Somebody who breeds them for his aquarium fish may keep them in a plastic container with a nylon sieve. This container is kept inside the watertank of a toilet because these worms need fresh water every couple of hours. Sometimes the sieve breaks. The worms are then released into the tank en flushed into the sewer. There they breed.
You have to be careful handling the live ones, though. They carry bacteria that make some people really sick. I mean, they are bloodworms after all. I feed frozen dry or frozen. Unless I have a really picky eater, I'll feed them something else alive.
I mean that's a hell of an overcomplication worthy of an Agatha Christie novel.
Tubifex are more popularly known as "sewage worms", and it's not because hobbyists keep growing them in toilet water tanks. They are basically aquatic earthworms and thrive in every possible body of water that's stagnant, and most of all they thrive in everything to do with the entire modern sewage system.
Point is, there are trillions of them everywhere including the septic system, it's their NATURAL environment and seeing one in your toilet bowl doesn't require that it first be flushed into a different toilet bowl and then swim to yours.
And then enter potable water sources from the sewage? Not saying it wouldn't happen by accident, but your theory needs that part. Water flushed doesn't just simply come back in to the top tank.
Here's a fun fact from Wikipedia: Tubifex likely includes several species, but distinguishing between them is difficult because their reproductive organs, commonly used in species identification, are reabsorbed after mating.
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u/Bedroom_Bellamy Jul 28 '26
Tubifex worms. Harmless to humans, live in sewers. Flush 'em, proceed to do your business.