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A Cautionary Tale by Todo
I was in a local pet store the other day. This was a familiar place where I knew them and
they knew me.. The shop keeper and his assistant were in intense conversation with a woman
customer as I came near. The assistant turned to me and said, "You're a goldfish
expert, what do you think about this.?" I didn't bother to point out that I knew only
something about koi and precious little about goldfish. In any event I listened to the
problem.
"This lady is having trouble with worms in her aquarium. Do you know anything about
them?"
It seems the customer had brought in a sample of the worms. I said I didn't know much but
would help if I could. "Let's go see the worms."
Before I saw it I expected to see the red blood worms that show up in our filters. The
harmless larvae of the midge fly. Instead, there on the counter was a black/brown worm
about an inch long. It looked more like a small slug without the slime or a snail missing
its shell. On closer observation, it appeared to stick to the plastic bag it was laid on
with a small round mouth part while the back end twisted, moving back and forth. There
were a half dozen more if these sliding around a 5 gal bucket next to the counter.
As we examined the creature it became obvious what it was, a leach. The woman's 20 gal.
aquarium was infested with leaches. The conversation then turned to how they managed to
get into the aquarium.
I asked her if she had introduced anything to her aquarium..She and the shopkeeper assured
me that she had not. But further discussion revealed that the woman had purchased some
Anacrus from the shop. Further, the shopkeeper said that they get their plants from
someone who takes them directly from the wild. Neither of them did any sterilization of
them nor he did nothing to sterilize the plants before putting them up for sale. We
decided that the leaches had to have come in with the plants.
We talked about how to sterilize plants with potassium permanganate or with a bleach
solution. The shopkeeper said that perhaps the store should be doing that with the plants
they get.
In the end the customer went home intent on watching her fish to see that no leaches
grabbed them and with a healthy respect for what she puts in the aquarium. The shopkeeper
was a bit chastened and lucky that the woman was not upset. To me it pointed out a fact
that is often lost when dealing with otherwise familiar vendors. There is no substitute
for quarantine and proper disinfect practices. In the end, you don't know where that plant
has been. |
