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Post by crucify on Jan 11, 2014 23:14:06 GMT
The GALS have worms, all of them. That's not really the bad part, it happens. The main thing is, all the fulica babies are dead. Only one survived, who is now living in the aspersa tank. The three fulicas are in an empty tank with a large carrot and no substrate since it's 11pm and substrate prevents worms drying out.
The thing is, none of the aspersa babies were affected. I was using the fulicas tank as a nursery, since they're very slow and the babies seem to like sleeping on them. Found plenty of healthy aspersa babies, who are now charging around the tank with their parents. That made me realize, the aspersas have never had worms for more than a day or two. On the rare occasions they've had worms, all the worms vanished not long later. With the GALS, it's a massive crawling revolting invasion. I'm starting to wonder if aspersas, being native species, actually have a strong resistance to these parasites, while the GALS being native to Africa, do not.
Anyway, I'm going to have an icky day tomorrow dealing with blasted worms by spraying them all with disinfectant and freezing to death outside because the coir is in the garage and the whole tank needs tipping out into the bottom of the garden. God I hate those gross little things.
And there goes the last of my money. Had to fork out £10 on eBay for ground pumpkin seed, hemp powder and dandelion. Completely beyond me how people can actually pay to eat and buy all these ridiculous natural health supplements.
Update: Got a mixture of green tea leaves and calcium powder cooling down in a tub, going to give the snails a good soak and hopefully put a dent in this worm problem before the rest of the powders arrive.
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Post by malacophile on Jan 12, 2014 0:08:08 GMT
Oh, no...  Poor snails (and poor you! This must be so hard to deal with!). Can you describe these worms, where they're found on/in the snail, etc? I'd like to avoid a problem like this myself, and knowing what to keep an eye out for would be helpful. |
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Post by wreckoning on Jan 12, 2014 0:43:12 GMT
I know how you feel. I just discovered a mite infestation of what seems to be Riccardoella limacum. I was changing the food in my banana slug terrarium and I found a dead slug absolutely covered in large white creepy-crawlies. I'm pretty interested in what their lifespan is, because I don't understand how such a large quantity could have escaped my notice - were they dispersed throughout the tank and came to congregate on the dead slug, or had the slug been dead for days and a handful of mites reproduced as a result?
I washed the remaining four banana slugs in water and relocated them to a different terrarium. Luckily there is a local dealer for Hypoaspis miles, the beneficial mites which eat Riccardoella. So my plan is, sterilize the tanks as best I can, put in some Hypoaspis just in case, and put all slugs and snails into separate quarantines with high concentration Hypoasis.
It's not that surprising that I would finally have my first outbreak, after all I do have a lot of wild-caught gastropods. I keep them separate however, and these particular slugs were captive-bred. The tanks however are directly stacked on top of each other; I don't know what kind of migratory lifestyle the Riccardoella may have.
I think in the future I will be more vigilant about new wild-caught animals. In the past, I inspect them, rinse them and off they go into the wild-caught terrarium. What I may do now is inspect w/ magnifying glass, rinse, and quarantine in a high-concentration Hypoaspis terrarium for a few weeks.
I really hate overhauling the terrariums and scrubbing things down thoroughly - not just because of the work, but I'm almost inevitably going to be accidentally trashing baby snails and slugs / eggs in the process, I disturb hibernating slugs and snails, and I doubt they are fond of complete overhauling of their environment. But it seems like that's going to be the way it's going to have to be, at least as long as I am reliant on wild captives for genetic diversity.
That poor slug, it couldn't have been like that for more than a day. I wanted to take a picture, you know, for science, but I couldn't even stand it. I just felt so terrible.
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Zorst
Achatina tincta
Posts: 734 
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Post by Zorst on Jan 12, 2014 6:43:08 GMT
Sorry to hear about your snails, I hope that they survive, I found that warm green tea baths also help so the one's here have those fairly regularly which they enjoy and I inspect the substructure each time I muck out the snails as well as worm them once every 6-8 weeks with pumpkin seed and fresh dandy-lion roots n leaves. Its seems to work. I just get the raw ingredients n make up my own mix to worm them it seems to work ok. I save pumpkin seeds from the ones I've grown n the dandy -lions are always fresh as I've a good supply which I actively encourage to grow.
I'm guess I'm so used to worming the horses regularly on a preventative routine and the other animals that the snails also get done on the same routine. Its happened to me once and I was determined for it not to get that way again if I could help it. I also make sure that every w - 3 months I change the substructure. I recycle it by taking out the old n checking it carefully for any eggs n babies, then washing it through with very hot water. Draining it then putting it in the range for a day and baking it. Lastly its storied in the freezer until needed again when ti take it out n defrost it. It saves me keeping either digging up or buying in more substructure but keeps the snails happy n healthy n gets rid of any unwanted critters. may seem a bit long winded but it works n the actual washing only takes a few minutes. The range is always on so its easy to put it in there as is the freezer.
Hope that helps some as there is nothing worse than finding worms, mites n other critters in the snail tanks that are harming the snails.
Zorst
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Post by crucify on Jan 12, 2014 10:23:47 GMT
Oh, no... Poor snails (and poor you! This must be so hard to deal with!). Can you describe these worms, where they're found on/in the snail, etc? I'd like to avoid a problem like this myself, and knowing what to keep an eye out for would be helpful. They're very thin and white, they wiggle up the sides of the tank and get stuck a lot. Every time they've appeared, something's died. They crashed an entire tank of crickets and the whole tank was caked in the gross little things. I sprayed them all down with bleach, then filled the tank with boiling water and bleached it. I know how you feel. I just discovered a mite infestation of what seems to be Riccardoella limacum. I was changing the food in my banana slug terrarium and I found a dead slug absolutely covered in large white creepy-crawlies. I'm pretty interested in what their lifespan is, because I don't understand how such a large quantity could have escaped my notice - were they dispersed throughout the tank and came to congregate on the dead slug, or had the slug been dead for days and a handful of mites reproduced as a result? I washed the remaining four banana slugs in water and relocated them to a different terrarium. Luckily there is a local dealer for Hypoaspis miles, the beneficial mites which eat Riccardoella. So my plan is, sterilize the tanks as best I can, put in some Hypoaspis just in case, and put all slugs and snails into separate quarantines with high concentration Hypoasis.It's not that surprising that I would finally have my first outbreak, after all I do have a lot of wild-caught gastropods. I keep them separate however, and these particular slugs were captive-bred. The tanks however are directly stacked on top of each other; I don't know what kind of migratory lifestyle the Riccardoella may have. I think in the future I will be more vigilant about new wild-caught animals. In the past, I inspect them, rinse them and off they go into the wild-caught terrarium. What I may do now is inspect w/ magnifying glass, rinse, and quarantine in a high-concentration Hypoaspis terrarium for a few weeks. I really hate overhauling the terrariums and scrubbing things down thoroughly - not just because of the work, but I'm almost inevitably going to be accidentally trashing baby snails and slugs / eggs in the process, I disturb hibernating slugs and snails, and I doubt they are fond of complete overhauling of their environment. But it seems like that's going to be the way it's going to have to be, at least as long as I am reliant on wild captives for genetic diversity. That poor slug, it couldn't have been like that for more than a day. I wanted to take a picture, you know, for science, but I couldn't even stand it. I just felt so terrible. Oh man, that sounds horrible. Makes me glad I have yet to have a significant mite problem, it's rare that I even find any on the snails. I have a lot of wild caught snails and a few slugs, but oddly enough even before then it's always been the GALS who mysteriously develop a nasty outbreak of worms. Overhauling is a pain, when I've tipped everything out I'm constantly picking out babies and woodlice/pillbugs flailing around in the dirt. The work always ends in me hurting my back too, just to make it even better. Yeah, I was going to take a photo of a dead snail after I removed them from their shell for a reference on snail anatomy, but I couldn't do it. I barely managed to take a photo of the slug that mysteriously got torn open. Sorry to hear about your snails, I hope that they survive, I found that warm green tea baths also help so the one's here have those fairly regularly which they enjoy and I inspect the substructure each time I muck out the snails as well as worm them once every 6-8 weeks with pumpkin seed and fresh dandy-lion roots n leaves. Its seems to work. I just get the raw ingredients n make up my own mix to worm them it seems to work ok. I save pumpkin seeds from the ones I've grown n the dandy -lions are always fresh as I've a good supply which I actively encourage to grow. I'm guess I'm so used to worming the horses regularly on a preventative routine and the other animals that the snails also get done on the same routine. Its happened to me once and I was determined for it not to get that way again if I could help it. I also make sure that every w - 3 months I change the substructure. I recycle it by taking out the old n checking it carefully for any eggs n babies, then washing it through with very hot water. Draining it then putting it in the range for a day and baking it. Lastly its storied in the freezer until needed again when ti take it out n defrost it. It saves me keeping either digging up or buying in more substructure but keeps the snails happy n healthy n gets rid of any unwanted critters. may seem a bit long winded but it works n the actual washing only takes a few minutes. The range is always on so its easy to put it in there as is the freezer. Hope that helps some as there is nothing worse than finding worms, mites n other critters in the snail tanks that are harming the snails. Zorst The GALS should be fine, they've survived every worm outbreak so far. I'll have to buy some green tea powder, I didn't know dandelions are so good for deworming. I'll have to stock up on them when they start taking over the garden again, before someone sprays pesticides on them. That's a really great plan you've got going, I'll have to start doing a proper routine. Snails always love a good bath after all. |
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Zorst
Achatina tincta
Posts: 734
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Post by Zorst on Jan 12, 2014 14:18:30 GMT
Glad to hear that your Gals should be fine. AHH the dandelions are magic for a lot of things and the snails love eating them, keep a hidden patch some where that no one knows about so they don't get sprayed of tell people to leave those ones alone and for why.
Yeah snails and bath time lol , they love it n the green tea really seems to help without harming them. I was getting quite a few mite problems at first, but this routine has helped no end and I've only had 2 outbreaks of worms due to other snails coming in. So I now have x2 quarantine tanks which solved that problem. Both snails were rescue one a Gal n one a wild caught snail. Anyway both survived also.
Zorst
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Post by wreckoning on Jan 12, 2014 15:02:03 GMT
Thanks for posting your routine Zorst, I think I will be adopting that as well.  |
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Post by malacophile on Jan 12, 2014 15:24:44 GMT
Oh, no... Poor snails (and poor you! This must be so hard to deal with!). Can you describe these worms, where they're found on/in the snail, etc? I'd like to avoid a problem like this myself, and knowing what to keep an eye out for would be helpful. They're very thin and white, they wiggle up the sides of the tank and get stuck a lot. Every time they've appeared, something's died. They crashed an entire tank of crickets and the whole tank was caked in the gross little things. I sprayed them all down with bleach, then filled the tank with boiling water and bleached it. Urgh... That sounds eerily similar to these tiny white worms I have in 2 of my wild snail/slug bins. They don't appear to hurt the snails and slugs, though. They seem to live in the soil and come out to eat old food and the poop on the sides on the bins. They're gross to look at, but they've actually been pretty useful so far. I do hope they're not the same as the ones you have-- I know a lot of these species of little worm/nematode things can look identical. |
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Post by moon on Jan 12, 2014 19:19:40 GMT
Wreckoning and Crucify. Just wondering where you live. Is it the UK?
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Post by muddydragon on Jan 12, 2014 20:17:56 GMT
Most of these de-worming foods are just made up and dont actually work. Pumpkin seeds have been shown not to actually deworm anything and i believe there's no evidence for any of the other foods working either, but people like to sell others deworming mixtures to make money or say they have de-wormed WC snails (mainly refering to the meningitis parasite i think which as far as im aware no one's figured out how to get rid of out of WC african snails, except over time since they cannot complete their lifecycle in snails but this time period is unknown). That said are these worms are they very tiny and either transparent or whitish and swarm around poo and uneaten food? If so they're probably just the harmless nematodes and not harmful to your snails, i've had these before and just gave the tank a good clean the snails a bath in warm water and ta-da problem solved and have never seen them since (They're not pleasant in large numbers and can irritate snails when they get to very large numbers, but they don't actually parasitise them, a good clean-out now and then should do the job fine ) parasitic nematodes would not really leave the snail except in either egg form or egg laying form and you would either see them crawl out of their "anus" or poo or pneumostome a lot of snail parasites would never leave the snail atall as they rely on the snail being eaten to pass onto their next host, you wouldn't even know they were there! (Lots of nematodes are harmless and friendly, infact there's some nematodes we deliberately inoculate our lab plants' soil with to prevent flies!). So don't worry too much i'm sure they'll be fine |
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Post by crucify on Jan 12, 2014 21:00:32 GMT
Most of these de-worming foods are just made up and dont actually work. Pumpkin seeds have been shown not to actually deworm anything and i believe there's no evidence for any of the other foods working either, but people like to sell others deworming mixtures to make money or say they have de-wormed WC snails (mainly refering to the meningitis parasite i think which as far as im aware no one's figured out how to get rid of out of WC african snails, except over time since they cannot complete their lifecycle in snails but this time period is unknown). That said are these worms are they very tiny and either transparent or whitish and swarm around poo and uneaten food? If so they're probably just the harmless nematodes and not harmful to your snails, i've had these before and just gave the tank a good clean the snails a bath in warm water and ta-da problem solved and have never seen them since (They're not pleasant in large numbers and can irritate snails when they get to very large numbers, but they don't actually parasitise them, a good clean-out now and then should do the job fine ) parasitic nematodes would not really leave the snail except in either egg form or egg laying form and you would either see them crawl out of their "anus" or poo or pneumostome a lot of snail parasites would never leave the snail atall as they rely on the snail being eaten to pass onto their next host, you wouldn't even know they were there! (Lots of nematodes are harmless and friendly, infact there's some nematodes we deliberately inoculate our lab plants' soil with to prevent flies!). So don't worry too much i'm sure they'll be fine I'm willing to try herbal cures if there's a chance they'll work, but only because my snails mean so much to me. I'm not big on herbal cures, they're stupidly expensive, overhyped and people practically obsess over them. DON'T TAKE MEDICATION, YOU'LL DIE. Take this £20 50g pack of crushed leaves. My GALS are all CB, I got them as babies. I don't know how they ended up with worms crawling all over them, they just keep appearing over and over. I've seen these worms before, they've killed off an entire tank of crickets I had. It was pretty revolting opening the lid and seeing all that. I'm fine with soil fauna, but losing all my baby fulicas and having lost a valuable stock of live food to them before, I don't want to risk it. It's bad enough the entire clutch died, I don't want anything worse to happen. Wreckoning and Crucify. Just wondering where you live. Is it the UK? Yep. Absolutely freezing over here. |
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Post by wreckoning on Jan 13, 2014 3:39:07 GMT
moon, I live in Canada; the pacific northwest. crucify, if muddy's correct, you could always experiment on your snails... half get the mix and half don't ...  |
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Cashell
Archachatina puylaerti
Posts: 1,124
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Post by Cashell on Jan 13, 2014 3:49:19 GMT
Most of these de-worming foods are just made up and dont actually work. Pumpkin seeds have been shown not to actually deworm anything and i believe there's no evidence for any of the other foods working either, but people like to sell others deworming mixtures to make money or say they have de-wormed WC snails (mainly refering to the meningitis parasite i think which as far as im aware no one's figured out how to get rid of out of WC african snails, except over time since they cannot complete their lifecycle in snails but this time period is unknown). That said are these worms are they very tiny and either transparent or whitish and swarm around poo and uneaten food? If so they're probably just the harmless nematodes and not harmful to your snails, i've had these before and just gave the tank a good clean the snails a bath in warm water and ta-da problem solved and have never seen them since (They're not pleasant in large numbers and can irritate snails when they get to very large numbers, but they don't actually parasitise them, a good clean-out now and then should do the job fine ) parasitic nematodes would not really leave the snail except in either egg form or egg laying form and you would either see them crawl out of their "anus" or poo or pneumostome a lot of snail parasites would never leave the snail atall as they rely on the snail being eaten to pass onto their next host, you wouldn't even know they were there! (Lots of nematodes are harmless and friendly, infact there's some nematodes we deliberately inoculate our lab plants' soil with to prevent flies!). So don't worry too much i'm sure they'll be fine Hmmmmm... Used to hear about that a lot. |
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Post by moon on Jan 13, 2014 12:20:33 GMT
I was wondering where the other posters live because I live in the UK and fortunately have never seen any of these worms.
I only keep aspersas and cepaeas though, not GALS. I also don't use anything from the garden because I'm worried about introducing parasites etc.
The only problem I've had with the wild caught ones are mites so I've had to buy a few lots of hypoapsis.
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Post by muddydragon on Jan 13, 2014 19:36:23 GMT
I don't know how they ended up with worms crawling all over them, they just keep appearing over and over. I've seen these worms before, they've killed off an entire tank of crickets I had. It was pretty revolting opening the lid and seeing all that. I'm fine with soil fauna, but losing all my baby fulicas and having lost a valuable stock of live food to them before, I don't want to risk it. It's bad enough the entire clutch died, I don't want anything worse to happen. Babies are more easily stressed it's still possible they're not true parasites but can end up annoying the snails (simply by crawling on them) to the extent they stop eating etc. Either way trying what you can is good. The ones i was talking about can come in on food no matter how well washed it is i *think* the eggs can actually be airbourne due to the light weight so can also get in that way. Other possibilities are the substrate, i use boiling water when i make mine up just incase, although some nematode eggs are resistnt to boiling, any "live"/recently alive ornaments (bark etc). Just be as paranoid about everything you put in the tank as possible and it should help  Best of luck |
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Post by crucify on Jan 14, 2014 11:12:01 GMT
I don't know how they ended up with worms crawling all over them, they just keep appearing over and over. I've seen these worms before, they've killed off an entire tank of crickets I had. It was pretty revolting opening the lid and seeing all that. I'm fine with soil fauna, but losing all my baby fulicas and having lost a valuable stock of live food to them before, I don't want to risk it. It's bad enough the entire clutch died, I don't want anything worse to happen. Babies are more easily stressed it's still possible they're not true parasites but can end up annoying the snails (simply by crawling on them) to the extent they stop eating etc. Either way trying what you can is good. The ones i was talking about can come in on food no matter how well washed it is i *think* the eggs can actually be airbourne due to the light weight so can also get in that way. Other possibilities are the substrate, i use boiling water when i make mine up just incase, although some nematode eggs are resistnt to boiling, any "live"/recently alive ornaments (bark etc). Just be as paranoid about everything you put in the tank as possible and it should help Best of luck Ew, airborne eggs. That's one reason to be paranoid about what you put in your mouth. I've got fresh dry coir, a bag of live sphagnum and they're only getting plastic plants from now on, so I'm hoping I won't have any more annoying bugs popping up again. |
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Post by muddydragon on Jan 14, 2014 11:48:14 GMT
Babies are more easily stressed it's still possible they're not true parasites but can end up annoying the snails (simply by crawling on them) to the extent they stop eating etc. Either way trying what you can is good. The ones i was talking about can come in on food no matter how well washed it is i *think* the eggs can actually be airbourne due to the light weight so can also get in that way. Other possibilities are the substrate, i use boiling water when i make mine up just incase, although some nematode eggs are resistnt to boiling, any "live"/recently alive ornaments (bark etc). Just be as paranoid about everything you put in the tank as possible and it should help Best of luck Ew, airborne eggs. That's one reason to be paranoid about what you put in your mouth. I've got fresh dry coir, a bag of live sphagnum and they're only getting plastic plants from now on, so I'm hoping I won't have any more annoying bugs popping up again. eggs colud be in the live sphagnum so if they do come back I would suspect that or the food. Most nematode eggs wouldn't hatch if you ingested them, there's a few in soil that will and will live in your colon living off human feaces which will only cause an itchy bottom and are easily cured, about1 in 3 children get worms, well at the time our paristiology lecturer was taught so now kids spend more time inside that may have changed. |
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Post by crucify on Jan 14, 2014 16:26:54 GMT
Ew, airborne eggs. That's one reason to be paranoid about what you put in your mouth. I've got fresh dry coir, a bag of live sphagnum and they're only getting plastic plants from now on, so I'm hoping I won't have any more annoying bugs popping up again. eggs colud be in the live sphagnum so if they do come back I would suspect that or the food. Most nematode eggs wouldn't hatch if you ingested them, there's a few in soil that will and will live in your colon living off human feaces which will only cause an itchy bottom and are easily cured, about1 in 3 children get worms, well at the time our paristiology lecturer was taught so now kids spend more time inside that may have changed. Yeah, still pretty gross though. It sounds horribly embarrassing to explain when you're older and not a little kid sitting on your parents lap. I went off using sphagnum a while ago but I thought I'd try growing it properly this time, it'd be nice to see it work out. |
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Zorst
Achatina tincta
Posts: 734
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Post by Zorst on Jan 15, 2014 10:28:20 GMT
Funny because kids as a rule these days live inside more etc this makes them more prone to picking up nasty's when they do go out as they have no or very low natural immunity to things. Hence I make sure mine spend a lot of time outside but always make sure they keep washing hands etc.
Just simply including things like pumpkin seeds and other natural foods in there diets etc can help solve a lot of this, same for adults. That and simply washing hands a lot.
Always when it comes to snails again I keep up the pumpkin seeds etc, but if I bring in n bark or other stuff I check for no other life on it, then wash in boiling water which has some bicarbonate of soda in it, rinse it well in clean water,
dry on or in the range at a constant heat for a day then put in the freezer. It works at cleaning most things and considerably lessened any critters I don't want in the the slimmers.
But some are air born so I can only do so much. Was thinking about getting some fine fly mess to put over the air hole in the lids of the tanks as this may filter out some more. Just gotta find some that wont break the bank .
Zorst
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Post by wreckoning on Mar 13, 2014 9:37:55 GMT
So I submitted some samples of mites to the local agricultural laboratory for identification. I received bad news: two types of mites were identified; harmless Collembola springtails, and Riccardoella sp., the harmful blood feeder.
The good news, at least, is that I now know what the problem is, can now account for the recent slug deaths. I can also now visually identify the springtails vs the Riccardoella, and I should note that the differences are not what the literature I found online suggested. Springtails are about half the size of Riccardoella, white, with longish bodies, fast-moving, and jump when touched. They do not congregate together and are typically found under dishes and other furniture inside the slug enclosures. The Riccardoella by contrast, are much larger, easily visible to the naked eye, white, very slow-moving, round in shape, do not jump, and are often found clustered together, especially on pieces of food (their favourites appear to be mushroom and sweet potato). I occasionally find them on the slugs, always on the foot, and never in a quantity of more than three. If there's interest, I could try to take some pictures of both species, although I'm not sure what my macro lens will be capable of with something so tiny.
I sterilized all the tanks and introduced Hypoaspis miles, and it is my hope that I will be able to completely eliminate the evil mites. I have not been able to observe any of the H. miles feeding, and in truth, haven't even been able to notice a significant reduction in Riccardoella numbers ... under a hand lens I have observed the H. miles walking right on by perfectly vulnerable Riccardoella. It is my hope that they were simply well-fed on arrival, and plan on feasting later ...
I must also report the death of Casper, my beautiful, precious, and favourite albino slug. There were two deaths that preceded Casper's; they were marked by lesions of the skin, and reduced activity levels. It was very clear to me that these were sick slugs and I experimented with different ways of treating them (none of which proved successful obviously). Casper showed no lesions and no change of behaviour. One day he was just gone. Considering that I later found even his separated tank to be infected with Riccardoella, I must blame them for his death, as well as myself for not acting faster and getting the Hypoaspis sooner.
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Poor snails (and poor you! This must be so hard to deal with!). Can you describe these worms, where they're found on/in the snail, etc? I'd like to avoid a problem like this myself, and knowing what to keep an eye out for would be helpful.
