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Worm in tank?
Hello all.
A few months ago I began the process of setting up my 30g, 3 watts/gallon
tank. I had six otos and 10 yamato shrimp, was injecting DIY CO2 through my
canister filter, and was pretty happy with how things were going. Then I
got seriously ill and spent a month and a half either in the hospital or
recuperating at my parents' house.
During that time, my tank barely got touched -- my mom would come by and
drop in an algae wafer every so often, but the CO2 ran out, the water level
dropped by an inch, there was no air conditioning on in my apartment so the
temperature went up over 85 degrees at times, the pH dropped to somewhere
around 5.5 (why, when the CO2 ran out? a mystery to me) etc. A total mess.
I'm almost back on my feet and I now I seem to have only one poor oto (where
did the rest go? I guess they died and the shrimp and rapidly proliferating
snails ate their bodies), some unknown number of shrimp, a zillion snails,
and lot of black brush algae. The plants still seem to be growing well,
fortunately. Anyway, I was thinking of starting anew when I noticed some
kind of brown flat worm wiggling its way through my tank. I was shocked. It
appeared to be an inch long and eel-like in appearance and motion. I only
saw it for a few seconds before it disappeared behind another plant; forgive
my very basic description.
Does anyone have any idea what this could be? I've never fed my fish live
food. Before I got sick, i did notice tiny thread like white worms in the
water, just a few. Is this a grown-up version of whatever they were? Is
there something I could have introduced through my plants? I'm very
reluctant to add other fish if this is some kind of killer parasite.
Thanks in advance for your help; sorry for the long pathetic story.
Christina in Washington D.C.