Planaria

[Mark1092]

Planaria.

I've always seen a few floating around my freshwater Betta 5g tank, and I've seen him eat a few occasionally... But recently I emptied the tank because it was leaking.

And I also decided to change the gravel to something new and exciting. So I cleaned the gravel, put it in, filled with water, the tank is all nice and fresh, new water, new gravel... I also came to the conclusion that I would kill two birds with one stone by emptying the tank (fix the leak, kill off all the planaria).

So I let all the sediment from the new gravel settle... Turn on the light... And what do I see? Planaria. Little miniscule wriggly worms moving through the water by means of the filter (they can't swim can they). There's a fair few I might add.

My question is: How on earth is there STILL planaria in the tank after the tank has now been emptied, dried, had new water put in it AND new gravel. I stopped feeding the betta fish every second day to combat this problem. I can't seem to shake the planaria.

Thank-you,
Mark.

 

[Engel]

Possibly they survived in your filter media? You didn't mention it, but I assume you put the same filter media back in. My sister had a battle with these, and she finally wiped them out with salt, quick cure, and daily gravel cleaning for MANY days. I understand also that they can not survive without a food source, so maybe if you cleaned the tank again, and relocated the beta for a week or so?

 

[Mark1092]

Yeah I put the same filter media back in. Well there's no food in there at the moment, because it's cycling without any fish, so a lot of them will probably die off I reckon.