Charis Posted January 18, 2015 Report Share Posted January 18, 2015 I have some Blue Australian Lobsters. My male molted about a week ago and I noticed his molt had a lot of 1/8 inch, waving white worms hanging on to it. I think these must be some sort of parasite (definitely not planaria) so I pulled his molt out and tossed it because I didn't want him to become reinfected. That was likely dumb because I'm sure that the parasites are still in the tank and likely still on him, and I know he needs to eat his molt! So my question is two fold... 1) What kind of parasites can crayfish carry that are long, wavy and just attach to the head and chest of the crayfish? 2) How do I get rid of them and do I need to do a complete tank sterilization? 3) What can I feed him to make up for the nutrients that I deprived him of by tossing his molt? Also, I noticed that my female has these same worms on her head and tons of them on the "wavy" part of her chest. Ugh! It makes sense that both the male and female would have them since they share a divided tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGardenofEder Posted January 18, 2015 Report Share Posted January 18, 2015 No clue about the worms sorry but you can put crushed oyster shells to help with the lack of his shed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquariumlover10 Posted January 18, 2015 Report Share Posted January 18, 2015 Snail shells, oyster shells, and snail nutrient rocks should hav calcium, or foods with vlcalcium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted January 19, 2015 Report Share Posted January 19, 2015 Sure it is worms and not fungus? I occasionally have white fungus grow on my adult marms, but it doesn't harm them. Either way, this is a great general cure for almost anything exterior, including shell rot: Take out of aquarium 40g salt w/o iodine to 1 gallon water. Soak 20-30 minutes Rinse with freshwater Put into tank. Provided the "parasites" are not there anymore, the cray will be fine by next molt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OblongShrimp Posted January 19, 2015 Report Share Posted January 19, 2015 could they just be worms in the tank that were feeding on the molt? aquariumlover10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyfishlady Posted January 19, 2015 Report Share Posted January 19, 2015 I googled it (Can you tell I do a lot of researching for a living, lol) http://www.bluecrayfish.com/bcf-faq.html#10 it could be "branchiobdellinda" wow that's a long name. Read the article and then google the 'thing' and see if it looks like the same thing. If so, it seems it's ok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miwu Posted January 19, 2015 Report Share Posted January 19, 2015 I think I've seen the same kind of worms on my crayfish when I still had them. It happens when the tank is not clean enough. Either you're feeding too much or you're not changing the water/vacuuming the substrate enough. They didn't seem to really hurt the crayfish though. I sometimes saw them scratch their legs but that's about it. I would up the water change schedule and the worms will be gone. Soothing Shrimp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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