# [Wet Thumb Forum]-worm update



## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

Hi,

I posted about a year ago. I had been keeping a population of tubifex worm in my gravel substrate and was about to switch to a soil substrate and wondered if anyone else had experience keeping worms in like conditions.

The full migration took much longer than expected but I've now had a 75 gallon tank set up with soil and worms for about 10 weeks and thought I would provide an update.

I haven't had problems (at least what I would consider problems) with dirt being raised above the gravel-- there is some of this but it doesn't bother me. I have had some surprises though. First, right from the start the worms behaved differently than they did in the gravel only tank. Somehow the worms I had earlier were move active- they generally had their tales sticking up into the water and wiggling around, now they move around less frequently and their tales, even when they are moving, often just stick up into the gravel layer and not above it. I don't think I'll continue to do this but I've actually given supplemental food a couple times because I've wondered if the mollies in the tank were getting enough to eat.

My biggest surprise came today. I've seen my frogs spending a lot of time at the surface of the tank lately and hadn't thought much of but I was weeding water lettuce today AND THERE WERE WORMS SWIMMING AROUND THEIR ROOTS! I'm completely captivated by the worms but I also have regular nightmares where I have a mouth full of worms that I'm being forced to eat so I'd rather keep just a bit more distance than this. Not only were the worms swimming free-- the "duckweed roots" stuck to the glass just above the water level also turned out to be worms.

I'm still having fun and love a good surprise but... yikes. I've been waiting until the worms were well established before putting the clown loaches I had planned into the tank. I'll go ahead and do so just as soon as I can.

On the extremely positive side- one great pleasure that I've gotten from the worms in soil that I never had before is that the soil looks like a virtual ant farm-- every time they move they leave a tunnel in the soil behind.

link to pictures

Andrea


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## Jane of Upton (Jul 28, 2005)

Cool, Andrea!

I love the pict of the frog hunting! Your soil layer seems deep in comparison to the gravel, or is it just that there is less gravel visible from the side?

Perhaps the worms have "learned" not to stick out too far from the soil, or they get eaten. Do you think the free-swimming ones are the same type or worm? What great pictures of the worms and trails. Thanks for sharing these with us.

-Jane


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Sounds like a really fun ank to watch! I love to see natural hunting behavior. Te worms at the water line look like the nematodes that stay there in my tank. Every time I stir up he water a few fall in and the fish gulp them up. 

Where did you ge your tubifex? Locally or ordered? I've go MTS, but extra aeration would be good to have in the soil layer.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

That is awsome!!


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

It's certainly not as-planned but I must not have flattened the soil before adding the gravel so when I leveled the gravel (which is a bit sparse anyway) the places where the soil was thicker underneath caused the gravel to be quite shallow. No problems so far but I figure I can always add more gravel later. 

I don't think the worms "learned" not to stick their tales up from the soil because they behaved this way from the start. They seem to regard the dirt as they did the gravel in the former tank and totally disregard the gravel in this tank. So, in places where the gravel is thick and the dirt is thin the fish have no chance at catching worms. 

I love watching the hunting behavior too. I started keeping fish and not thinking much of anything other than the fish themselves, now I don't think much of the fish individually but think more collectively about my pet ecosystem. 

I do get the tubifex locally and won't know where to order them. 

I have just looked up nematodes though and am concerned that this is a parasite that could move into humans. This concerns me particularly with my son who cannot be convinced to wash his hands after having contact with tank water. Do you know how you got yours? Do you think they hitched a ride in the soil? 

I'm off to take a magnifying glass to them- I believe that the tubifex have segmented bodies and nematodes do not. Hopefully I'll be able to at least figure out what they are. 

Thanks for the feedback!


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I love the pic of frog hunting down worms. This is great stuff!

I don't believe that you have to worry about these worms causing probems to humans. 

I thought I had lost the California Blackworms that I ordered from Wet Thumb last year. They're all gone from my tanks, but I found some this summer tangled up in the duckweed layer of my pond. (No fish in this pond to eat them.) These worms are aerobic and they probably migrated to the duckweed layer where they could get plenty of oxygen.


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

These tank nematodes are even in my non-planted tank. They're harmless. They look like little wriggling white hairs, and they attach to anything in the tank to avoid the fishies.


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

Javalee, Have you done much research on the nematodes? And Diana, you say that you don't believe these worms can be a problem for humans- are you basing that on particular research? From what I saw on google some nematodes can take up residence in the human digestive system and some cannot. I don't see any information on how to tell which ones are which. 

Either way, I'm just back from the LFS with 5 clown loaches so I'm guessing they won't last long.


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Andrea, I studied the nasty ones extensively in medical microbiology. The ones in your tank are not the type that infect dogs, cats, people, etc.

There are so many thousands of types of nematodes in the world and many feast on bacteria, fungus, plants,etc.

A good general way to think of parasites is this: They have life cycles that usually require very specific hosts. If you encounter them living well in places, like your tank, where humans are not part of the ecosystem(assuming this to be an aquatic ecosystem), then humans are not part of their lifecycle. The nematodes in our tanks probably live on bacteria, fungus, or our plants.

However, the nematodes that infect cats and dogs require an advanced mammalian digestive system (which we happen to have too), and ours will do if we cross their paths as they leave their cat/dog hosts, like say, barefeet on cat poop or dog poop. Or hands in contact with contaminated soil and those unwashed hands go in our mouths.

I use this general way of thinking about parasites with my tank, which is why I don't collect plants or mosquito larvae from places outside where fish live, because you can assume that fishy parasites could be present in that fishy environment. However, I don't worry about fish parasites living in our birdbaths since no fish are there, and no birds that eat fish drink there. So since these tank nematodes live happily and freely (that's important) in an aquatic environment, then they aren't needing us to parasitize at all.

Does this make any sense? Sorry it's so long, but I didn't want you to worry about those "tank" nematodes. Look around aquarium sites and you will find that they are quite common, and not a harm to your fish or yourself. If they are free-living, and not attached to anything we love, then they are more than likely ok.







. It's usually eggs that get transfered from one host to another anyway. Hope this helps.


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

Thank you so much javalee. What a brilliantly simple rule of thumb! That's a concept that will stick with me next time I think of collecting plants from a lake







My background is thoroughly un-scientific but the beauty of nature stuns me whenever wide principles are so elegantly framed.


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## Jane of Upton (Jul 28, 2005)

Yes, 

what a great approach, Javalee! I'm really glad I've only collected mosquito larvae from the bucket on my back porch! No fish in there.

Thanks for the Parasite Primer. Its great information.
-Jane


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Javalee, that was a wonderful message! Thanks for helping us out.

Andrea, I'll just add that I don't have any scientific data. However, I have never heard of any aquatic nematodes or aquatic worms that one must watch out for in the USA. And I think I would have by now. Not scientific.....


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

Great pictures, Andrea! I love the worm tunnels. I have Blackworms living in my ponds and tanks but they don't leave tunnels. They live in the floating plants in my ponds but usually stay in the soil/gravel in my tanks. They are very interesting aren't they? My Blackworms live in groups and travel around the tanks together! 

From Alex.


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## Dave P (Dec 13, 2005)

I wouldn't consider starting an El Natural aquarium without MTS and tubifex worms (or blackworms). They seem to be the perfect freshwater analogs to the bristle worms, brittle stars, snails, etc., that many reef enthusiasts rely on in their deep sand bed aquariums.

(And to think that just a few years ago I would have thought myself crazy to deliberately populate the substrate of my aquarium with worms and snails.)

Two weeks ago, I introduced one ounce of tubifex worms into my aquarium _after_ having fed the inhabitants their fill. I wanted to give the worms a fighting chance to drift down and burrow into the substrate. Just thinking about it makes me laugh!

These pictures are great indeed, Andrea; thank you for sharing them!


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

Hi Dave-

That's wonderful. Do you think the tubifex like to stay up against the glass in your set-up? I'm on the fence about whether that's just where I see them or if that really is their preference.

Do you see them sticking thier tales out past the gravel?


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## Dave P (Dec 13, 2005)

Hi Andrea,

In my aquarium, I do not see tubifex against any of the glass, save for the north side -- the only side receiving natural sunlight. I find this perplexing as I would expect the worms to shun the light (not that the north side is getting much natural light anyway; but still, it's more than the other sides).

Most of the tubifex in my aquarium seem to congregate around the bases of my rooted plants and a solitary piece of driftwood; although, there are is a large number of individuals spread out across the breadth of the substrate. This becomes readily evident when I shine a flashlight on the surface of the substrate, fifteen minutes after the lights above the aquarium have shut off for the evening -- their tails suddenly plunging into their burrows.

I wish a few more worms would occupy areas of the substrate adjacent to the other sides of my aquarium; I'd love to see more of these burrows. Admittedly, my initial strategy for adding the worms was to help oxygenated water reach areas of the substrate that were devoid of plants. My reasoning was that the worms, along with the MTS, would help prevent anaerobic conditions from establishing too much of a foothold in such areas. That way, when I had a plant speciment that I wanted to add to such an area, the presence of inhibitory anaerobic metabolites (i.e. hydrogen sulfide, etc.) would be somewhat lessened compared to an area that had been allowed to become significantly anaerobic. Of course, this is all conjecture and I could be dead wrong.



> Do you see them sticking thier tales out past the gravel?


Yes, I do; particularly in areas of my substrate that are devoid of plants and, consequently, low in oxygen. It is my hope that as their numbers increase, along with those of the MTS, that more oxygenated water will be able to reach these areas, permitting deeper burrows and preventing anaerobic conditions from getting out of control.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Yay! I got a batch of tubifex from my lfs and just added about 2/3 of a portion to my 30G and the other 1/3 to my 10G (portion = about .5oz). So, hopefully they'll take and begin to multiply. That is, if my cories and angelfish would stop eating them all!

-ricardo


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

Congratulations! Let us know how they work out for you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I'm starting to get creeped out by tubifex worms... Check this out:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=693
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v65/n2/p137-152/


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

I don't know about Tubifex worms, as I've never seen them for sale here in Australia, but the Blackworms sold here are cultured rather than wild caught and are free at least of fish parasites, or so they say. 

From Alex.


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

I read around quite a bit on this before deciding to use the worms. At this point, I've been using them for a few years without a problem so I can only guess that my source-- a local pet chain-- is clean. I never interviewed the manager about the worms because I assumed that I wouldn't get a reliable answer anyways-- at this point there is a new manager who may be good for some information so I'll ask her where they come from next time I see her. It was my understanding that the worms had this bad reputation because they were imported in the past (I believe many were coming from Mexico) but that now most of the worms in the industry were being breed. All of this did figure into my initial impulse to breed the worms in the tank (at least lessening my risk). I'm in the US. The article sighted is from Europe. I don't know if it's different here than there or if I've lucked out or if I have problems that I don't know about... But I know how much fun I'm having so that wins out for me unless I get something more concrete to go on. Can I have parasites without having deaths or noticeable symptoms? At any rate, thank you Betty for bringing this factor up. It's good to be reminded.


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## MyraVan (Feb 13, 2005)

To ask a silly question, what do tubifex worms look like? I've got some worms that are pinkish, about 1mm in diameter, appear to be segmented, and some are pretty long, at least 2". Could these be tubifex?

I'm not worried about disease as I've never fed live food in this tank, and have never bought live worms ever. The worms must have come in a eggs on plants.


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## Andrea Baker (Aug 21, 2004)

If you do a google image search you’ll see a lot of clear photos. I don’t think they could have been trafficked in on plants though.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Well, I'm hoping that the ones my lfs gets are from a clean source! So far, the worms appear to have burrowed into the substrate. The fish got a lot of them, but quite a few survived too.... 

MyraVan: The ones I got appear a pinkish kind of color, real thin and long. Too small to tell if they're segmented or not. Hope that helps some!

-ricardo


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

My my, how time flies! I can't believe its been TWO MONTHS since this last post! Wow! Well, since then I never did see those darn worms along the edge of the tank against the glass so I assumed that either a) they were all in the middle of the substrate, not against the glass, b) they all ended up being eaten by the cories as the worms wiggled their little bodies above the surface of the gravel or c) they died. In any case, I did buy another batch from my LFS about two or three weeks ago. These were not as fresh as the first batch I got. The water they were in was murky (see post on 10G problems) and didn't smell very good. So, I gave the worms a good rinse and got rid of a bunch of dead ones. This seemed to do the trick since it got rid of the smell and I was left with mostly live and healthy looking worms. 

Well, in any case, I added a whole lot to my 30 gal and now, several weeks later, I'm happy to say that they appear to be established. At night I can shine a flashlight in the tank and see bunches of them in the substrate! I don't know if the cories ever get to them, but they're quite fun to have!

-ricardo


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## substrate (Jan 6, 2006)

Used to have them when I overfed my fishes in my 60 gallon tanks. My LFS told me to wipe them out with Anti-worm medication and that was the last of them. But I did see the younger platys & sword tails gulp them up. According to on of my friends who does frequent field trips to rivers, he has lots of them in his shrimp tank plus lots of other worms too. Just a bit cautious. My wife isnt amused by worms as I have 2 kids under 3 yrs!


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## substrate (Jan 6, 2006)

Diana, I've got large gravel 3mm-5mm size on top of my potting mix. So I'm thinking whether worms will do the job to pick up all the excess pooh the fish produces?


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Substrate: I would think that with a couple of young ones around you would want to have worms in the tank! I remember loving all kinds of critters when I was a kid and worms were no exception!

-ricardo


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## substrate (Jan 6, 2006)

Got some kind of larvae in the leaves of the Elodea Canadensis that my father-in-law got from a stream. The plant sheds leaves with the larvae in them. And my baby koi that I use to cycle the tank takes them up as dessert.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

> Originally posted by substrate:
> Diana, I've got large gravel 3mm-5mm size on top of my potting mix. So I'm thinking whether worms will do the job to pick up all the excess pooh the fish produces?


I think you'll just have to see for yourself and then let us know. I don't think that worms digest fish feces directly. Bacteria probably get to it first.

The mulm you see on top of gravel doesn't contain much raw fish feces. Mulm is mostly well-digested organic matter and clumps of live bacteria. Compost, if you will.

I hope you saw earlier posts in this folder that argued (rather convincingly) that aquatic worms are harmless to both humans and fish.

We should welcome worms in our El Naturale tanks!


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## spiral (Jan 8, 2006)

If anyone is curious about parasitic nematodes:

http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/parasitology/nematodes.htm


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