How to get rid of leeeches

Ok i got soem snails on my plants and them bam i had leeches . The leeches were eating the snails and attacking my frogs and fish. I found white and black leeches .

After researching about everything i could find i decided to figure it out on my own.

This is what i eventually had to do to get rid of them.

1 i added freshwater salt and killed the snails and got rid of the plants.

2 this made the leeches go to the top of the tank in search of food . Unfortunately my frgos were first on their list and they killed my dragon goby by getting into his gills and suffocating him .

2 I put real copper fittings in my cannister filter .This would gradually leach out in the water and any leeches passing over them or snails would die .

3 but this was not enough , i did not want copper sulfate as i have loaches and frogs so i finally read up on leech physiology and came up with this .

The leeches were weakened by the copper and salt but they would eventually adapt so i added cat roundworm medication . Anything in the gills of my fish dropped off . After 2 weeks i strated to find less leeches and those i did find i promptly removes either with salt baths on the fish and frogs or by hand.
The loaches were eating the baby leeches but the adults were my issue . After 3 weeks they died off the roundworm medication finally taking effect on their bodys with no harm to my fish. This also got rid of any parasites left in the water and their digestion tracks.i believe this is what killed the leeches Active Ingredient:[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 250 mg Piperazine base as Piperazine Citrate per each teaspoon (5 ml). It took a little time and was gradual , but it was also easy on my fish and frogs and did not kill any of them . [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]it has been 4 weeks now and no leeches . [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]no stupid leech trap worked . putting meat in your tank is a bad idea to catch leeches it fowls the water badly. Copper does not kill leech eggs . Kill their food supply (snails ) then treat with Piperazine and you get results.[/FONT]

A few water changes a good gravel cleaning and a complete change of the canister filter should remedy that . the medicine will eventually dilute to safe levels.Also Potassium permanganate decomposes when exposed to light: So it goes away when exposed to direct sunlight also you can use a full spectrum light to rid your tank of the remaining Potassium permanganate .

The copper is fittings remove them and you remove the copper . when i was young we used real pennies to get rid of snails. after we would clean our tanks we could put snails back in and the didn't die . Its the same with copper sulfate . Besides most deaths of fish when using copper sulfate is because of bad aeration. it depletes oxygen, mainly because the dead stuff decomposes .
After two weeks of large water changes from the last addition of copper, it is time to completely neutralize the remaining copper. Since copper is an element, it cannot be decomposed into simpler, harmless substances and it will remain as is, for ever. The only known way to eliminate copper is by doing water changes. Still, unless you do a 100% water change, some copper will remain in your tank. Since copper is an essential trace element in animal and [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]plant [/FONT][FONT=inherit !important]nutrition[/FONT][/FONT], very small amounts of it will not be harmful at all, but at this point you probably will have more copper in solution than the recommended “trace element” dose. At this point you can start the filtration system again and, if it has some activated carbon (charcoal), it will be helpful in eliminating a little of the copper still remaining in solution. This will not be a definite procedure and you will still need to deal with the remaining copper ions.

The other way to safely inactivate the small remaining of copper in your tank is to make us of “chelating compounds”. You do not need to know anything related to the chemistry involved in this process nor do you need to buy anything extra. You can just use the normal water conditioner that you use for the removal of chlorine/chloramines. Many brands of water conditioners contain chelating compounds that make heavy metals (including copper) safe. Make sure that the one you are using does in fact contain some chelating agents and, since it is safe for use in aquaria, you may want to overdose a little to inactivate most of the remaining copper. This will eventually be eliminated by the regular 20% weekly water changes.

In other words its rather easy to neutralize the leftover copper .

Well new mystery snails are now in the tank . I introduced apple/aka mystery snails as a test for the concern of em not being able to introduce invertebrates due to the copper etc.. They are fine and thriving .This is a perfect way to rid yourselves of leeches in you tank .