Strange worm like animal found in tank

PuppyFluffer

PuppyFluffer

AC Members
Jan 9, 2008
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east coast USA
Doing a PWC on my fairly new 10 gallon tank today I found a worm like creature stuck to the underside of a broad leaf plastic plant.

I don't have a decent digital camera so I'll have to describe it as best as possible.

It is brownish in color and appears to anchor it's body to a surface and stretch out from there. It doesn't appear to inch around or free float. It's body is fairly flat and broad at the anchored base and narrower at the free end. It looks like some sort of a flat worm. It is about 3/4 of an inch long.

Any idea what this thing is?
 
Does the worm have a segemented or ribbed appearance? If so, it is quite likely a leech. There are both blood-sucking and predatory species; either way, you should probably remove it from your tank.
 
planaria.jpg


i have them in my shrimp tank
 
I'll need to look at it under some magnification to get a better view.

It does not appear to have those protrusions from the head area shown in the picture above.

Thanks! Off to research some more.
 
I took it to my neighbor who does work with freshwater fish (trout and such). She thinks it is NOT a planaria and probably a leech but she's going to take it into work to get a better look at it and have it identified.

If it's a leech, how would it have gotten in my tank? I have well water. The tank has artificial plants and one small clump of java moss I moved over from another tank a few days ago. I've seen none of these creatures in the tank where the java moss was moved from.

I don't think it's possible that I am overfeeding this tank. If anything, I've been concerned about whether I am feeding enough.

I have also only fed froozen and flake foods - no live foods that a leech could have hitch-hiked in on.
 
It might have been in the java moss, as an egg if not as an adult. You'd be surprised; I put a bunch of plants in my 65 and three months later found a pygmy sunfish that could only have come in with them.
 
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