It wont let me post in the emergencies!!

[petermckane]

Hey guys and gals...

well, firstly, im new! Hi hi

secondly, ive got a bit of an emergency with my fishtank. Its a little tank sitting next to my monitor and for the last few days the water has been turning more and more yellow. So today i decided, for the second time so far this week (starting monday) to clean the tank. I took out the two pieces of wood ive got in there and stuck to the bottom was a leechlike thing... worm... slug... thing. Its about 5mm when its all squshed up together and when its trying to move it gets to about a centimeter long.

After looking at it for a short time, the wood dired, and revealed two smaller leechthings, about 1mm each. I am guessing that these things are breeding... probably on my fish!

Right now ive got one fish with laboured breathing and a definate tendancy to swim right up near the top of the water. I dont know what condition it is and i really dont want this to spread! Ive not lost a fish yet (like I said, newbie) and the tank is about four months old now. I know that after I bought some plants for the tank about two months ago I sudenly had a collection of snails... tho i see the brighter side of them as they were free, and ive ordered two snail eating fish which look pretty nice.

Please tell me that theres a medicine I can get that will make these things dissapear, and that someone knows whats up. I cant find anything on the internet anywhere, except one site that has pictures of worms that live in a fish gills... but the size of this thing comared to my tetras is actually pretty big. please help!

 

[Angel Lady]

First of all welcome to the forum petermckane
You will have a better chance of getting your questions answered in the emergency section of the forum...

 

[petermckane]

every time i click add topic in the emergencies forum it tells me i dont have the authority to do that

 

[The-Wolf]

you need to reply to the validating email that was sent to you when you registered with this forum, then you will be able to post anywhere
I HTH
BTW to the forums

 

[tstenback]

What are the levels for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? The yellow coloring may be caused by the wood leaching something into the tank. Usually this would be a more golden to brown but i have seen instances where the wood colors the water a more yellow color.

Fish swimming at the surface generally means lack of oxygen for some reason. I would do a 50% water change right away and add an airstone or two. what is the temp in the tank? this can also be a cause for the hanging around the top.
The worm may be a planaria and they are harmless to the fish, but without seeing it this would only be a guess.

HGow often do you vac the gravel and what is your water changing schedule. Keep us posted.

 

[Erised]

Ok, different account, same person ... well, kinda. In the same family, lets put it that way Seeing as this thread got moved and my boyfriend was clever enough to fill in his email address wrong, we werent able to post in this part of the forum. With a new account, all this should be far behind us though.

As soon as we found the 'worms' we did a 50% water change and cleaned the gravel as good as we could do. I gotta admit, it did really need this as well ... we do clean the gravel about once a week and refresh the water 2 till 3 times a week ... but the gravel needed a bit more work. We did take the wood out as well, seeing as most of the water changing seemed to come from there.

The fish had to go on a 2 day diet, but all seems to be alright now. The water is crystal clear, the fish are doing great and all is alright.