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Well first off I am not sure where to post this so it goes here. I have no idea if the following events are connected in any way or what caused them.

1. My worm farm died . The food my puffers loved and flourished on for months. Little white guys who ate dead veggies and swimmed with a little squiggle. They grew like mad in the nasty water of the snail jar and because of the fact the puffers ate them like crazy I kept them under mass production. So then I switched back to frozen bloodworms. 2 of my 4 puffers did not care for this change and I did not observe them eating more than a nibble. Been a week/week in a half since the last feeding of white worms.

2. A friend of mine visited and thought my tanks were cool. I was at work he brought back 3 dwarf frogs and left them for me. I didn't have much choice in the matter and against my better judgment I put them in with the puffers. Frogs are happy still. They eat bloodworms. Hurrah.

3. I have population of guppies in my 20 gallon community and 10 gallon puffer tank. the puffers leave the adults alone for some reason. And as much as I weed them out young survive in the masses of plants and live to create another generation. Well because of this abundance of guppie fry i fed them to the 2 guppies that wouldn't eat blood worms. They chowed them down and I thought this was a good thing.

Well I had 2 puffers die. 1 yesterday and 1 today. They are the 2 that wouldn't eat the bloodworms. My other 2 puffers seem fine. 1 big male and 1 female. They are cruising about as per usual. I figure either the frogs = puffer death, whether by secreation or otherwise, they starved, or ingesting guppies is a bad idea. My water test ok. I don't really get it. And I did remove the frogs.

So I was poking about in the tank and picked up rock and stuck to the underneath are these very odd worms. They are about 1/4 inch long, flat, purplish black, appear to be segmented, and move like an inchworm would. Here are some pics and a crappy short movie.

http://www.froon.org/fish/worm/worm.avi

http://www.froon.org/fish/worm/worm1.jpg
http://www.froon.org/fish/worm/worm2.jpg
http://www.froon.org/fish/worm/worm3.jpg


Any ideas???

Leeches?

The guppies skulls can cause intestinal blockages. do they look about the size that that could have happened?

I think you need to take out what YOU don't really want.

You cannot sacrifice the lives of your puffers just to be nice to other people. If you have room for the frogs, ok, but if not, rehome them.



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

i quote myself

"And I did remove the frogs"

the guppie skull issue makes sense. The 2 fish that died are the ones that ate the guppie fry.

And i wasn't trying to sacrafice anything. As soon as I found a problem i started trying to find a solution. Please don't insuate i would try and harm my fish. My ignorance is one thing but I did not knowingly put my fish in danger.

I really don't think you did anything wrong but two of your puffers did die and you have these 'worms' in your tank. If I were you I wouldn't feed your puffers with guppies anymore and I would definitely clean that tank front top to bottom to remove those worms. I don't know what they are but if you didn't put them in that tank they shouldn't be there. You could put them into another small tank and see what they turn out to be after a week. But I seriously suggest you get rid of them as soon as possible.

oh, hun, no, i didn't mean to imply that you weren't a good puffer-daddy.

I have the same problem, or at least a similar one, where i just keep adopting other peoples leftover fish. That statement was as much for me as anyone else. I'm a softie, and it is getting to the stage where it may be to the detriment of my own fish.



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

ADF's do not secrete anything that would harm your puffers. I think these frogs would be just fine with your puffers, until/unless the puffers discovered that frog legs= better than chicken.
I think perhaps though, If you happened to have dumped the water from the fish bag into your tank when the frogs came, then you could have brought in something nasty.
Im not saying you did, just saying its a possibiltity. Frogs do not usually have any diseases that can be passed onto fish. Also, I wouldnt be surprised if the ADF's would eat the leeches you found in your tank. There is not really any way to get rid of leeches except to let them dry out, which means emptying your tank, chucking the gravel and rocks, and restarting a new. Good luck!
Also, I heard it wasnt good to feed guppys to other fish because of the possibility of disease. I dont know about that, but perhaps indigestion or something is the problem with your puffers. Try some live snails, and some garlic soaked bloodworms to attract the picky fish.


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This is the first time I've heard of the guppy skull blockage thing.. Other than that, there's no prob feeding guppies as feeders but feed them to medium and larger fish.. If you breed them yourself, you know the history..
If you don't know what enviro they were raised in or what foods they were fed or what diseases they were exposed to, you're taking chances.. Even a healthy looking fish can be healthy, but a carrier of a disease.

Those leeches or tapeworms could have been introduced to the tank via your frogs intestinal system... Also could have been some other 'worms' staying at your bloodworm hotel..

The Amazon Nut...