Tapeworm and plants?

[Beling]

I just got some floating water plants from the friend who gave me some guppies, who turned out to have tapeworm. I've treated them successfully. But now I'm wondering where they got the tape to begin with. Should I treat the plants? How?

 

[GaryE]

Tapeworms are extremely common. They're just "around".

 

[MaloK]

Plants are not normally grown with fishes... But if you buy a plant from a LFS or get it from a friend that has fish in the same tank... You can get it. Most of the time they come from the breeders or contact with other infected fish in transit.

You can bring eggs / larvae / spores / bacteria / fungus / viruses of any kinds with plants.

Snail populating these, are also notorious to be able to bring lots of pods, hydras, bacteria and fungus.

In nature they are all part of the ecosystem. In closed areas they are all potential game changer. For the positive or not.

 

[Colin_T]

Tapeworm in fish normally come from live foods that are infected by tapeworm eggs or larvae. Most aquarium fishes from tropical Asia are regularly fed on live foods that are grown in sewerage and or have animal waste washing into the ponds where the live food or fish live. The fish eat the live food and ingest the eggs and develop tapeworm. Thread/ round worms are more common than tapeworm.

If you rinse plants under tap water before adding them to the tank that will reduce the chance of introducing a disease or parasite to the aquarium. You can also buy tissue cultured plants that will be free of diseases and parasites.

Plants don't normally transmit intestinal worms but the worm eggs might (very small might) be transferred in the water, but it's very unlikely. The most common way your fish get tapeworm is from other fishes that are added to your aquarium, or if you collect live foods from waterways that have water birds or sewerage or animal waste washing into them.

 

[GaryE]

The other thing to consider is that tapeworms, and other non-nematode worms are not always a catastrophe. They can be in fish for a very long time and barely show. A stress can make them take off, and then you treat them with praziquantel meds, and they're gone. I've stopped trying to figure out the source. When I suspect they are a problem, I treat for them and move on.

 

[Beling]

Thank you for the responses! (I love this forum.) I finally decided to give the plants a root haircut (long, icky roots) and a peroxide soak. Since it makes sense about being spread mostly by live food (my friend loves near a stream, not particularly clean) I'm going to go ahead now and add the plants. They've been in a separate bowl, everything "looks" clean. Won't worry about it. I really don't know why I want those dang guppies to be healthy. I don't want so many anyway!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

It's most likely that the worms came in with the guppies, rather than on the plants, but either way, if you worm the tank with the fish and the plants in it, you treat for the whole life cycle of the worms and eggs, so both plants and fish should be fine after the course of treatment.

It's also not at all a bad thing that you want so much for your guppies to be healthy They're lovely little fish in their own right, even when you find yourself swamped with far too many of the things (and I know that struggle!) they're still pretty adorable!