What the heck are these things???

[canucks]

Hello, I was just looking into my 20g tank that is 7 days into a fishless cycle, so I was expecting it to be empty, but there are these little white worm things in there. The biggest ones are about one centimeter long and they wiggle like mosquito larvae. They look like little white threads or filaments. We're just wondering what they are and if they're harmful. Maybe they won't live if there is no host for them? (if they even are a parasite...) Or maybe they are normally there anyways and just get eaten up by the fish??? I should probably say too, that we had originally begun a fishy cycle with some neons that didn't make it and when I removed them, alive, (they were transferred to an uncycled 10g, but still didn't make it), I noticed that one had a little white thread thing pokin' out of its head... (?) Also, I seeded the tank with media from my turtle tank, which looks healthy and clean, as do the inhabitants, (2 turtles 5 years and 6years and 2 overgrown, lucky feeders about 2 years old now) but maybe something stays dormant in the colder h2o and then becomes active once temps go up??? Any help is greatly appreciated.
20g, high
7th day of fishless cycle
Last nights readings were: NH4=2.4
NO2=1.6
pH =7.0
Temp=77
Thanks, Kathi

 

[wetmanNY]

Your turtle tank is a rich source of microbes to start the new tank. Also planktonic critters like the nematodes (literally "thread worms") that you noticed. Harmless. A part of natural water life.

Since you have no fish in the new system, I'd take the water you siphon out at turtle cleaning time, let it settle, pour off most of the water and pour the nastiest turtliest gunk into your nice new fish tank! Reptiles and fish share no parasites that I know of, and besides without hosts-- as you noted-- the life cycles would be interrupted.

But turtle gunk has: ciliates, amoebas, euglenoids, algae, nematodes, maybe some naidids, copepods, water mites etc etc. A balanced plankton keeps the water clear.

Check this out: www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ Look at the "Pond Life" page. Look for Wim van Egmond's micropix. Beautiful!

 

[canucks]

thanks

Thanks for the reassuring info, wetman. I was just at the site you posted and got kinda lost, there's alot of info there! I did find one page there a couple days ago, though, that said something about nematodes being parasitic to almost all other living things and it kinda worried me! I couldn't find the info again (I'm not exactly a wiz with computers and stuff...). You seemed to know what you're talking about though; do you have any experience with or more info on these little guys? I only have WebTV, so am limited as to how much info I can get out of certain websites, but I will try to do some more research on them. (they're thriving, btw!!)

 

[wetmanNY]

It's true about nematodes. Other nematodes are just commensal, like the ones between your teeth! Many years ago a biologist said that if every living animal and plant suddenly disappeared, you could still make out their ghostly outlines by the nematode worms they contained everywhere...

But the nematodes you can see in the aquarium are free-living, not parasites. And many more are too small to see. They're digesting detritus and grazing on bacteria and the smaller protists, fungal spores and fungal conidia, algal cells, everything the right size you can imagine is being eaten by some nematode.

Very nutritious. The vinegar "eelworms" and microworms we cultivate to feed our fry are nematodes.

Get a 10-power loupe and check along the gravel at the front glass for other critters.

 

[canucks]

Cool! I can see myself developing yet another interest! Thanks again, I feel much better now.