# Earthworms Really Do Live Underwater



## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

I was just vacuuming my oscar tank, and I noticed that there was an earthworm in the gravel. It was VERY alive. I took it out with my hands, so it wouldn't plug my gravel vac, and it was squirming everywhere. The real kicker is that I haven't fed my oscar an earthworm for at least 3 months or more. I have to admit that when other people posted their experiences with earthworms living underwater, I didn't believe them. I am now a believer! The main reason I didn't think that they could live underwater, is because you always see them dead in mud puddles, so I just assumed that they drowned....
~Taylor~


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## kove32 (Oct 26, 2004)

Yea I figured this out too, I took it out after a day or so though.


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## boozehound420 (Apr 18, 2005)

what do earthworms eat??? do they eat fish poo? if so that'd be a good reason to have a bunch of earthworms living in your tank


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## piranhaperson (Aug 29, 2003)

Earthworms don't live underwater (Earth) usually as in dirt. There are some worms that live in the water that look somewhat like Earthworms. If you find a worm take it out. They breath through there skin, they can live for a while underwater since when it rains there underwater until they can reach high ground.


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

piranhaperson said:


> Earthworms don't live underwater (Earth) usually as in dirt. There are some worms that live in the water that look somewhat like Earthworms. If you find a worm take it out. They breath through there skin, they can live for a while underwater since when it rains there underwater until they can reach high ground.
> [snapback]1093210[/snapback]​


This was an earthworm that I dug out of the ground myself, trust me. I never buy worms, only dig them up myself.


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## b-unit34 (Apr 1, 2005)

thats kindof wierd


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

b-unit34 said:


> thats kindof wierd
> [snapback]1093496[/snapback]​


Yeah, nobody else finds this amazing? I was baffled. I think it would be neat to find an explanation of how they can live in water like that for so long.

The worm that was alive in my tank had full color and everything. Looked nice and healthy...








~Taylor~


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

maby they periodicly return to the surface for air? when the lights are off most likily. i duno im jsut throwing ideas out haha


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## lightning2004 (Jun 25, 2005)

do you have real or fake plants...if there real..im not sure but dont real plants let off oxygen?i could be wrong i dont have much experience with real plants.


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## ronzz (Oct 26, 2004)

exactly the same thing happened to me i pulled a worm outta the tank the other day it was in there for weeks and still fully alive.I AGREE worms can live in water for weeks!


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## clintard_leonard (Mar 24, 2005)

wow i learn something new every day! i wonder if they would eat the sh*t in the gravel?


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## zygapophysis (Jul 16, 2004)

Thats awesome. Maybe ill feed some worms soon.


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## corbypete (Jan 24, 2005)

i presume once under the dirt, theres no water anyway, so he's probably fine down there...


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## PuffPiff (May 23, 2005)

i dont use worms


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## bjmarche (Jun 30, 2005)

Corbypete is probably right. Earthworms breathe through their skin, and as you
all know, when it rains, they have to come to the sirface because they are being
drowned by the water thats sinking into the soil. Therefore the only way they could survive underwater is to find a place with non water, such as inside of the gravel as corbypete suggested, or maybe there is somewhere else it could have went? i cant think of anywhere.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

lol cool taylor. i fed earthworms to my reds and they went crazy. really cool that it lived that long though


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## mrspikes (Aug 10, 2004)

corbypete said:


> i presume once under the dirt, theres no water anyway, so he's probably fine down there...
> [snapback]1104695[/snapback]​


really, there is water down there. I have had this happen to me a couple of times. A worm lived in my feeder fish tank for a couple weeks. Now the worms i used were earthworms. They were red wigllers from petsmart. I rmember in biology learning that worms cannot survive underwater. maybe they find air pokets? but one must wonder if they can survive in a home aquarium, then why do the flee to the surface when it rains, as to not drown.


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

lightning2004 said:


> do you have real or fake plants...if there real..im not sure but dont real plants let off oxygen?i could be wrong i dont have much experience with real plants.
> [snapback]1104525[/snapback]​


Actually I don't have any plants in my tank, because my oscar just digs them up. I did have fake ones in there....



clintard_leonard said:


> wow i learn something new every day! i wonder if they would eat the sh*t in the gravel?
> [snapback]1104584[/snapback]​


They must, they have to eat something to survive. They probably wouldn't be cleaners though, because their feces would bascially just be the same thing and not make the tank any cleaner.



bjmarche said:


> Corbypete is probably right. Earthworms breathe through their skin, and as you
> all know, when it rains, they have to come to the sirface because they are being
> drowned by the water thats sinking into the soil. Therefore the only way they could survive underwater is to find a place with non water, such as inside of the gravel as corbypete suggested, or maybe there is somewhere else it could have went? i cant think of anywhere.
> [snapback]1104728[/snapback]​


There aren't any other places the worm could have gone in my tank to survive, and when I discovered him, he was just about in the middle of the tank in fact.



mrspikes said:


> corbypete said:
> 
> 
> > i presume once under the dirt, theres no water anyway, so he's probably fine down there...
> ...


I wouldn't think it is just air down there. The water would seep into the spaces of the rocks, so technically there is water down there. Now that I think of it I do remember gravel vacuuming one day, and there was a lot of air bubbles in the substrate in just one particular spot. I thought it was kinda weird, but I didn't think anything of it.


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## ITsPennywise (May 26, 2005)

Do you have any roomates...or anybody that would want to try and feed your piranha's when you aren't home? Maybe when you were gone that day...Someone threw in a worm they found outside or wherever to see if the piranha's would eat it...The piranhas just ignored it...The worm crawled beneath the gravel...Then when you get home...you think the worm was there forever...It could be easily just a mistaken idenity case.

Just a thought.


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## mrspikes (Aug 10, 2004)

((( J2 ))) said:


> Do you have any roomates...or anybody that would want to try and feed your piranha's when you aren't home? Maybe when you were gone that day...Someone threw in a worm they found outside or wherever to see if the piranha's would eat it...The piranhas just ignored it...The worm crawled beneath the gravel...Then when you get home...you think the worm was there forever...It could be easily just a mistaken idenity case.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> ...


even if thats the case, there still have been many people, including me who this has happened to. In fact i was so much in disbelief the first time, i put another one in the tank, which at the time had no fish in it, and at various times i would see him crawling under the gravel. It didnt last too long, only about a week or so, because then i got another blue crayfish and the next thing i knew, there were pieces of worm all over.


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

((( J2 ))) said:


> Do you have any roomates...or anybody that would want to try and feed your piranha's when you aren't home? Maybe when you were gone that day...Someone threw in a worm they found outside or wherever to see if the piranha's would eat it...The piranhas just ignored it...The worm crawled beneath the gravel...Then when you get home...you think the worm was there forever...It could be easily just a mistaken idenity case.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> ...


Nope, I'm only 14 and live with my parents, so no roommates, and no siblings living with me. My fish tank is in my room, and my parents never feed my fish for me. With that said, I know the worm was in there for a VERY long time, because like I said, it had been a long time since I fed my oscar worms, at least 3 months. Besides, a few people here have claimed that earthworms stayed alive in their tanks, and I personally never really believed them, because I just thought that the current was making them look like they are alive. But trust me, mine was alive and a wiggler. I took him out and he was squirming in my hand. I then just fed him to my oscar. BTW, the worm was in my oscar tank. I sadly don't have any piranha at the moment because Jon Rare is on vacation.
~Taylor~


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

to General Discussion


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## divine (Jan 3, 2005)

One time a found one inside my fluval 404 while cleaning it out. It was still very alive and was not chopped up at all. I had fed my piranha earthworms a couple weeks earlier.


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## Blue (Mar 23, 2005)

Neat, I always thought they drowned also... it must be an urban legend!


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

I wish we had some worm nerds here so we could all have a logical explanation.


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## hyphen (Apr 4, 2004)

if you have a deep substrate that was tightly packed from the weight of the water above it, it's possible that it could have replicated an environment that closely resembles soaked earth.


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## goodnews (Oct 5, 2004)

okay I'm sorry I don't wanna be a dick abotu this but there can't be air in you gravel sand or anything you use as a substraight. its just not ganna happen maybe a stray bubble or two. but air will float to the top of the tank and become part of the rest of the air in yoru house. but the DO( dissolved oxygen) content of your water could cause the worm to live a extremly long life underwater(as aposedto normally underwater). but there are limits and if you keep your water at 80F( or 26.6C) you DO is probably at best 6.0. but hey what do I know







thats really cool that you found a worm just chillin in there tho


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

goodnews said:


> okay I'm sorry I don't wanna be a dick abotu this but there can't be air in you gravel sand or anything you use as a substraight. its just not ganna happen maybe a stray bubble or two. but air will float to the top of the tank and become part of the rest of the air in yoru house. but the DO( dissolved oxygen) content of your water could cause the worm to live a extremly long life underwater(as aposedto normally underwater). but there are limits and if you keep your water at 80F( or 26.6C) you DO is probably at best 6.0. but hey what do I know
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah. I do have a small bubble wand in the tank in the corner, but it is so old it needs to be replaced because all that comes out are big bubbles, so I'm not sure they put so much oxygen into the tank.
~Taylor~


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## polomax24 (Jun 14, 2005)

The basic solution to this myth is to do a controlled experiment. Go to the backyard and dig a earth worm. Put it into a water jar where you can see it and find out how long it will survive under the water. Here we go, an elementary school project.


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

polomax24 said:


> The basic solution to this myth is to do a controlled experiment. Go to the backyard and dig a earth worm. Put it into a water jar where you can see it and find out how long it will survive under the water. Here we go, an elementary school project.
> [snapback]1113000[/snapback]​


The water in a jar would be so much different than the water in the aquarium though. The water in the aquarium is always at a certain temperature, it is cycled, so it has perfect parameters, and it has an oxygen source, plus water is always moving in it, plus it has gravel for the worm to burrow under. There are just too many factors in the experiment....
~Taylor~


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## Scrap5000 (Mar 4, 2005)

Check out this site - says they can live underwater if it's well oxygenated, which is obviously the case with all healthy tanks with good circulation, water aggitation, plants, etc, or the fish would die of asphyxiation.

http://www.webofcreation.org/Building-and-...aqua/Chap4.html

Fish seem to know that a live insect or worm will stay fresh until they eat it (or until it dies), so they often let it live in the tank for a few days before consuming it. This is especially true with worms, who can live underwater if the water is well oxygenated.


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

Sweet, thanks for sharing that Scrap!


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