How to get rid of a leech?

[roger]

I finally turned the lights on in the 2nd wild discus tank. One of the fish in there has a leech on it. Anyone know of a good way to get rid of that thing without stressing the fish?

Peace,
Roger

How do you know it's leeches? How big are they? Leeches are big enough to use for bait for bass fishing. We use salt to get rid of them on our legs after we went frog hunting in the swamp at night.
Jimmy.

[roger]

Leeches come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, but the color and overall shape is the same. This thing is blood red and looks like a small version of the leeches that I have seen. Maybe 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch in length.

Roger

Ill try for a picture of this thing when I get home tonight.

You can try salt. all worm like creatures hate salt anyway. At least it will keep them quiet for a few days.
Jimmy.

[Discusgeo]

Roger Leeches hate acidic substance's--like lemon or lime juice. I would get one of the two cut it in half and squeeze the juice on the leach to get the leech off. I did have a leeche on my leg once and this is what was done to me while living in Honduras durning my military days. Get 2 or 3 Limes/Lemons as the leech will move to get away from the juice. So it may move along the body of the Discus so you have to apply it to the body of the fish. Now I never tried this on any Discus because I never have had Wilds and I don't now if it will harm the fish. But if you don't have the meds to take care of this it's worth a try. Since the fish must be in your hand the Discus will be rinsed off real quick once he's back in the water. Let us know if it works OK on Discus if you try it.

[samson smith]

If you want to get rid of a leech then i think the acid substance are the best way. leeches hate the acidic substance's such as lemon. I think it the effective way and helps to get rid of leech.

[ericatdallas]

What about Epsom salt? I know Epsom salt works as a muscle relaxant. I also know it incapacitates snails (I've seen this happen in my tank). I also used this to "sanitize" a tank full of leeches once. They were in the gravel so I saturated the tank with epsom salt and after a few days, the leeches were all dead. The fish were removed to another tank. I added some NaCl (table salt) too, but the concentration wasn't too high (I still had plants in the tank and they all survived the treatment which I kept up for a week).

I knew they were dead because their dead bodies were on the surface of the gravel hanging on... after that, I never saw them again. It took another week or so before I felt comfortable putting the fish back in.

So maybe a bath in Epsom salt will cause it to fall off? I don't think Epsom salt itself will kill the worms. I think it was a combination of a lot of Epsom salt and the salt concentration came in.

On a separate occassion, my snails took a day to recover after flushing the tank. I thought the snail was dead, but I was being lazy and it was in a hard to reach location. So I drained the tank during a 75% WC and the next day it was "alive" again. That confused me and I google'd it and found stuff that said epsom salt will paralyze a snail.

Warning: Just theory, but Epsom Salt is pretty benign to fish, so it might be worth a try.

[samson smith]

What about Epsom salt? I know Epsom salt works as a muscle relaxant. I also know it incapacitates snails (I've seen this happen in my tank). I also used this to "sanitize" a tank full of leeches once. They were in the gravel so I saturated the tank with epsom salt and after a few days, the leeches were all dead. The fish were removed to another tank. I added some NaCl (table salt) too, but the concentration wasn't too high (I still had plants in the tank and they all survived the treatment which I kept up for a week).

I knew they were dead because their dead bodies were on the surface of the gravel hanging on... after that, I never saw them again. It took another week or so before I felt comfortable putting the fish back in.

So maybe a bath in Epsom salt will cause it to fall off? I don't think Epsom salt itself will kill the worms. I think it was a combination of a lot of Epsom salt and the salt concentration came in.

On a separate occassion, my snails took a day to recover after flushing the tank. I thought the snail was dead, but I was being lazy and it was in a hard to reach location. So I drained the tank during a 75% WC and the next day it was "alive" again. That confused me and I google'd it and found stuff that said epsom salt will paralyze a snail.

Warning: Just theory, but Epsom Salt is pretty benign to fish, so it might be worth a try.

It is really very useful idea to get rid of leech. Very nice sharing!!