Will half an earthworm foul my water?

[shultzbaby]

I have a 20 gallon axolotl tank with two axolotls. Somehow an earthworm managed to crawl behind the slate background of my tank and get stuck. The slate is siliconed to the back wall of the tank so there's no way to get to it. I removed half the worm which was sticking out a bit, but removing the rest seems to be impossible. Is this going to foul my water or is it OK to just monitor my levels and let nature take it course? I don't want to harm my axies but I realllllyyy don't want to break down my tank again.

[Rachel]

hi!

It won't matter if you have a fully cycled filter, it will break down naturally and the filter will take care of the water perameters for you. If you do not have a cycled filter, keep an eye on the water peramiters yourself and do water changes when nececary. The benifit of having a little bit of extra organic matter in the tank white the filter is cycling is that it will cycle faster, but you will have to do water charnges more frequently.

[shultzbaby]

My aquarium is fully cycled and I just added a canister filter as well. Im leaving my sponge filter in there for a while so I can be sure the bacteria colonize the new filter. But thanks for the quick reply, I was worried there.

[Rachel]

no problem. if you were super worried after the worm has broken down a bit so it is mushy, you could try sucking it out with a turkey baster?

[shultzbaby]

No I can't get to it because it crawled behind the area that is siliconed to the tank somehow. And I just checked my parameters and to my surprise it looks like my cycle is crashing so I stuffed my old sponge filter in the canister filter. Gonna check my levels in a few hours and hopefully they start dropping. I also have Java moss on the way. I feel so bad for my poor axies they must be very stressed. They don't want to eat either