twistyneil

Hi all,
I have been cycling my new tank for the last 2 weeks, currently only has a few plants and a large bogwood in it. During the course of the last week I have noticed a few small white worms floating around, trying to swim in a S shape. I was not too concerned until today when I inspected my tank and noticed RED worms floating around, also trying to swim in a S shape.

After a bit of an investigation, I noticed that the red worms were attracted to any plants with decaying leaves. They seem to get inside the decaying part of the plant leave/stem and appear to be feeding off it. This LED me to inspect all my plants and I noticed that on one there seems to be some of "cocoons" which the worms are hatching out of and floating off. (My current conclusion is that the worms were introduced when I bought the plant)

My questions are:

1) Should I be concerned?
2) What are they? (I have done some searching and the name "Nematodes" pops up now and then)
3) If they are still around when the tank is ready for fish, will they be a parasite or fish food?
4) How should I get rid of them if they are a parasite?
5) Should I get rid of the plants that appear infected? (currently only attacking the decaying part)

I tried to take pictures and a video, but the camera is not good enough

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks Neil

serissime

The only thing I can think of is larvae of bugs. I'd keep an eye on them and hopefully someone here will have a better idea than mine.

twistyneil

Hi again,

I think I might have identified the red worms as bloodworms. After having a chat with my LFS guy about the worms he said that they might be bloodworms, which took me down another avenue of searching. After poring over loads of images of bloodworms, I have identified the following characteristics that bloodworms and the worms in my tank have in common.

1) Both are red
2) Both have a V shape tail part
3) Both have head segments that are dark (black/brown in colour)
4) Both swim in a figure of 8 (initially looked like an S to me)

So, what do you guys think?