still have planaria in tank

[lesleyanndunn]

i still have planaria in my snail tank despite doing all the recommended things

there is no substrate, no uneaten food, no overfeeding, lights are on for about 5 hrs a day.

the snails have stopped laying eggs and ive only got about 2 snails left, as i gave the rest to the puffers.

ive been doing 50-60% water changes every other day with prime. and havent fed the tank in over a week.

as soon as i turn the filter back on, loads of the wee ***** come flowing back into the tank

ive changed my filter media last month, as i thought was planaria was being sucked into the sponges and breeding in there.

do i need to change media again? theres not much detritus on the media now, its rinsed in old tank water every couple weeks.

anything else i can do apart from taking the tank apart and boiling/bleaching everything?

am tired seeing these things wriggling around in the water

[Nick]

are they in the open water, and spaz out? Or do they SLOWLY glide across surfaces?

[lesleyanndunn]

they are wriggling about in the open water in the filter current

some are on glass as well

i dont see many on bottom of tank, which is why i think theyre in the filter sponges.

looks the worst straight after a WC, when the filter comes back on, and out they all flow =/

my params are 0 amm 0 nitrite and 5 nitrates

tank has been set up about 2 months?

prob easier just to buy snails when needed.

just horrible to see them still, after so much effort trying to get rid

theres none in my gsp tank..

[Nick]

I suspect you have spazworms, not planaria. Do you sometimes see little tube-shaped collections of debris on your decor, only a bit bigger than the worms?

[lesleyanndunn]

whats the difference between the two?

i have a couple artificial plants, some stuff on there looks like white snail poo?

it look similar to that?

[Nick]

Doesn't QUITE look like poo, but it's in short strands and attached to a surface.
Planaria are much easier to get rid of than spazworms. Planaria eat almost entirely waste food. So, if you eliminate extra food, they starve away. Spazworms are a roundworm, not a flatworm, and look round and usually spaz out while in open water. They seem to be able to survive and reproduce just fine on the tanks own ecosystem, so reducing feeding does not do much to them. Normally, you never really get much of them, because nearly all fish(particularly small fish, like DPs) LOVE to eat them. But they have no predators in a snail tank.

[lesleyanndunn]

are they harmful in any way to puffers?

[Nick]

They are delicious snacks to puffers.

[lesleyanndunn]

thanks! =]

[Pufferpunk]

I like their name: "Spazzzzzzzworms"!

[SammyDee]

I had a bunch of planeria in my snail tank B4 too. Now with ghost shrimp in there I see none.

[Nick]

They are a type of harmless, totally no parasitic nematode worm. Their scientific name, when I finally found it, means nothing to anybody. And if you say "nematode" people FREAK and reach for the IP meds.

The term "spazworms" was what I described them as when I had no idea what they were, because on the occasions I spotted them in the open water, they were periodically or more often continually spazzing out. So I still use this as their "common" name. It's much more comforting and descriptive than any other term I could find, and it fits.

They REALLY do not last in tanks with fish. All that spazzing is a fish magnet, and all small fish LOVE spazworms. My DP tank always had a few of their hideaways on the inside of the filter tube, but never did I see a single one in open water. I suspect dwarf puffers can see and eat foods we need a microscope to spot.

[SammyDee]

Yea in my snail tank I always keep a few shrimp in there to do some clean up work and I got a feeder fish rescued from a friend piranha tank in it too. If ever i get spazzworms hell be eating them. I like it with all the snails and shrimp in the one guppie. It looks boring from afar but up close there's any orgy of stuff going on in there

[J-P]

I suspect dwarf puffers can see and eat foods we need a microscope to spot.

Your wish is my command .. well sort of. I found your "spaz worms" in my 10 gal newly cycled tank. They were doing the James Brown all over the place. Also got some cyclops' in there off of the main tank filter media.

I never saw these before so I got out the pipet and the microscope. The video is slowed down 50% so you can actually get a better view. If not they would have just moon walked across in a couple seconds. On very close inspection it looks appears that the have some fronds on the tail (maybe 2) to help propel themselves. In the video you can see this one struggling with a dust particle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWm2ApE7cw

[Nick]

I must have bad eyes, all I see is a couple black dots moving.