Flukes in water??

[Don Trinko]

I got my microscope today and looked at a sample of water taken from the gravel in my tank. Lots of little critters moving around!
One of them looked a little like the photo's of flukes that I have seen. The fish apear fine. I have heard that flukes are normaly in water but not in quantities large enough to bother the fish. Is it "normal " to see flukes in the water? ( and many other critters!)
Don T.
P.S. After looking with a microscope I will be more carefull when I syphon so I don't get water in my mouth!

[Graham]

Hi Don ... The gill fluke Dactylogryus lays eggs in the gill that are swept into the water column, where they hatch...the larval stage then has to find a host to infect...I've never seen one in the water column.

Skin flukes, Gyrodactylus, have live young...in fact the embryos can have embryos....these guys don't leave the host.

The critter that you saw did have haptens...hooks

[Don Trinko]

It was hard to tell if it had hooks... It didn't set still for long. It appeared to have 2 little tails on the back end (looked like hairs) and it did expand and contrack sometimes. The front looked more like tenacles than hooks.
The scope is fun!! I will show the grandkids next time they are here. Don T.

[Graham]

Hi Not a fluke...a flagellate of some kind.....Fluke haptens/hooks look just like meat hooks and are obvious