Live blood worms in my tank?

[HooKooDooKu]

Can blood worms survive the freezing process?

I was cleaning some of the debrie from the bottom of my 5 gallon betta tank (the 6 amano shrimp are making a mess of the bottom of the tank). After finding some pond snails that hitched a ride on some plants, I've been on the lookout for any more snails. So once I sucked up this one lump of debrie, I looked at it close with a magnifying glass to see if it was a snail, or perhaps the carcus of a snail. It didn't take long before it was quite apparent that something ON this glob was alive. I soon realized that there were several tiny worms (way finer that a hair and maybe 1/8" long... only way to see them is under a magnifying glass) apparently feeding off of (or being born from?) this glob.

What could these worms be?

FWIW, I had yesterday thawed some frozen blood worms and dropped a clump of them in the tank yesterday for the betta (and the shrimp) to feed on overnight. It makes me wonder if what I am seeing are baby blood worms.

 

[missileman]

Small and white?
Possibly planaria? I get them sometimes, as I understand it is a result of uneaten food left in the tank although I don't know how they get in there.

 

[mgamer20o0]

for the most part blood worms are larva not real worms. i think missileman is right on.

 

[bs6749]

Bob is right, they are red mosquito larvae. They won't stay "worms" for long if they are in fact bloodworms. My guess is that they are some other worms.