GROSS there's a worm or something in my tank

[gale]

I noticed a folded leaf a day or so ago but didn't think much about it. Tonight I was looking at it and noticed a shadow inside moving. then I saw a worm looking thing stick it's head out. I cut off the top of the plant where it was and peeled the leaves apart and now I have this disgusting thing (pics below). Any ideas what it is? And should I worry about more in my tank??

I also noticed at least 2 leaves of my plant that are nearly eaten up or completely eaten up and my fish don't really nip at the leaves. Could it be more of these nasties?

 

[k2snowboards88]

To me it sounds like some kind of larva. It probably ate alot of the leaves, and thats why they looked chewed. And it was probably going to go through a transformation in that curled up leaf. There could be more. Hopefully they all go to the leaves to go through their transformation, so you can catch them all then.

The could have gotten there with plants, or come from insects that decided to drop them off in your tank.

Then again i coudl be wrong about it being a larva of some kind.

 

[Earthgirl]

All I know is

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWH
I hate worms, they are gross.
But like k2snowboards88 said, it looks like some sort of larvae.
Man that is gross, now I am gonna have nightmares!

 

[gale]

Yeah it's nasty. Sorry about the nightmares. I'm looking and looking for more folded leaves, but don't see any yet. I need to uproot my plants to remove the weights anyway, so I'm going to inspect each and every one for any hitchhikers.

 

[Joby]

Ewwwwwwwwwww!!

Have a good look around and get them out. I had a dragonfly larvae get into my tank and it ate all my baby gups and platys then started on my juveniles. It took an eye and half the face off one of my little gups She has recovered but ugh not a nice experience to find something like that in your tank. You could google water insect larvae or something like that. Its how I found out what my critter was

Good luck!

 

[pnyklr3]

It kind of reminds of the worm you can find in tequila. Yum

 

[gale]

I saw another tiny worm on one of my plants. So I reached in to get it and I couldn't get ahold of it with my fingers. It kept floating away. I reached down for the net and when I looked up it was gone. I rooted around a little with no luck. So I took out all of my plants (needed to take off the weights anyway) and inspected each stalk. I found another worm in the roots inside of the weight so I'm suspecting it came in on the plants. I looked at the rest but didn't see anything other than roots and brown gunk which I tried to take off but some was stubborn. I rebunched the plants without the weights and put them back in the tank. Took out all of the hornwort since I really didn't like it anyway, and now I will keep a sharp eye on my tank to make sure I catch any more critters before they get big enough to be harmful. If nothing else this is making it interesting. Never a dull moment.

 

[blue_ram]

This is why you need to disinfect all plants that you buy. I do 5% bleach dip for 2 minutes. It pretty much kills all hitch hikers that came with the plants. Only plant that I've had that couldn't handle bleach dip was hornwort. You might want to do potassium permanganate bath for hornwort.

 

[gale]

This is why you need to disinfect all plants that you buy. I do 5% bleach dip for 2 minutes. It pretty much kills all hitch hikers that came with the plants. Only plant that I've had that couldn't handle bleach dip was hornwort. You might want to do potassium permanganate bath for hornwort.

Thanks. When I got the plants I did some searches on what to do with them but didn't remember seeing anything about bleaching them. Live and learn I guess.