Planaria question?

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Planaria question?

I have planaria in two of my tanks. I was just reading up on them as to what causes them, if they are harmful and other info. What I've read is left over food stuck in the gravel. So here is my dilemmas:

1) One tank does not have gravel, it is bare bottom, and has left over food cleaned up twice daily because I have a batch of Angelfish fry in the tank. Where did the planaria come from in this tank?

2) Second tank has no fish, thus, no food. Only a couple of snails and some live plants. How are they in this tank?

 

[DMD123]

Re: Planaria question?

They look soooo cute!  :joker: 

 

[discus_2013]

Re: Planaria question?

They don't only feed on excess food but also excess waste, bare bottom tank or not they survive, they are harmless, with baby fry I am sure they get lots of extra food and your snails create waste just like a fish, I have heard of people deworming the tank but in my opinion it just doesn't matter that much.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

Good to know! Glad they are harmful and nothing to worry about!

Haha that pic is funny

 

[Missgrumpygills]

Re: Planaria question?

Glad they are harmful and nothing to worry about!

Hehe :joker:

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Planaria question?

Glad they are harmful and nothing to worry about!

Hehe :joker:

But they are a nuisance and cosmetically disgusting. It's a indication of need to change something in your fish routine. And need to do hydrogen peroxide solution method when new plants acquired.  Sometimes planaria hitchhikes from plants. http://www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

No new plants in either tank. One tank has no plants at all. I'm guessing me feeding 3 times a day for the fry caused it in the one tank and the snail poop did in the other.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

Glad they are harmful and nothing to worry about!

Hehe :joker:

Gotta love freaking auto correct  :violent: 

 

[anthony]

Re: Planaria question?

are you sure there planaria and not detritus worms??

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

Ya know from reading it to it. I'm not entirely sure. They are too small to determine well or even get a picture of but they don't wiggle as described of detritus worms they move like an inch worm.

 

[anthony]

Re: Planaria question?

I got over run with detritus worms once you have them they are hard to get rid of you can maintain the numbers though. From what I've heard the planaria have the arrow shaped head the derritus worm is brown/red look like pieces of thead you will see them free float after a gravel vac or stuck on the glass tops but most of the time they are out of site untill you are over run by them. 3 or 4 days of gravel vac will take them back to the minimum. Good luck

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Planaria question?

Just follow the instructions from this site.
http://www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

They are only on glass and in the water. None above water line. I do not see anything brown/red colored coming from them. If they are jot harmful I don't want to do anything about them since there are sensitive fry in the tank.

 

[star_rider]

Re: Planaria question?

once you get out of the over feeding stage with the fry the problem will prob fix itself.

lots of water changes will help reduce the excess waste and help to reduce down the planaria population

 

[LuminousAphid]

Re: Planaria question?

i have some in my smallest tank, and they don't seem to do any harm to anything. I don't find that they are that disgusting looking, so I never tried to get rid of them, just stopped feeding as much

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Re: Planaria question?

i have some in my smallest tank, and they don't seem to do any harm to anything. I don't find that they are that disgusting looking, so I never tried to get rid of them, just stopped feeding as much

Yeah they aren't much of a concern to me now that I know they aren't harmful to the adults or fry. You have to look for them. I wouldn't have noticed them if I wasn't looking at the tiny fry.

 

[Gizmo]

Planaria are NOT harmless. They secrete a neurotoxin on their backs which can paralyze shrimp and other bottom-dwelling invertebrates. Then, the planaria consume them. VERY dangerous if you're trying to breed shrimp or snails as the babies can be easily overcome by the toxin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuHd_cP7FeY

I had planaria and wiped them out using dog dewormer, a.k.a. fenbendazole. Based on instruction I received on another forum I ordered some Panacur C (yellow box) from Amazon ($7.00), and dosed my tank with a single dose of 0.1g active ingredient (fenbendazole) per 10G of tank water, which ended up being half a pouch of powder for my ten gallon tank. It completely nuked the planaria and my fish, shrimp and snails were all fine. My fish even ate some of the fenbendazole with no ill effects.

Get rid of them if you can.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

They are gone now. A few water changes and they disappeared.