Store claiming Asian leech is harmless bloodworm

[AuroraDawn]

I paid about $150 for a lot of moss and around $32 in shipping recently ordered from John Zika, owner of Superior Shrimp & Aquatics.

The moss came yesterday and before even opening any of the moss bags I saw an Asian leech moving in it! This is a predatory leech that eats invertebrates like snails, shrimps and worms.

I sent the same video (1) and photo (2) below that I took with my phone and John, the owner, is insisting it is a harmless blood worm. If you look at one end of it you will see the sucker on one end. Easier in the photo as it isn't moving.

The leeches are very hard to eradicate from your tank and spread very easily. Please read the article I put a link to and educate yourself.

I don't want other people to lose money and I especially don't want anyone to end up with these leeches.


1) My VIDEO
IMG_6365.MOV

2) My PHOTO
IMG_6362.jpeg

3) Video of Asian Leech from reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/shrimptank/comments/1ulyuqc/barbronia_weberi_commonly_known_as_the_asian

4) Article describing the Asian Leech, what it eats (invertebrates like snails, shrimp and worms)
Asian Leeches in Shrimp Tank: Stay or Go? - Shrimp and Snail Breeder

5) Email screen shot of owner insisting it is a harmless bloodworm.

6) Screen shot of my response, I have not yet heard back.

 

[Cyberfish]

Definitely looks like a leech. I'm sorry you had to go through this; it's very annoying when the seller insists it's fine.

 

[AuroraDawn]

UPDATE: store owner looked into it realized that I was correct and went on to say that I can treat the moss with Prezi Quantel I have researched this and have read differently however I will look into it again he is telling me that if I treat the plants, they are safe to use

It personally doesn’t make sense to use plants that you already know for sure have a pest that’s hard to get rid of, and that will kill the snails in the tank that you are breeding if the treatment doesn’t work.

I did explain this to him and I am really hoping for a refund.

 

[Fishfur]

Praziquantel won’t bother leeches at all so it’s pointless to try it.

It’s a huge advantage that you can treat without worrying about livestock!

You have quite a few possible choices.

Fenbendazole - snail toxic and can linger in tanks because it gets absorbed into some things and leaches back out over time but outside a tank, very thorough rinsing should be all you need to do after treatment. Will not kill the eggs.

Betel nut extract (such as in No Planaria) should work, same problems as Fenben’ in tanks. Will not kill eggs.

Copper sulphate - this isn’t used nearly so widely as it once was because it is soooo highly lethal to aquatic life (not to mention that the dosage to kill leeches must be 5 times as high as it is when it’s used as an algaecide).

But it works & can be quite cost effective and isn’t difficult to get. Will not kill eggs.

I wouldn’t ever want to use it in a tank even if didn’t have any livestock but it would be fine in a separate treatment container.

If you had any concern about residual copper, using a specialty remover media like CupriSorb for a few days after extremely thorough rinsing of the moss would be a good idea. It is rechargeable and it works.

If you happen to have one of these oxidizers handy, Potassium permanganate, bleach or H2O2 - hydrogen peroxide, any one of them will kill leeches (& pretty much anything else) and at least theoretically, do it without harming the moss.

The trouble is that the plants being harmed is a very real possibility if you use any of these compounds.

Just a minor mistake with the exposure time (length of soaking time) or one involving the concentration of the solution can kill plants or do drastic harm.

Nevertheless, the concentration for PP should be 5 mg/l. Soaking affected plants for an hour is what is typically advised. Will not kill eggs

For H2O2, it would be 1 to 2 teaspoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide added to one gallon of water. Soaking time is 10 to 15 minutes. I do not like ranges of dosing like this. Will not kill eggs.

For bleach it’s recommended to use a 19:1 or 20:1 dilution of water:bleach but no recipe ever seems to bother to mention what concentration of bleach it is based on! Will not kill eggs (at this concentration).

Laundry bleach can vary from less than 3% sodium hypochlorite (cheapest brands) to 6% and that is a lot of variation. For that reason, bleach is a no-go for me. But it’s cheap and easily obtained & so is H2O2.

I have used H2O2 & bleach in the past as plant dips with mixed results. Some dipped plants were fine but others just went queep & died.

I’ve never used PP as a plant dip or soak so can’t comment about it from personal experience but I’d be seriously leery of using any of the oxidizers on plants I valued.

Then there’s Alum - aluminum potassium sulphate.

It used to be used widely for making pickles. It’s still used in certain food processing but it has fallen out of general favour.

It’s still pretty easy to get and inexpensive. Spice aisles in grocery stores usually have it among other sources.

When mixed into water at appropriate doses it will kill leeches ( and most any other critter).

It’s not an oxidizer so the potential for harming plants is far less but it is pretty toxic to aquatic life and after the dip/soak time, extremely thorough rinsing is required. Will not kill eggs.

Dosage is 1 tablespoon of alum dissolved into one gallon of water & then soaking plants for anywhere from a few to as many as 48 hours. That’s a lot of variation too but alum isn’t going to burn plants n the way oxidizers can.

Bigger leeches might take quite awhile to succumb. Should you see any, I’d want to manually remove them.

I would keep the moss in strict QT until I was dead sure the leeches had been eradicated or at least 90 days.

This species lays eggs in little cocoons and they can take roughly 27-34 days to hatch.

There’s simply no treatment available that I know about which will kill the eggs and is also safe for plants, so you’d need to repeat treatment a couple of times at least to catch any new hatchlings.

This species, Barbronia weberi, has no larval development stages. They’re functional leeches on the day they hatch.

I’d want to keep the moss quarantined for 90 days and treat every 28-30 days no matter what I was using, which for me would probably be copper sulphate since I can’t get Fenben’ and the CuSo4 is most likely to be cost effective for me.