red worms in my tank

[devis]

Hi all... my first post in this forum.

I have a 10 gallon tank with a blue crayfish in there. I've had the little guy for about 4 months now and I really like him. However, yesterday I discovered something quite shocking.
Underneath the light, inside the tank there was a small colony of mosquitos. Living in New Orleans we have to accept this fact of life, but I've never had mosquitos in my house before. On occasion one or two would slip in but... anyhow, there were a large number of mosquitos inside the tank, some were alive and some were dead floating around. As it was 2 AM i left it alone thinking to clean it the next morning (today).
I took out the crayfish and placed him in a container with some water from the tank. Then I dumped a bit of the water trying not to let any of the mosquitos out. Since I did not have mosquito spray I used a can of air freshener called ZEP Smoke Eliminator which I had purchased at Home Depot. I sprayed a nice amount inside the tank and left it alone for about 10 minutes. All the mosquitos died then I pumped out all the water out of the tank. In the dumping container I saw this little red worm swiming around. I dumped the whole water out, took out the gravel which is now sitting in a container full of hot water and washed the tank with hot water and dish detergent. This way I believe I can eliminate all of the worms from the gravel.
I would like to know what those red worms are, how do they evolve and what can I do to prevent further infestations. Would they have any connection to the mosquitos?
The filter I use is an Aquaclear Mini fitted with a carbon and amonia filters in addition to its regular foam filter.

Thanks...

 

[Thomas A. Anderson]

At a guess i would assume they are mosquito larvae

 

[devis]

god... a 10 gallon swamp in my living room

 

[Pufferpack]

If I'm not mistaken the mosquitos just provided you with a free food source for your fish, the red worms would be live bloodworms. I pay good money for the frozen bloodworms and would love it if some mosquitos would start nesting in my tanks

 

[wetwetwet]

Firstly HiYa and welocme devis

How long had the tank been set-up?

It sounds like there is no fish in there? These would take care of your mosquito problem and maybe some of the worms

Worms in the gravel are probably not a problem but may indicate a lack of maintenance/gravel cleaning/water changes or excess feeding.

Dumping all the water and washing all the gravel will probably force your tank into starting the cycle again

I'm not familiar with your filter but without a flow of water then the benificial bacteria will start to die off....

One other thing I'd be wary of spraying any chemicals near (or even same room) as the tank - I realise that you have stripped the tank and changed all the water but this seems like quite drastic action

None of the above is meant to sound severe (and I hope it didn't come out that way)

If you can give us some more info on your tank and maintenance we should be able to come up with some help to save you having to go through this again...

 

[devis]

Last time I changed the water was about 2 months ago. As a matter of fact I used to change about a gallon and a half every two days but lately I just haven't had the time.
The only creature in the tank is the blue crayfish.
I finished cleaning the tank however I don't feel comfortable with the filter inserts so I'm thinking to go get new ones. For the time being the crayfish is in a tupperware with an inch of water in it. He'll live for a few days like that until new bacteria colonies are established in the tank.
I check the levels of nitrate, nitrite and amonia every sunday morning.
Lately as a matter of fact I believe I have been overfeeding the crayfish. I feed him shrimp pellets, one pellet every 12 hours and he usually is good about eating them. However these past week and a half I've been constantly throwing food in the tank and I have noticed that most of it hasn't been eaten. See, these pellets tend to disolve after 2 hours in the water and the crayfish won't eat them, therefore I have to add new food hoping he'll eat it. I believe he may have gone about 2-3 days at a time without eating anything, hence my constant feeding...

I reduced the level of gravel in the tank to a third of what it was before. Can anyone tell me if undergravel filters work better than the regular cascade style ones? So far the filter I have has been doing a good job until this little incident.

I freaked out and cleaned the entire tank because this is the first time I deal with such a problem. I dont know what other info to give... Any suggestions?

 

[Pondlady]

It probably wasn't a good idea to try disinfecting your tank with hot water and soap. Mosquitos are not like bacteria, and like the others said, the larvae are good fish food. You might want to get a fish to go with Blue. Something not too small or slow so he'd be safe.

Removing adult mosquitoes would be a challenge. I guess I would have tried tying a large garbage bag over the tank and then opening the cover to release them into the bag. Then you could spray in the bag and kill them.

Cooking your gravel in hot water probably killed all your beneficial bacteria. I'd probably use the same filter inserts for a while to help jump-start the cycle again.

Since you have an external filter, maybe you should try switching to sand. Any uneaten food would be easier to siphon out.

 

[Jamnog]

umm not wise to put small fish in with a cray perhaps a tiger barbor biggercertainly not a bottom feeder. as for the worms yea sound like blood worm not a problem insect. the mossys do have lava that live in water they look all curly and wiggle they go straight then make a curly looking c like this l c l c c l c l c good impression eh? anyways yea nither are much to worry about tho no one likes gettign nipped by pesky moskitoes.

 

[devis]

I like the sand idea actually... I may do that.

As for the filter inserts I'm afraid there'll be some worm eggs or whatever they reproduce by. Anyhow I threw out all the inserts. Crayfish can live out of the water for a few weeks if their shell is kept wet so I'll get new inserts and let the tank be with the filter on for about 2-3 days then put the little guy back in. Frankly I'm still shocked by the sight of all those mosquitos in there... when I think of it my whole body shivers

 

[devis]

Well, i'm happy to report that my tank is all clean and with new water. I got all new inserts, the foam filter, carbon filter and amonia filter, same setup as before. I let it circulate the water running the filter in full power for about 20 hours. Now the little guy is back in there happy as a lobster

@Jamnog... that's a pretty funny thing u did... the l c l c l c l c hehehe