What ARE these little worms??

[TheCheese909]

I just noticed these worm things on the wall of my 3 gallon aquarium... They are in the algae area on the front of the tank.. I've got a 5 gallon set up that i'm running for a little while for this fish so i haven't cleaned out the algae in his tank for a little bit.. i don't see any on my fish right now but i've just taken him out & he's in a QT with some aquarium salt for just incase..


there are a few dozen of these worms, i thought at first they were little pieces of thread, like sometimes you see them come off the silk plants but i was staring at them and they were slowly moving around a little bit. Has anyone seen these before??

[Aus]

Nothing to worry about - detritus worms or planaria, likely. Population explosions can come from disturbing the substrate if it's really mulm-y. These mini-beasts love excess nutrients, as does algae.. are you overfeeding, or feeding sinking pellets?

A gravel vac once a week and no excess food will starve them out, and I find shrimp compete for food with them so shrimp = less worms, cleaner tank.

A few won't hurt anything. They can't hurt your fish, unless they are in their millions and deplete the oxygen. If they attach, they will fall off as the fish moves. They aren't parasitic.

[asukabetta]

How to get rid of them:

Very thorough and regular substrate vacuums to remove as many of the critters are recommended for both to strat with.

For confirmed Planaria, if the problem persists or gets out of hand anti-parasite treatments are ‘usually’ used.

http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/modules...post_id=288454

I do have a question though, how do they appear in the first place? Do they sometimes come with the live plants???

[shellieca]

I had planaria, or at least thats what i was told they were, a couple weeks back, really good vacuuming with a couple extra water changes, cut back a little on feeding & they're all gone. I was told that my Bettas may eat some but they weren't anything to worry about. They were tiny little flat looking wiggling specks.