Leeches in Pond?

The other day I went into our small pond to get it back into shape after the
winter, arrange our 2 water lilies and 1 annual plant, clean it out, etc. I
believe it is about 500 gallons, pretty small. We live on Long Island in New
York. We don't have any fish, and really don't want any. There is a small
waterfall, but for most of the time we have the pump off.

I was wearing rubber boots (almost, but not quite as high as the water
level) as there was a lot of crap on the bottom and I didn't want to step on
it. When I got out of the pond about 15-20 minutes later, I had three small
(1-2 inches long) reddish worms attached to my boot by their mouths. Two
took a little effort to pry loose, but one had actually imbedded its teeth
or sucker or whatever into the rubber and was well affixed to it. That was
frightening! Are these blood sucking leeches or some similar creature? What
can I do to get rid of them? I have two dogs who have the run of the yard,
and I certainly don't want to poison the water in any way in case they sip
from it unsupervised. Could they have attached themselves to my leg? Thanks
in advance for any tips on what I found, or what found me in the pond. Alan

"Alan Rubin" wrote in message
...

I was wearing rubber boots (almost, but not quite as high as the water
level) as there was a lot of crap on the bottom and I didn't want to step
on it. When I got out of the pond about 15-20 minutes later, I had three
small (1-2 inches long) reddish worms attached to my boot by their mouths.
Two took a little effort to pry loose, but one had actually imbedded its
teeth or sucker or whatever into the rubber and was well affixed to it.
That was frightening! Are these blood sucking leeches or some similar
creature? What can I do to get rid of them? I have two dogs who have the
run of the yard, and I certainly don't want to poison the water in any way
in case they sip from it unsupervised. Could they have attached themselves
to my leg? Thanks in advance for any tips on what I found, or what found
me in the pond. Alan

A simple way to test it, is to take an old plastic soda bottle, and put a
few chunks of liver in it. If after a few hours, you find leeches in the
bottle, you've got a problem.

Otherwise they're probably the kind of leeches that eat pond muck.

You can use the liver in a soda bottle trick to trap and remove the leeches
from the pond.

I was wearing rubber boots (almost, but not quite as high as the water
level) as there was a lot of crap on the bottom and I didn't want to step
on it. When I got out of the pond about 15-20 minutes later, I had three
small (1-2 inches long) reddish worms attached to my boot by their mouths.
Two took a little effort to pry loose, but one had actually imbedded its
teeth or sucker or whatever into the rubber and was well affixed to it.
That was frightening! Are these blood sucking leeches or some similar
creature? What can I do to get rid of them? I have two dogs who have the
run of the yard, and I certainly don't want to poison the water in any way
in case they sip from it unsupervised. Could they have attached themselves
to my leg? Thanks in advance for any tips on what I found, or what found
me in the pond. Alan

A simple way to test it, is to take an old plastic soda bottle, and put a
few chunks of liver in it. If after a few hours, you find leeches in the
bottle, you've got a problem.

Otherwise they're probably the kind of leeches that eat pond muck.

You can use the liver in a soda bottle trick to trap and remove the leeches
from the pond.

And I would add/clarify that needs to be fresh raw liver.

The best solution is salt. It is nontoxic to your dogs, and for a short
duration won't hurt most water plants. A level of 2.5 pounds per 100
gallons is effective. If your plants haven't woken up (started growing) it
won't hurt them. Unpotted plants, WH, anacharis should be removed.
Leave salt in for 1 week, remove 50% of water an add new. Continue to do
this once/week for 4-5 times to remove the majority of the salt... or
better, do it in one swoop. Salt the pond, wait a week, empty, clean bottom
with shop vac, refill. After several weeks do the liver trick again.

Or, you could do the drain/clean/fill and retest and see if you didn't get
the worst of the problem.

Or... you could continue to walk thru the pond daily and kill what attaches
to you. ;o) ~ jan
--------------
See my ponds and filter design:
www.jjspond.us

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

~ janj wrote:

Or... you could continue to walk thru the pond daily and kill what
attaches
to you. ;o) ~ jan

That wouldn't necessarily eliminate a problem. aiui, there are leeches that
like mammalian blood, and there are others that will prey on fish or frogs.
So you could eliminate the yuck factor, but not the hazard to your koi :-(
--
derek

Or... you could continue to walk thru the pond daily and kill what
attaches to you. ;o) ~ jan

That wouldn't necessarily eliminate a problem. aiui, there are leeches that
like mammalian blood, and there are others that will prey on fish or frogs.
So you could eliminate the yuck factor, but not the hazard to your koi :-(
Derek

Come on Derek, try to keep up. That was a joke (note winky face?).
Besides, the OP didn't have fish in the pond. ~ jan

-----------------
(Do you know where your water quality is?)

~ janj wrote:

Or... you could continue to walk thru the pond daily and kill what
attaches to you. ;o) ~ jan

That wouldn't necessarily eliminate a problem. aiui, there are leeches
that like mammalian blood, and there are others that will prey on fish or
frogs. So you could eliminate the yuck factor, but not the hazard to your
koi :-( Derek

Come on Derek, try to keep up. That was a joke (note winky face?).

Yeah, yeah. I was just pointing out that there are other reasons to be
concerned about leeches than the fact that they may attach themselves to
you or the dogs.

Besides, the OP didn't have fish in the pond. ~ jan

otoh, I missed that pertinent fact :-)
--
derek