question for all gardeners/pond life

[richydraper]

soooo today i found 100s if not 1000s of these little worms in my daughters sand/water pit play thing (before she went to use it for the first time this year)... little unsure what they are and shes banned from using it till i clean it sometime tomorrow!!

best picture i could get


they seem to be segmented and a dark red/brown in colour with strangely no limit to how far they can bend

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Some sort of water born insect Larvae, asked the misuse to take a look (as she has a MSC in tropical medicine and parasitology) she said she doesn't recognise them so most likely not parasitic.

 

[richydraper]

Some sort of water born insect Larvae, asked the misuse to take a look (as she has a MSC in tropical medicine and parasitology) she said she doesn't recognise them so most likely not parasitic.

Cool beans! Im not too worried... Ive managed to keep her busy with her swing, bike and trampoline today but out with the bleach tomorrow! In all honesty the Mrs is more worried than me lol but it would be cool to find out what they are, If anyone knows, even If Its Just to satisfy my curiousity.

 

[The Beard]

They could be Bloodworms. I don't know much about them but we had a load in an ashtray of, all things, outside the back door at work last year. There they were just swimming around minding their own business. I believe anglers use them as ground bait but have no idea what happens to them if they aren't eaten by fish.

They possibly turn into flies, if so they are some kind of lavae. On the other hand I could be totally wrong. No change there then!

In retrospect, that wasn't a great deal of use.

 

[Dominion]

As The Beard says, they look like on of several types of bloodworms. I used to work in water treatment and I often found drains completely blocked by large accumulations of these things. As mentioned, there are several types, and since these were found in sand and are quite small it is quite likely they are the larvae of some type of midge. The ones I used to encounter in my work ranged from a few mm to about 150 mm. Horrible looking things, but most are completely harmless in that they are not parasitic, but some species apparently do bite! (according to some of the more experienced water treatment lads).