OMG what is this creature!

[Sheldon13]

Sorry no pic.  That would be because the creature was a little less than a mm and there is no way my phone could capture it.  I tried.  Three things happened today:

1) This morning I had my first dead shrimp, the adult mom of the first babies I had a week ago.  She was not re-berried yet.

2) Another female who was berried had her babies this evening.  I've only counted 2 so far but I'm sure the others are in there somewhere.

3) I saw a little white worm slithering on a dead leaf on the bottom of the aquarium.

My question is, is the worm related in any way to the death, because water parameters are perfect and I mean PERFECT (0/0/0/7.2)

Should I use any kind of treatment to kill the worm, as I have no doubt it is not the only one.  I'm betting it cam in on a live plant.  Ugh.

 

 

[Sheldon13]

 

So, it's the little white speck in the background on the glass.  This is the second one I've seen.

[jayc]

I cant see it. 

But little white worms in a tank is usually nematodes. Harmless but unsightly. They usually hitch a ride on plants or water from, say a fish shop. It will not be the cause of the shrimp deaths.  More likely to be water parameters. Or if your shrimp are berried, feed them some frozen blood worms for more protein.

[Sheldon13]

That's reassuring if it's a nematode. 

Like I said though, the water parameters are perfect and have been since they have been in there.  I pre-cycled the aquarium for weeks before anyone was put in there.  I tested on Friday and it was 0/0/0/7.2.  Can't get much more perfect than that.  

I decided to low dose the aquarium with salt and see if that helps kill anything (seen or unseen) that might have contributed to the little lady's death.

[jayc]

15 hours ago, Sheldon13 said:

I decided to low dose the aquarium with salt

Yeah, nah. Don't do that.

Low doses of salt won't kill the nematodes, but will disrupt your water parameters enough to harm shrimp. Salt causes TDS to go up, and water hardness to increase, which makes it more difficult for shrimp to molt. They waste a lot of energy trying and will die eventually.

Have you got a TDS meter ?

If not, get one off ebay/amazon. They are cheap and helps a lot with keeping water parameters steady.

 

[Sheldon13]

Ok, so after reading your reply I went and did an 80% water change.  Everyone seems to be doing fine now and the 1.5 week old babies are zooming around like crazy, being kids I guess.  I did suck 2 of them up no matter the fact that I tried really hard to avoid them.  They just swam right to the suction!  They were ok though.  Dug them out of the bucket with my hand and a flashlight.  

Thanks for the advice.

[jayc]

3 hours ago, Sheldon13 said:

did an 80% water change.

That's a good move. Well done.

[Zoidburg]

Knowing your parameters, we also need GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonates and bi-carbonates) at minimum, but TDS is good to have as well.

The common worms found in aquariums are the following.
 

Rhabdocoela flatworms - tiny little white things on glass that move around and don't grow to be very big - often mistaken for planaria 
Detritus worms - often live in the substrate and may "wave" out of it. If seen in water column, moves kind of like a snake, head pointed in a specific direction, rest of the body moves back and forth
Nematodes - wriggle around in water column in "C" or "S" shapes
Planaria - a type of flatworm that usually grows larger than rhabdocoela flatworms (there are many species!), has an arrow shaped head and two "eyes". Once you understand what they look like, it's hard to mistake them! Recommended to use chemicals to get rid of

 

People sometimes also find earthworms and leaches...

[Sheldon13]

I totally forgot I posted this question already and I just started a new post because I was able to get a great picture. 

 

 

 

[jayc]

Just for some closer in case anyone reads this and has the same issue.

As per the other post that you linked, seems like you have detritus worms.

Not harmful. You don't need to do anything at this stage.