Tiny wiggling worm-link things wiggling at surface of tank

[dragon14]

A few weeks ago we found some tiny wiggling things in the surface of our water in our 20g tank. I caught one and put it in the trash. They're hard to see and move fast.

Today we also saw one in our 10g tank that we just put a male crowntail betta in.

Does anyone have any idea what these could be? They are creeping us out and we are concerned they could be a parasite or something.

 

[coralbandit]

Search planaria.
A parasite not as bad as many but should still be dealt with IMO if this is what you have.

 

[dragon14]

Thanks I'll look into this.

Ughh. Off the top of your head, how does one get these?

 

[thing fish]

if it is planaria, it is often a sign of over feeding. in the past i have also had little flies hatch larvae in my tanks. fish would eat them up real quick.

planaria are very small though, just a little tiny hairlike creature and most often in the substrate. im wondering if you had an insect hatch. what size were they? also, i dont believe planaria worms in fish tanks are parasitic, but i could be wrong.

 

[coralbandit]

Thanks I'll look into this.

Ughh. Off the top of your head, how does one get these?

What thing said.
Vacuum better during waterchanges and feed less.

 

[dragon14]

Thanks thing fish! I don't think we overfeed, and in the 10g, for the last 6 weeks it's just had a blooming freaking ramshorn snail population and minimal food (although the water was just sitting, not changed, just topped off, that whole time). Today we took out ALL THE water, rinsed the tank out thoroughly, put in fresh water, and adopted the male betta. So it was weird to see it. The décor that was in the tank is in there though. And it has baby ramshorn snails, free courtesy of java moss out of tank from the LFS but that is another story.

Our 20g, we may have a lot of food in there, but most of our fish are catfish and we have 6 amano shrimp, by morning its usually cleaned up. They do take quite a while to eat.

Hrrrmmm...

 

[thing fish]

how long are the little wrigglers? a few years back, i kept seeing these little wriggly worms falling through the water column from time to time....then they would get eaten. then one day, i actually saw one hatch into a small fly. those little worms (larvae) had baffled me for a while until i saw that.

oh and pick up an assasin snail.

 

[dragon14]

Eww.

Rough guess... 1/4 inch?? Or a bit smaller. I've a hard time estimating size sometimes.

We've only seen them twice now.

 

[dragon14]

Oh forgot to add... Do they have a problem w sand... Assassin snails? Sand tanks here. What do you feed them??

 

[thing fish]

if you have a problem with snails, an assassin snail (or a few) will help keep them in check. no need to feed them as long as there are other snails to be had. they eat other snails.

as far as little wrigglers...i doubt theyre planaria if theyre fast-moving 1/4 inch wormish critters. as long as youre not overfeeding and water quality is good, i have a feeling youre okay. could be larvae of some sort. just a gut feeling. you may also want to do a search for nematodes. that is another possibility.

 

[dragon14]

Just in the 10g w the snails. We got java moss from our lfs and it came w a free snail and then some.

Thanks . But I meant after they eat everyone. And would the betta bug the assassin snail??

Thanks. Hrrmmn. I'll have to look into all of this

 

[thing fish]

depends on how bad your snail problem is. it may be self-sustaining. i have one assassin in my 20 gallon and it always has other snails to eat. plus the assassin snails help to aerate the substrate....they burrow a lot. i doubt the betta would bother it.

 

[Freakgecko91]

Assassins will eat algae and wafers when no snails are present


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[dragon14]

Thanks to you both!!

 

[StellaStars]

It's my understanding that planaria are parasitic to invertebrates, but not to fish. (I think most fish would eat them, given the chance - that's why pet stores will often have a fish or two in with the shrimp.)

 

[dragon14]

That's not good. We have 6 shrimp in our 20g. Are they hurting them? And we are probably gona get an assassin snail for the 10g.

 

[lunch]

I freaked out the first time I saw those wormy things too, its been my experience that if you've seen them swimming, you're going to have a quite a few in your tank,, next time u do a substrate vac, do it into a bucket and when it's full, shine a torch into it, u'll know soon enough if you've got a problem