The Puffer Forum

I have just been shown by my wife some small white sucker mouth worms in one of my tanks. I have been putting a little extra food in there as one of my danios was looking a bit skinny. I have been doing 50% wc per week and been gravel vacuuming like crazy. Is this a sure sign of over feeding ? I have never seen anything like this in over 20 years of fishkeeping. Any ideas on what they might be or how to get rid of them? The tank houses my remaining danios and rasporas along with 6 or so amano shrimp. Thanks in advance

I think I may have my answer, planaria. I have been over feeding so that all get some, I figured the shrimp would make short work of leftovers. My bad. Daily water changes and reduced food is in order, gonna put the skinny danio in a breeder to fatten the old boy up a bit lol

Planaria are flatish, with three-pointed heads, a bit like an arrowhead tip. They tend to be surface-associated rather than free-swimming.

They are actually normal tank inhabitants, but are only very rarely seen in well-managed tanks. Over-feeding, or inappropriate feeding, or just excessive organics in the substrate can result in population increases and resulting sightings of the critters. Reducing the food input and or substrate vacuuming will reduce the population.

Free-swimming nematodes are roundworms and swim in a sine-wave fashion, so are frequently seen in the water column, but they may show first especially near the water meniscus on the glass. The over-population is from the same causes as with planaria, and the cure is the same. These also are normal tank inverts, but should be seldom or rarely seen.

HTH

Do you think the fish might eat them? Gonna skip a couple of days food except the skinny danio and do a 50% w/c and thorough gravel vac.

bertie 83 wrote:Do you think the fish might eat them? Gonna skip a couple of days food except the skinny danio and do a 50% w/c and thorough gravel vac.

The fish I've had always ate the worms they came across, an hour ago I saw a baby guppy that came with some amano shrimp gobble up one of the free swimming ones.

Ok so I got in from work and none of the worms are visible. Gonna do waterchanges and gravel vac anyway, skip feeding tonight also

Ya those suck, good luck buddy

I know this thread is a little old but, it didn't by chance look anything like the photos below, did it? I purchased some ghost shrimp from the store where those pictures are from and one of these guys got added as an accidental stowaway. It's actually a leech that specializes in killing snails, which it did a darn good job of doing in my shrimp/snail tank. I originally thought it was a planaria, which are supposedly harmless, until I started seeing empty snail shells.

what a lovely looking aqua critter

No didn't look like those. They were small white worms, cleaned the bottom thoroughly and not seen them since.