Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

hi everyone

Sadly, I found today what appears to be tiny leeches in one of my tanks. I guess they came in on some hornwort that I added a couple weeks ago. I also have a good sized community of Cherry Reds in this tank, from very tiny babies to full sized adults. Other inhabitants are some apple snails and a pair of bristlenose plecos.

Does anyone know what is the best course of action to take to exterminate the leeches? I understand that Dojo Loaches (aka Weather Loaches) are good for eating leeches, but will they harm shrimps and/or snails? If need be, I can take the snails out of the tank but I highly doubt I can get all the shrimps out...

Thank you for any advice,

Vlad

Those most likely aren't leeches. From your description they sound like they are planaria. They appear if you are overfeeding. They'll disappear if they cannot find enough food to subsist...i.e. if your shrimp population gets larger they should disppear. Other than that...palaemonid shrimp such as the Freshwater Glass Shrimp Palaemonetes paludosus eat planaria, although they might grab a shrimp hatchling here and there, too. The loaches will eat *any* shrimp or snail they can fit in their mouths

Mustafa

hi Mustafa,

Thank you for the response. I hope they are planaria, but I didn't think they are because they are free-swimming. I always had the impression that planaria are not that way, but more likely to be creeping on the glass of the aquarium.

I've heard on the applesnail.net forum that dojos are ok with snails. I suspected they would likely eat shrimps, but wanted to ask someone with more knowledge about loaches than I have.

Thank you again for the response,

Vlad

Yes, you're right, there are many different kinds of planaria. I was just speaking from my experience with the type I've seen in my tanks. It's completely white and is only a couple of millimeters long. However, just yesterday I saw a tank at a pet store that had hundreds of *huge* brown planaria with arrow-shaped heads. They were over 1cm long some even longer! I had never seen planaria that big before, but I guess they exist. Either way, they all look way too slow to actually catch shrimp young, so I am not convinced that they actually do. I know that some people in Germany complain about planaria eating their young, but I'd have to see it to believe it.

Mustafa

Mustafa wrote:Those most likely aren't leeches. From your description they sound like they are planaria. They appear if you are overfeeding. They'll disappear if they cannot find enough food to subsist...i.e. if your shrimp population gets larger they should disppear. Other than that...palaemonid shrimp such as the Freshwater Glass Shrimp Palaemonetes paludosus eat planaria, although they might grab a shrimp hatchling here and there, too. The loaches will eat *any* shrimp or snail they can fit in their mouths

Mustafa

I'm not so sure about that Mustafa. I've got an awfull lot of planaria in my tank with cherryshrimps. But there are (last count) 600 cherry's in that tank! There are differnd kinds in planaria and i heard of some actually killing babyshrimps.