Bloodworms infesting my tank!!! HELP NOW!!!!

N

Nischint

Everyone's a critic
Dec 19, 2002
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Bombay, India
www.jamlikethat.com
I got some bloodworms or tubifex worms, to feed my fish. Thanks to a little error on my part and my clumsiness, I dropped the whole damn lot into the tank. The fish ate most of them, but a few made it to the bottom. Now the water has become really dirty and smelly, like the bloodoworm's water. I'm doing a massive water change now, like 99% but if this worms stay back, will they harm my fish or dirty up the water again??

Does this mean I have to restart my tank ALL OVER AGAIN???

Help me now!!! I'm doing the water changing as I type this.

FASTTTTT!!!

How do I get rid of them from my tank???
 
Stop - Don't do a 99% water change !!!

You will create other problems.

For changing water - do you have some type of gravel vacuum siphon? if so, just clean the substrate and siphon up all the bloodworms you can.

If you don't have this vacuum siphon - try stirring up the botom a little and net as many bloodworms as you can with one of your fishnets.

Then do a partial waterchange - no more than 50% IMO

You may want to put some fresh charcoal or other additive in your filter to clean the dirty water a bit more - then let nature take care of the rest - while monitoring your Ammonia and Nitrite/Nitrate levels.

if need be, repeat a 50% water change tomorrow

Good luck
 
Salt or copper would probably kill them straight off, if the fish just don't eat the rest of them outright. Just be super carefull if you use copper to get the dosage correct.
good luck
:)
 
I'd go with the vacuuming. If you kill them with copper you have first added a toxic metal to your tank and second created a massive bioload wihich may overload your filters and foul your substrate.

There is nothing wrong with high volume changes so long as the water parameters match and the new water has no chlorine/chloramine.
 
I'm saved :)

Hey, thanks for the input, but by the time I read it all, I had already done the work. I do have a vaccum siphon, so I siphoned off the bloodworms and dug into the substrate a bit to get the other bits. But I think a few got left behind.

I did the 99% water change, in fact, I think it was a 100% one since only a cm of water was left. I had removed the fish and put them in a bucket for a while. I then added hot water, not boiling hot, but pretty hot water, for the first half of the tank. I thought the bloodworms won't survive that hot a temperature. No harm was done to anything else, so that's good. Then I added 50% cold water, and waited for about 10 minutes until the water was at room temperature. Then I added the dechlorinator, and waited for another 10 minutes. Added the fish slowly and then dropped in some drops of rot stop and super ich.

I don't know whether what I did was right or wrong, but whatevere I did, it seems to have worked for me. The tank water is clear again, there are almost no signs of blood(y)worms. I didn't feed the fish in the morning today, in their hunger, I think they found and ate the remaining bloodworms.

So I guess I'm safe and cool :)

If I add salt to the tank, won't it harm the fish??
 
Best keep a close eye on the ammonia and nitrite.. Water that was hot enough to kill bloodworms quite possibly and probably was hot enough to damage the bacteria bed in the gravel too.
 
I think your fish will be fine. As long as you have dechlorinator in the tank, the fish will be able to handle it. Unless it's a really fragile fish. You may have some high pH, ammonia, or nitrite, so you should test regularly.

For salt, I think it would be fine as long as you don't overdose it. Salt is actually good for the fish because it's natural and won't hurt your fish as much as copper.
 
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