure its not a hydra....but I do not know what the little
worm is called. Its round.....can swim by wiggling....inhabit
filters.....especially sponge types.......

Angels do not eat them.........they basically ignore them.....they do
not seem to be a parasite.

I have seen this question asked many times, but I do not recall an
answer that I could swallow all the way. They appear to eat
mulm/uneaten food/poop.......

I have gotten rid of them using clorox......A good cleaning vacuuming
and cleaning the filter media real well does not get rid of them. I
always figured they laid eggs or something else does......Clorox does
it, but a lot of effort when they apparently are no serious
threat....but that's my opinion and I do not know what they are....

"Racf" wrote in news:bg0n18$ve2$1
@slb6.atl.mindspring.net:


"Mephistopheles" wrote in
message ...
"Tony" wrote in
:

Tonight while feeding some baby angelfish my wife noticed something
in their tank. There was a very hard to see "thing" in with the
fish. The thing was much smaller than a human hair and was .25" in
length. It had a bump at one end that I would presume is its head.
It was white all over.

After finding this in our baby tank, we looked at our 75 G. adult
tank. Amazingly, we spotted one of them near the top of the tank. It
was the same as the other, but was .5" long.

The fish stayed away from this and did not try and eat it. (They
get live baby brine shrimp regularly and are used to live foods.)

What is this thing likely to be? Is it a concern? How do we get
rid of these? I'd assume they're more that we're not seeing.

Tony




Might be Hydra. See if you can get one under a microscope or
high-power magnifying glass to see if it has tentacles. If it is a
Hydra, my book (Baensch) says they need live food to survive. So you
should be able to starve them by stopping feedings of live food for a
while. My book also says they are only a danger to fry -- not adult
fish.

Meph

I recognize the description and have those things in my Angel tanks as
well. I am sure its not a hydra....but I do not know what the little
worm is called. Its round.....can swim by wiggling....inhabit
filters.....especially sponge types.......

Angels do not eat them.........they basically ignore them.....they do
not seem to be a parasite.

I have seen this question asked many times, but I do not recall an
answer that I could swallow all the way. They appear to eat
mulm/uneaten food/poop.......

I have gotten rid of them using clorox......A good cleaning vacuuming
and cleaning the filter media real well does not get rid of them. I
always figured they laid eggs or something else does......Clorox does
it, but a lot of effort when they apparently are no serious
threat....but that's my opinion and I do not know what they are....


I thought the original post had said that the organism was "anchored" in
some way, reading back, I appear to be in error. So I agree that it is
probably not Hydra. Are you sure it is not just a planarian/flatworm? I
think those are usually bigger, but perhaps these are just a miniature
species? Baensch also references something called a "diskworm"; these
seem to be about the right size for what we are dealing with -- and,
actually, I am wondering whether "disk worm" is just another name for
"flatworm". Usually, however, these will appear in relatively large
numbers, in my experience. The numbers can be controlled by being
careful to not overfeed and increasing basic tank maintenance. These
worms do no harm. If you want to completely eradicate them, Baensch
recommends disinfecting with a saline solution or removing the fish and
raising the temperature to 32 degrees Celsius.

Meph

Basically if you can see it swimming around, it is not a parasite. If it
is anchored to the glass, it is hydra. Otherwise it would be some kind of
planaria, flatworm, an aquatic slug or a leech. All of these (even the
leech) are harmless to fish, they are animals that occur naturally in bodies
of freshwater. Sence the plants/fish in a tropical tank come from all over
the world, these little creatures can come in all shapes and sizes.
These critters live off excess food usually, and can be reduced in
number by lowering the amount of food in a tank, althought you will never
really completely eliminate them.


--donovan