little white worms?

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jaajaa40

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 31, 2004
Messages
38
Location
Illinois
Hello, I have been trying to get rid of the little white worms in my take for a few weeks now. When I stir up the gravel a little a hole bunch or little white worms appear, they are about 1/8" long and very thin. My fish seem healthy. But I can not get rid of them. It started when my filter was giving out and I did not know it. The tank started getting cloudy and I could not get the water clear again. It took me a while to notice that my filter was not working 100%. I have a new filter but still can not get rid of these little "white worms". Help please?
 
These are likely nematodes and the only way to get rid of them is to manually remove them with gravel vacs and to starve them.

It might be a good idea to cut way back on feeding, even stopping for 4-5 days, and do several small water changes with gravel vacs to cut down on the population. Making sure there is little if any uneaten food to accumulate will help. You don't want to be too aggressive with the gravel vacs because you can kill off enough bacteria to start a cycle, but you want to be persistent to get them all. They will eventually go away as your debris clears.

They are not harmful to the fish. Just about everyone will have or have had 'em! :D
 
Yes, I think you are right. The medications did not kill them, but I am stressing out my fish with the water changes. I wish I knew what they were up front, I caused myself a lot of headache trying to get rid if them thinking they were hookworms.
 
Often when you have nematodes there is a lot of decaying material and your ammonia level rises. If your water quality is fine and you just want to clean up the tank, there a couple of ways to clean without doing water changes. Some stores sell battery powered gravel vacs that filter the water but dont remove the water from the tank. Another option is to filter the water you remove from the tank and pour it back in. Coffee filters work well. When I clean my tank suck out about 1/3 of the water, filter half and return it to the tank and fill up the rest with new water.
 
do the battery gravel filters work well? im curently having a problem with the nematodes.... they are horrible... i cleaned up really good, and im cutting way back on the feeding... i aquired them by not having enough fish to eat all the food, so now i got more fish and im nto feeding soo much... but i think i will cut the feeding all the way off for a few days.
 
The main problem with the battery powered filters is the small capacity. The filter is a little bag on the side and it gets clogged fairly quickly if you have a large tank. The other disadvantage is the cost. Coffee filters are cheap.
 
wow 2004 when I joined and ask a nematode or little white worm question.

I never had them in my tank again. Until now.

(Actually a 2nd tank for a child. And he is or shall I say "was" overfeeding.)

Question this time is, how long do these little white worms get. in 2004 when I saw them they were 1/8" long or less, in the tank last night I saw one pushing 1/2" and it had a narrowing of the body on one end, the direction it was swimming. Very thin white worm. Swims in s coiled "S" motion.

Are these the same nematodes?

?
 
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