Near Microscopic Red Worm-like Animal

[Shadowbox]

Hello Everyone,

I may have a problem, but not sure. Three to four days ago my favorite starfish died, one day it was fine, and the next I noticed holes forming in it's body underneath. My other starfish has skin disappearing and it's concerning. My ammonia and nitrate read under 0.25ppm. Nitrates around 5ppm. No phosphate, and there definitely shouldn't be copper. Temperature 76. Specific gravity 1.025. dkH 11.

Now this could be the source of the problem, but not sure. There is an extremely small red worm like animal that is becoming abundant in my sand in the tank, so small I can't get a picture of and would need a microscope to actually see details. There's thousands of them and after close observation they cover even my snails. It is definitely an animal by the way it moves, initally I thought they were baby cerith excrement. I have tiny little clams in the my tank that live in my live rock and thousands of these tiny red almost unseeable animals may have begun to eat them, and are on my snails, and may have been munching my starfish.

I am tempted to use a parasite/ich killer made by kordon but don't want to make a decision that will kill invertebrates in my invertebrate heavy tank. Is there a dosage I can use that will kill these almost microscopic guys that won't harm my tank life? I haven't attached pictures, as 4-6 of them can exist on a grain of aragonite sand by Caribsea and my camera can't do take pictures that small.

Days ago I attempted to feed my starfish clams instead of freeze dried shrimp because people sometimes recommend feeding your starfish store bought clams or shrimp but I think this pest came in on a storebought clam. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[dmy535]

Difficult to give advice on this without pictures. By the description that you mentioned “thousands” it sounds like Red planarian flat worms. Here’s a photo for description. Do they look like this?: https://images.app.goo.gl/wLz2wQJDtWK4USsB9

If they do, we can jump to your second question about eradication. Need to ID first though.

 

[Shadowbox]

I didn't think I could but here it is, there are thousands of these tiny thin red worm guys, maybe nematodes, and now today I see there are also slightly larger ones that do look planaria. They did not exist until I put in those clams you can buy at the deli, and my starfish did not want to eat them at all and they usually aren't finicky. They may all be the same thing, and now they are just starting to get bigger. They exist on every surface of my tank right now.



I have placed the larger black planaria in a petri dish and placed a drop of the Korden and the planaria did die. It could work, but I have lots of invertebrates in my tank. It looks like I've just managed to catch them while they are just becoming visible to the eye. There is a very good chance that in a week or two that is what they would look like.

 

[dmy535]

Man that’s crazy at how many you have... they move pretty fast in that video you posted... not exactly sure here as it was a little blurry and hard to get a perfect ID on them... but some could be pods mixed with planaria and Acoel worms....? Hopefully someone else can help ID these then I’d say your best bet is to find a natural predator to get them over chemicals IMO. I had a bunch of Acoel flat worms, and my wrasse and sapphire damsel went to town and I believe as of today I am worm free!

 

[attiland]

Fallowing. I had these in the dish after my last dip of newcomer corals

 

[Shadowbox]

How do I get rid of them? I didn't see fallowing when I looked it up.

 

[attiland]

How do I get rid of them? I didn't see fallowing when I looked it up.

Autocorrect from following.

 

[Shadowbox]

Autocorrect from following.

Ah, no worries.

 

[Shadowbox]

Well, I used about 4 drops of the Ich Plus, placing a dropper in the sand and releasing it. I do have cuprasorb. It says to use 10 drops per gallon, but after reading what malachite green can do to inverts, it just isn't worth using. I probably care about my inverts more than my fish and don't want to risk it. If anyone knows of a predator that will eat these tiny creatures I'd be interested in trying it. Maybe a wrasse would work like you said, there is one available locally. Or perhaps a fast snail with a big appetite. I seem to be the only person in my small town that buys saltwater animals from the petco so it probably won't go anywhere. ‍

I am thinking of getting some chaeto within a few days, and perhaps that will absorb enough nutrients with some time to starve the hitchhikers, unless they like chaetomorpha.

 

[homer1475]

Coris wrasse, melanarus wrasse, leopard wrasse, any hunting type of wrasse will eat these up like candy. There is a reason most people keep some type of hunting wrasse in their frag tanks.

Much safer for your inverts then chemical routes also.

 

[Shadowbox]

Coris wrasse, melanarus wrasse, leopard wrasse, any hunting type of wrasse will eat these up like candy. There is a reason most people keep some type of hunting wrasse in their frag tanks.

Much safer for your inverts then chemical routes also.

What about Six-line Wrasse? That is the only kind I can purchase at the moment locally.

 

[homer1475]

Six line is a great hunter, but is also a major butholes. 99% of them turn into murdering butholes.

 

[king aiptasia]

the worms likely were living between the sand grains and the scent of death is driving them to move more active, a population this big would not form in the couple days after introduction of deli clams, I'd be more concerned that your tank could be nearing very bad parameters and less concerned about the worms

 

[Shadowbox]

the worms likely were living between the sand grains and the scent of death is driving them to move more active, a population this big would not form in the couple days after introduction of deli clams, I'd be more concerned that your tank could be nearing very bad parameters and less concerned about the worms

The worms actually disappeared around 3 days after the post, they appeared then disappeared mysteriously. I haven't had them in the 17 or more days since that time, and my tank parameters have actually improved since then. Not really sure.

 

[king aiptasia]

The worms actually disappeared around 3 days after the post, they appeared then disappeared mysteriously. I haven't had them in the 17 or more days since that time, and my tank parameters have actually improved since then. Not really sure.

they are living as what is considered interstitial space of the sand and gravel, they normally are quiet and comfy to be out of sight, but the dead starfish was releasing substances that made them uncomfortable to stay in their home and they made an appearance, they still live in the tank back between grans of sediment probably eating small detritus or bacteria