Identify This Leech?

[r.w.girard]

Can anyone help me identify this leech? I'm interested in knowing if it is tank safe or not.
 
It is a planted Celestial Pearl Danio species tank that might contain Tiger Shrimp eventually. That and some snails (trumpets, nerites and assassins in the long run).
 
It seems to have eaten some frozen daphnia I fed it. It moves by inching only. No swimming. And it wrapped itself around the daphnia while it was feeding. I think it was feeding. It is about an inch long when it stretches out fully.
 
And it looks like it has too little things sticking out of its sides on its posterior end. They are hard too see in person and in the pictures. The one on the left is from the top and the one on the right (which his upside-down) is from the bottom.

 

[AmtotheBurr]

Where did you get that thing from!

 

[r.w.girard]

Plants, I am sure. It has all been very thrilling.

 

[AmtotheBurr]

I've tried to look through some leech photos online and I am now thoroughly grossed out! Ha. I seriously may have nightmares.
I also didn't see anything similar to your creature. The little fin things are throwing me off too and the mouth does not look like a leech mouth. Hopefully someone can help

 

[Baccus]

As I am sure you are now aware there are actually many species of leech and many are host specific. If you put your finger in the water does it show any interest and start bee lining towards you?
I have seen fish leeches(or at least leeches that had no interest in human bodies or blood)  in the past and as well as leeches on shrimp, and they probably even get onto snails, some will also attach and feed on frogs and turtles.
The little side "fins" on the larger leech could actually be two smaller leeches either feeding or just young ones hitching a ride on their parent.
After having had one outbreak of leeches in one of my tanks in the past I would strongly advise not keeping the leech with any other creatures. Some leeches are not only blood feeders but also carnivorous. I never did work out exactly what the leeches I had in the tank preferred to feed on since I never saw them on my fish and they showed no interest in me, but they were certainly expanding in number. And even though I have played with leeches and found them quite interesting they are still something that tends to make me shudder.
Also if you ever want to sell fish or plants out of the tank that has leeches, many other people are not going to appreciate having them invade their tanks.
To rid my tank of the leeches I ended up hunting the leeches at night with torch light and plucking them out of the tank with tweezers. I then ended up throwing away all the plant life, but all the gravel and rocks, timber, ornaments I poured boiling water over it to kill any small unseen leeches and to "cook" any eggs.
How I got leeches off shrimp that where wild caught I salt water dipped the fresh water shrimp until the leeches dislodged of the shrimp then quickly got the shrimp back into large quantities of fresh water. It wasn't ideal to salt water dip the shrimp, but the only shrimp safe way I could think to remove and kill the hitch hiker leeches.

 

[Ltygress]

You have two possibilities. It's either a fish leech, or a snail leech. Most likely it's a snail leech. And by name alone, I'm sure you can tell that neither of those are good. Fish leech will be feeding on your fish, snail leech will feed on the snails you want to get.

But NEITHER of them feed just on those sources alone. Snail leeches would take out your snails, shrimp, and any other bottom feeder you might get. Fish leech don't swim but they do occasionally drift, and they will eat anything they can attach to. Period.

Either way, with the set-up you have and the creatures you still want to get, you need to dispose of this guy quickly. But DON'T dump him down the drain! It's likely that's where he came from (local water sources), but don't add to the problem of these guys in the wild! Instead, take him somewhere really dry, like a dirt patch in your yard, and pour him out. Salt helps too, like we tend to use with slugs.

 

[r.w.girard]

Thank you all for the advice. And Ltygress, I would never dream of dumping a live animal down a drain - although I know too many of us do. Still he had been so fun. It will be sad to see him go [from the cup he's been living in, I mean].

 

[Ltygress]

I did once, but by COMPLETE accident. And I felt HORRIBLE!

It was a sick guppy and he actually had food getting caught on his torn-up skin and sticking to him. I was going to rinse him off, so I put him in a shot-glass size measuring glass (I bought it to use for measuring oils in making candles and soaps, but he needed it first). I kept my hand over the top and rinsed him down with tap water.

Then I set him to the side (other side of the kitchen sink) and rinsed my hands using the sink sprayer. When I reached over to turn off the water, I accidentally hit the button on the sprayer again and it shot STRAIGHT into the shot glass he was in! But shot glasses are so shallow, and the sprayer is pretty strong, so it sprayed him right over the edge and he went down the drain! AND my dumb didn't think to shut the water off and rescue him from the P-trap until he was long gone from THERE too. I don't even know if he would have been in it anyway, since he was floating.

I felt so bad for flushing a REALLY nice-looking guppy down the drain, AND for flushing a disease down into the local water system. I'm STILL kicking my own butt over that one!