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ok so i did my weekly 20% change about 30 minutes ago...i was re-aranging my plants and ect. when i was done i was watching my fish...and one of my male Guppies is really down in the dumps...and all of my invertabrates have died in the last two wees or so...don't know if it's realated to the "things" but ok i'm sitting there watching them closly when i look down and around the sand...and i see a small black worm "thing" squirming and crawling about!!! i started looking about the tank and i spotted another one...a smaller one! the first one was about 5 mm long and this one was only about 2 mm long...and i don't think that there "worms" i'd put my money on some kind of...crap i can't think of the word, think it startes w/ an I!!! any ways...can any one tell me what they are? and what to do? or tell me how i can find out what they are and what to do about them b/c i'm frigg'n out!!!!!!!
any help and addvice is welcome!!!!!!!

I have a 16H w/ a Bio-Wheel 125...and a 100W heater, i keep it at 30C! I have 4 female guppies 2 males, 2 three month old fry, and about 8 three week old fry, and a trinadad pleco that's about 4in...did have 2 blue apple snails and a bamboo shrimp and several ghost/glass shrimp. my tank is heavaly planted w/ a tall spear, some shorter spear, a moss ball, and some flotting plants, about 60% coverage, and some micro-sword! i do a 20% water change every week some times twice a week depending on how many fry i curently have! and i do use a plant food!

yeah its kind of like a small black catipillar in the water. My bet is that its some kind of parasite that live on inverts.

Hi.

I had bought a whole shlew of ghost shrimp...one of which came with a black wormy parasite. I was able to identify it and flush the poor booger before it was able to get out and infect any of my other fish.

Unfortunately, you already have that problem...Perhaps you could look into Fluke Tabs or some Formalin to get rid of the parasites that are swimming around in there...

Fluke Tabs? Formalin ?

i know not what these are!
but i'll look em' up.
thanx

Ahhhhh.. I know what they are. They are leeches, a sommon parasite that sucks blood from a fish. The usually come from a fish shop since most LFS's catch wild specimens. The only way to get rid of them if with tweasers. DO NOT TOUCH THEM AS THEY CAN SUCK YOUR BLOOD! With the tweasers, remove them and place them in a small ice cream container with salt in it - yes, normal plain table salt. Do not chuck them away without the salt as they can survive without water! When you are done, check that every single fish has ot got one attatched to them as an Eve can breed without an Adam! If they are on a fish, remove them with the tweasers, put them in the salt bucket and treat the site of attatchment with antiseptic on the fish. Leave a lid on the salt bucket for an hour, then throw the dead leeches away. After that, do a water change. Hop that helped. Good luck! (You'll need it)

Oh, yes, and sorry about the spelling errors.

There is also a good chance that they could be ancor worms, the guppies i got from petco. had a bad case of anchor worms. They are brownish to even white and look like little Y's.

Yes, that could be possible, but anchor worms are not black, on the other hand, leeches are. No offense or anything. Well, I think they are leeches. Oh yes, and tell us if you get rid of them!