Are these bad?

[Jobin13]

I have these little white worms in my nano tank and even smaller white specks that zoom around (one is slightly in focus towards the center of the picture)... Water is really cloudy since I did a gravel vacuum and these guys went on a frenzy...

I only have nerite snails, ghost and whisker shrimp (which are pregnant and egg bearing), and a beta fish in this tank. The beta is the new addition to this system so I'm thinking the worms came from him... The beta does not appear to have any spots or fin damage..

 

[TMaier]

Pics plz

 

[Jobin13]

 

[Fresh2o]

Try again. It appears you are using a PC/Mac with the desktop/full browser version. You've selected an image, however, you used the add picture method for adding a link to an image (on the web).

 

[NatureGirl]

I believe the worms you're describing are detritus worms. They live in all water naturally, but when a tank is dirty they start reproducing quickly because they now have an abundant food source. They're scavengers, so they'll eat dead or dying plant material, and leftover fish food. They are not parasites and aren't even harmful unless there are enough of them to outcompete your fish for oxygen. I had these in one of my tanks, and lessening the amount of food for my fish and stepping up the water changes quickly lessened their numbers to a reasonable figure. However, with detritus worms you should never add a dewormer into the tank, because it will result in a massive die-off that will further dirty the already shifty water quality and poison the fish.

Another option that's more rare and definitely more serious are planaria worms. While detritus worms can come in hundreds, planaria worms are present in very small numbers. They are introduced through new, I unquarantined fish and plants. These worms are parasites, harmful to small fish, fry, and eggs. They definitely should be killed off quickly and effectively, but what could be used to do that I don't know.

As a side-note, I just remembered detritus worms prefer living in the substrate unless disturbed. Sometimes they consume all the oxygen available to them in the substrate, so they have to climb up the walls of the tank to survive.
I hope this post helps.