The Puffer Forum

I breed snails in a separate tank for my puffer and just changed the water today. When I poured the water in it circulated some snail droppings and other gunk around the tank and I noticed a clear stringy thing like how a fish would pass a worm. Though snail poop does look like little worms to begin with, they are usually green/brown but this was a little longer and white. There were about 3 that i saw totaling about 1.25 inches in length if put together. I have 4-5 adult pond snails, god knows how many newborns/babies, a pregnant ghost shrimp and a normal ghost shrimp.

Should I play it safe and discard the ghost shrimp? Can snails have worms too? I dont want to feed my puffer with already infected food. Thanks

Some pictures would definitely help ID what worms they are, since they could potentially be harmless worms brought on from overfeeding / leftover food in your tank...

But either way, i would wait for some of the more experienced members to help you out since in a worst case scenario it could be a bad parasite???

Yep, they are probably just a type of planaria if they are white and like to hide in the substrate. Harmless, but they can be a sign that you are feeding too much as they reproduce to meet their food source (uneaten food).

Sounds just like when I had planeria. They were gone within two or three days after I cut back on the algae pellet portions.

cool, thanks for the info