Habitat - Indoor :: Found flatworm in my tank

[Spike 7.62]

So I was doing a water change and changing the filters the other day to keep the tank clean. I have a bare bottom set up with two large river rocks and a fake cave thing for them to hide. I had the river rocks out all night so that the filters would pick up all the poo and debris, but a small flatworm survived til the morning. I tossed it in the toilet and sent it on its way, but I wonder where it came from? I assume it would be harmful if the turtle ate it, since it would have survived inside him.

Weird.

-Spike

[akaghettoraver]

maybe it came out of the turtle? not to scare u but you might want to check on it

[Diamondbacks4Life]

maybe it came out of the turtle? not to scare u but you might want to check on it

Yea that is also what i was thinking.

You wanna watch to see if more appear and your sure it was a flatworm?

If more appears you might want to just take some of your turtles feces to a vet and have it tested to see if it contains any traces of the parasites and then they can give you medicine to get rid of it. The test only costs like $25

[Spike 7.62]

Hm, I thought of that too, but it almost seems like it'd be too big. It was maybe an inch long, and the turtles in the tank are small.

I googled "flat worm" and that is not the worm I found. This one looked like an earth worm, but once I put it in the toilet it swam like an eel. They eat rosie red minnows, but I haven't put new ones in the tank in a long time, and those are still quite tiny.

They haven't even had any new aquatic plants for a week and a half before this incident, so I don't know where the foreign contaminent came from unless it's been really living inside one of the turtles for a while.

-Spike

[4711]

that worm didn't get there by chance. The minnow might have carried it, or they had it all along.

Don't be fooled, worms can live in tight quarters! and don't forget the intestines are quiet long, too!