steveangela1

I was doing my water changes today and noticed little white worms in my betta tank, the only thing that has changed in the past month in that tank is I added a otto, and a new plant Sat. I have never seen thes things before in any of my tanks, and it is isolated to that one tank, when I called the fish store where I got the plant they said "oh they are harmless we have them in the plants all the time" I was so P'od that I gave them a peice of my mind and hung up, the couldn't even name the worms,
I am wondering if its Planeria (sp?) and how to get rid of them before they spread, or can they spread to my other tanks as long as I keep washing stuff between tanks?
My water parameters are:
ph 7.5, ammonia is -0-, nitrite -0-, nitrate 10

Chief_waterchanger

The fish will eat planaria and it is a good source of protein for them.. Avoid feeding the fish for 2 days or so and they will munch the worms right up. (The fishstore may have actually been right, for once, they are harmless, as long as they don't wind up being a nematode of some type, in which case they could be harmful to both the fish and yourself. Nematodes can burrow into the fish's muscleclature or YOUR muscleclature and cause cysts. Access to humans is usually through open wounds. However, if the head looks like the pointed end of an EXIT sign's arrow or an arrowhead or whatever, it is probably a planaria.)

PS: You can google image of planaria you can probably better understand what we are describing.

steveangela1

Thank you!! that really makes me feel more at ease about them being in the tank... I will try not feeding him for a couple days, I was wondering why he was going around grabbing stuff off the plant, and glass now I know, hes getting his tummy full!! lol

they def look like the planaria pics, they are little and flat like that