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Spontaneous Nematodes???

hotweldfire

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Joined
23 Mar 2011
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South London
:? :? :wideyed:

I'm sitting in the garden with a piece of manzi and a tuperware box with some bogwood which has moss attached to it. Have been trimming bits of moss off the bogwood and attaching to the manzi. The bogwood has been sitting in my tank for a couple of weeks now.

I notice that some tiny shrimplets have got in there. Then I notice something else. Really tiny little critters, look like minute transparent beetles scurrying about in the bottom of the box. About an hour later the beetle things are gone and have been replaced with huge bloody nematodes. Bigger than anything I've seen in a tank and pink/purple. Almost certainly planaria (diamond shaped heads).

After removing shrimplets I slapped in a fat dose of panacur leaving the bogwood in there. 4 hours later almost all worms gone but a couple still moving around. Have thrown in an even bigger dose and am leaving 24 hours to check later.

Question is how the hell did that happen? As I said the bogwood has been in my main tank but no sign of planaria in there. Also I happen to know that it was treated for bugglies before I bought it.

Despite all that were the planaria hiding in some bit of the bogwood? Was there something about adding tapwater and taking it outside that activated them? What about the little beetle things? Did they really transform into worms 10-20 times their size in the space of an hour? Or were they coincidental?

Or did the planaria get in through the air somehow? Nothing came in contact with that tuperware box but a clean pair on nail scissors and my hands.

Am now paranoid that I've introduced the things into my tank on the moss that I've put in there.
 
Hi all,
Little beetle things sound like "Ostracods" (Seed shrimps) they have encysted eggs are able to resist dessication and hatch really quickly when re-hydrated, they are basically Daphnia in a shell. Planaria get everywhere, I shouldn't thing that there is any water more permanent than a puddle that doesn't have Planaria in it. I've got them in my water butts, and no I don't know how they got in there either. If you want to check whether they are in your tank put in something meaty and then have a look with a torch after lights out.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks Darrel, was hoping you'd spot this one. My only concern was that they were big and pink/purple and have heard these can be a threat to shrimplets as opposed to the little white ones. I think you posted on another thread to that effect but may have misread.
 
Hi all,
My only concern was that they were big and pink/purple and have heard these can be a threat to shrimplets as opposed to the little white ones
I've got some of these big purple ones as well as the little white ones, the difficulty is getting a name for them. They are all potentially carnivorous, I'm just not sure what "potentially carnivorous" means in real terms.

cheers Darrel
 
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