Aren't you going to PLEEEZE tell us what they were: anchors or not? Suspense is killing me. Check in your mouth and see if you have a salinity tester there. If you can just barely taste the salt, that's about 0.5 g/l (ppt) salinity. 1 teasp salt per gal is about 1.5 ppt, about right for a sick madtom. I think the purported sensitivity of catfish to salt has more to do with people dropping un-dissolved salt in tanks. Catfish that breathe & feed on the bottom get overdosed before the salt dissolves. If you dissolve it first so it mixes throughout the tank immediately, then catfish are no more salt-sensitive than other freshwater fish.
ah, dissolving before putting in the water, thats a good idea. I usually just avoid putting it anywhere near him. Are you serious about tasting it? Also I can't confirm what they were. They were white and squiggly when in the water on the fish. When out of the water they were all curled up which made them hard to get ahold of. The end outside the fish was smaller than the rest, and I guess you could say sorta transparent, no "Y" shape like anchor worm egg sacs though.