# Leeches among the Black Worms?



## Jane in Upton (Aug 10, 2005)

Hi,

I picked up some black worms from a LFS last night, and I noticed they have leeches among them - some leeches around 1/4" long! They usually have very high quality, clean and healthy black worms, so this is an anomoly. 

Are the leeches harmful to the fish? I've come across some other posts regarding small, plant leeches, but these are pretty big. Should I be worried, or is it just another live yummy for my fish? (Angels, Bolivian Rams, Yo Yo loches, various tetras, etc. will be dining on this). Would the leeches be a threat to the large Brigsii snails at all?

Thanks for any input!
-Jane


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

Leeches can definately attach to fish. If you're brave enough, try sticking your finger in there and see if they attach to you. If they do, chances are they will latch on to your fish.

I'd avoid introducing them to my tank.

Edit: I googled it out of curiosity and found this: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/wildlife/invertebrates_fish_leech.html


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Eek, I've never seen that before either. After snakes, leeches are the only thing that make me a little squeamish.

I would definitely try to separate them out of the black worms. If you have a strainer that is big enough for the black worms to fall through, but not the leeches, you should be able to do it fairly easily when you rinse them.

I once got some little icky leeches in on some plants, and they were a real hassle to get out of the tank. They stayed in the substrate, and only a good vacuuming would pull them out.


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## ShortFin (Jan 13, 2006)

When I kept blackworms, I would put a drop of methyne blue to kill the leeches and help prevent getting some of the disease that might come with worms. Do not use Ick Cure as it will kill the worms also.


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

*gnome* has been fighting a running battle with leaches in one of her tanks for months now.

Besides the adults you need to also be worried about any eggs/larvae that could be introduces into your tank should you use those blackworms. My advice would be to take the worms back to your LFS for a refund.


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## RTR (Oct 28, 2005)

I see leeches in the blackworms periodically, but I remove them with a dosing pipette as part of the first rinse cycle when I bring them home. I disperse the worms out to several of the standard blue worm holders at low enough density that the leeches are easily seen. SFAIK, I have not introduced any into my tanks.


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

Heya, Bill. Thanks for the link to this thread. 

I think it's really going to depend on the species of leech. The ones I have I've NEVER seen on any of my fish. They're usually just stuck like a little pink teardrop on the glass or on other smooth surfaces. When I had a lot of them, they were often nestled in the coils (on the outside) of my ram's horn snail shells and sometimes they'd be on the undersides of the leaves of some of my plants, trying to look like a cluster of snail eggs. I think these days they're normally hidden in the substrate... But I wouldn't take any chances, if you haven't already fed them these blackworms. They're just really grody and it seriously p*$$es me off that I can't even *pay* people to take my extra plant cuttings from this tank... My conscience won't allow me to pass them off without warning, either.

Nowadays I'm averaging a "leech sighting" of like one every month or so. Actually, between October and January, I didn't see any, and I thought they were gone. Then I found one mid-January, and yesterday I found one on my CO2 reactor. 

If you're not that worried about them, it should comfort you to know that *most* leeches are not really the "blood suckers" that they're reputed to be. HOWEVER, it might disturb you to know that there's one species that feasts on duck boogers (Google up "T. rude leech") whose cocoon shell can resist very harsh chemicals and withstand temperatures up to 250C. Granted, they'd rather starve to death than suck the blood of humans, but it gives you an idea of how difficult it *could* be to eradicate your tank of these buggers once they're introduced into your tank. And I really have no idea what the cocoons even look like or where they would most likely be. I couldn't find any photos doing a Google search. 

The only known natural predator I've heard of is puffers. Personally, I think the leech population was reduced in my tank thanks to the guppies. They're constantly picking at stuff, and they probably have eaten a lot of the newly-hatched leeches. I suspect that the leeches I find now are ones that escaped notice of the guppies while they were small enough to get picked off.

I've heard about the recent leech-infested blackworms (in about the past year). One fish store I know of had a hell of a time getting them out of their tanks after feeding their fish these blackworms. Again, they never saw them ON the fish - mostly burrowed or on the glass - but nobody wants to buy anything from a tank that has leeches. A fellow club member mentioned seeing stuff in HIS blackworms that he believed was planaria, but when he described them to me, they sounded more like leeches. Larger fish would probably eat them no problem, as long as the dang things weren't stuck like silicone to the glass. 

Sorry for the long post... If it were me, I wouldn't risk infecting your tank. I'm not going to consider my tank "leech-free" until I can go four straight months without seeing a single one. Until then, I have no choice but to chuck the extra plants from this tank  . 

-Naomi


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

ShortFin said:


> When I kept blackworms, I would put a drop of methyne blue to kill the leeches and help prevent getting some of the disease that might come with worms. Do not use Ick Cure as it will kill the worms also.


Are you sure that methylene blue would kill leeches if it didn't kill the blackworms? Not sure what kind of worm a blackworm is, but leeches are annelids, just like earthworms (red wigglers). Are blackworms annelids?


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## kwc1974 (Jan 4, 2006)

I ahve had this happen to. But unfortunaly I did not notice till that were in the substrate. Try as I might I could not get rid of them, mide you this was in a planted discus tank, so I was a little freaked.
A guy at a LFS suggested a calm little fish that I would never of tought to put in with discus. I bought two (peruvian) south american puffers. YES puffers. Within a week all leeches were gone and puffers were fat and happy.
Of course this was before amano shrimp became popular and as easy to get so I did not have any inverts in the tank then.


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## ShortFin (Jan 13, 2006)

gnome said:


> Are you sure that methylene blue would kill leeches if it didn't kill the blackworms? Not sure what kind of worm a blackworm is, but leeches are annelids, just like earthworms (red wigglers). Are blackworms annelids?


Yup, it always kill the leeches everytime and not the blackworms. When I get the worms from the store, I would rinse it until the water is clean. I keep them in the same plastic bag that come with it. Then I put a drop of Methylene blue in the water. The water level in the bag is between 1/2" or 1" above the worms. Put in the frig and after a day or two, you can see the leeches dead.

I don't know if the blackworms are annelids or not. I didn't do research on it.


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## Jane in Upton (Aug 10, 2005)

Wow, thanks for all the responses! It sounds like this is NOT as much of an abnormal occurance as I'd thought!

I have not yet fed them to my fish, just done water changes on the worm container in the fridge, awaiting the input from the forum.

I'd not chance methylene blue, as I keep FW shrimp in most of my tanks (other than the one with the Bolivian Rams and other semi-agressives). They'd be a bit hard to pick out (they curl up into a remarkably tiny ball when touched with a tweezer). And for the few bucks, I don't think I'd chance it. The worms themselves did not look as healthy as they've been in the past. These were not the dense, dark and active ones I'd gotten there before. These were very pale looking, not as active, and with a large number of dead ones that were tough to get out of the bunch, even with several rinsings. 

Wow, Gnome, I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles. I was going to suggest a quick bleach dip for the plant cuttings, but then you said the cyst things are resistant to harsh chemicals. I wonder if you could put any other fish in there that would get them in the substrate without hunting the guppies - maybe a dwarf loach (sidthemunki) or something. 

Yes, I took Parasitology in college. I also had lab just before dinner. It put a whole new spin on the dining hall experience. I've read about those Duck Booger leeches. Yikers. My prof was an interesting guy. It was remarkable how many times, when we'd be looking at some large preserved parasites in a jar, he would say something like - oh, those I collected off my own leg (or other body part) in the jungle of ** Fill in exotic location here **. 

That batch of worms will NOT be fed to my tank inhabitants. I do "el natural" planted tanks, and have a lot of critters in them already - snails, copepods, a few planaria visible now and then. I will not be introducing leeches, even the non-blood feeding types, if I can help it. 

Thank you SO much everyone for the information, heads up, and personal experiences with this! 

-Jane


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