Small white worms?

[Boomer23]

Ive been seeing alot of little little white worms roaming my tanks. Could it be a parasite of some sort? Should i feel threatened by them? I tried taking a picture but you cant see them at all thats how small they are. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated. Also my tanks are planted so im sure they cane with the plants.

 

[librarygirl]

Look up planaria and hydra on Google and see if either of those is what they are. They could have come in on plants; often they are a sign of overfeeding and not cleaning the substrate properly. You can suck them up with water changes and give the substrate a good cleaning (especially if it's gravel). If there are tons of them you can use some chemicals to treat them but I'd be hesitant to do so unless everything else fails.

 

[aquasamurai]

I don't think you have to worry. I got them in my shrimp tank but they disappeared the moment I put tetras in it. Not only did i see those nasty worms I also got these spider like bugs jumping (teleporting?!) around in water. But again, I assume my fish ate them all and when I talked to a guy at the lfs, he told me to make sure I do water changes and that fish won't get any disease or whatever else from eating these.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Little white round worms are usually harmless detritus worms called nematodes. If they appear somewhat flat like white slugs, they are planaria, which would be harmful to baby shrimp.

 

[Boomer23]

Ok thank you, i do water changes every 2-3 weeks as well.