White worms

[Sinuhe]

Yuck! I can handle a lot of yucky stuff, but worms are one of the things that freak me out. Today, as I was just about to do a partial water change on my 18 gallon/ 70 liter tank (having just turned on the lights), I noticed a couple of white stringy kind of things on the inside of the back glass, and they were moving. They were about 1 cm (roughly half an inch) in length and very thin. After searching on Google, I'm thinking these are Planaria, but I'm not sure. I don't think there has been any overfeeding in the tank, I only have 2 Zebra Danios in it for now, and almost nothing comes up with gravel vacuums. I think one of the Danios might have picked up and possibly eaten one of the worms when I was looking. Should I do with some of these sites suggested, frequent gravel vacs, and a break from feeding to get rid of these yucky worms?

 

[madasafish]

Yeah, and a good scrub of your tank walls. Stopping feeding for a few days will reduce their nutrients, but definitely get the offenders out of there first.

They could be Planaria (flatworms), but they could also be nematodes (roundworms). But there are soooooo many species of nematode that I wouldn't be able to help ID them. I think I remember the Museum of Natural History in NYC said that in a handful of dirt there are up to 10,000 (maybe more) nematodes--and tons of different species.

I've had these guys in a smaller form before in my tanks, and have scrubbed them away with good success. Hey, you can't blame them for wanting to live in our nice warm tanks.

 

[tkos]

Gravel vac and reduced feeding is the best way to go. Stick the vac right into the gravel and it should get a lot of good junk out.

 

[Sinuhe]

Thanks for the advice . I really don't want to stick my hands in the tank at all anymore after seeing those creatures , but I will keep on doing the frequent gravel vacuums nevertheless.