HI there
ok i am new to breeding snails as a food source for my loach and thought sombody may have had this problem before! some small white worm things are killing all my (loach's live food) common pond snails the worms are swimming head up and there are lots of them what can i use to kill them off are they dangerous to me or the fish? i know they are dangerous to the snails as they are all starting to die i know its no great loss to the world but but my loach do enjoy a weekend treat

and i can't spell either D'OH what a muppet

Small white worm-like animals could be nematodes (round worms) or maybe planaria (flat worms). There are some species of worms that are parasitic to snails. The thing to remember with parasites is that they will almost always be in or on their hosts and not living freely in the tank. If the worms are on the outside of the snails' shells or all over the tank, they may not be parasites. Planaria are pretty common in tanks with excess food. They are generally harmless. If the worms are all over the snails and up on their bodies, then they may be parasites. Heavy loads of parasites could be killing the snails but I would also check your water quality to rule that out (pH, hardness, ammonia, nitrite). Unfortunately, all the "medications" (poisons) that kill worms also kill snails! Those toxins are also dangerous for scaleless and sensitive fish like your loaches.

For larger snails like apple snails, hand removal and rinsing might help a little but you really can't do that with tiny pond snails. If you are sure the snails are being parasitized, if you want a healthy colony of pond snails in their own tank to give to your loaches, I'm afraid at this point you'll have to start with a sterile tank and new snails. You could try to use a worm killer to kill off any worms in the main fish tank but keep in mind that most likely that would kill any snails in there and potentially harm the loaches too.

The good news is that most worm parasites of snails are specific to snails and probably won't harm the fish or you.

You said the worms are swimming? Aquatic worms rarely swim but usually inch along.

Hi Robyn
thanks for answering yep these things defenatley swim free if they find a snail they seem to drill into the meat and then the snail floats to the surface, i have tried to get one under the magnifier but the wriggle to fast to see anything the head looks like some sort of hook, no body hairs that i can see and no obvious limbs etc they seem to be in the whole of the water coloum but where a snail is floating they swamp them (if i had to describe them i would suggest water snake in the way they swim)

but i have to agree with you if we cant identify them the tank has to be steralized any idea's how we rescue the guppy fish without transfering the problem (my youngest suggested washing the fish) but that does not quite work with tropical fish and moving them to a hospital tank would probably just infect a second tank

I'm not sure what those things are but they sound nasty. Perhaps they are some kind of hookworms since they have a hook. So, you have guppies with the snails? The parasitic medications for worms will kill the snails but shouldn't harm the guppies. I suggest putting the guppies into another sterile tank and then treating the guppies with a medication that says it kills worms. Hopefully, whatever those things are, they're not attacking or on the guppies (just the snails) so treating the guppies would just be a precaution. You would be washing the guppies just with parasitic-killing medications and not soap!