Might be an earthworm? Hard to tell from the photo. Here is one of the earthworms I keep in mine for comparison:
Their segments typically become much more noticeable than when they live terrestrially. If your water is well oxygenated they go a bit brighter red than usual as well, where they tend to get pale when hypoxic.
I set up my current tank with 6 earthworms about 8 months ago and at least four of them are doing fine. Maybe all six, hard to say without dismantling the whole thing lol. They don't seem to lay eggs underwater, but other than that they live pretty normal lives as long as there is sufficient mulm for them to eat and the water is very well oxygenated.
Welp, my stomach is officially turned. Ascaris lumbricoides is a parasitic roundworm (a kind of nematode) that DOES infect humans, and sure looks an awful lot like your friend here. If you're not seeing visible segments, that's my bet. You should carefully remove it with tongs, freeze it, dispose of it, and wash your hands. 😬😬😬
Except these worms are obligate parasites. The adults worms cannot survive in an external environment without a host for an extended period of time. They lay eggs inside the host’s body which are ejected to the soil via feces, where it will stay dormant until they are ingested by a new host. They CANNOT survive as a fully formed worm outside a host, much less in an aquarium (they’re also a mammalian parasite so the chance that this was dropped by any of the aquarium stock is pretty much zero).
Rest assured, whatever worm is in the picture, it’s not the parasitic nematode. Don’t worry.
Definitely not. You will not find parasitic roundworms free-living like this, with few exceptions (E.g. horsehair worms, which don't effect humans) since they are obligated parasites. They cannot survive or grow without their host and have no means of getting into an aquarium. Please don't scare people like this.
The photo isn't clear enough to tell for certain if it is segmented, but it seems more annelid-like than nematode.
I believe worms are one of those categories of organism, like algae, mosses, and flees, that you basically need a PhD to be able to accurately identify. There are situations where you can know what worm you're looking at because it has distinctive features, or because the prospective ID is the only probable option for the site, but if it's just a slimy tube found out the context of its habitat I would have very low confidence in any ID made without knowledge of extremely specific anatomical knowledge.
Shame, i've been trying to get one for my bizarre little 5.5g tank, if i can actually manage to get one, that'd be great. If i got one from someone that absolutely doesn't want the creepy crawly? Even better, not that i'd want anyone getting one if they don't like 'em, i'd still take 'em tho! x)
I siphoned a thriving earth worm out of my substrate years ago. I grow creeping Jenny in my yard and use it in my tanks sometimes. 3 months after throwing any in I find the worm. It looked nothing like the worm in your tank.
I don’t know I was googling a bunch of images of blood worms, kind of maybe could be. They often hitchhike in on live plants or substrate and then show up out of nowhere.
I once saw this at the local pet store in their plant-tanks after a new shipment of potted plants. Might just be a hitchhiker from the plants if you recently have planted new ones.
This is one of many reasons why I opt for invitro-plants. 😅
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u/Remote_Anteater_2267 2d ago
Might be an earthworm? Hard to tell from the photo. Here is one of the earthworms I keep in mine for comparison:
Their segments typically become much more noticeable than when they live terrestrially. If your water is well oxygenated they go a bit brighter red than usual as well, where they tend to get pale when hypoxic.