Tiny Worm Infestation?

[alison13]

This happened in my last tank too but not this clearly bad. Ive only had the tank less than a month, its fully cycled for the last week or so. It has one betta , couple plants. I dont overfeed, i give her about 3 pellets or a couple bloodworms twice a day and make sure she eats it all so theres no excess waste. is that overfeeding? I did a water change today and theyre still floating all around the water column. The fish is unbothered by them but unfortunately wont eat them, theyre too small for her. im just double checking theyre harmless nemotodes or something and if i keep doing water changes of 50% twice a week or so they wont get any more infested? idk what to do if they keep breeding:'( Oh and i had a strong light on the tank before which i thought mightve made it worse? i switched to a less powerful one now.

 

[alison13]

they are still absolutely everywhere this morning. I dont know what to do, move the fish to a spare tank? but theyll probably just end up there too. Feel like i might have to return the fish to the store if theyll have her which will break my heart.

 

[Fahn]

Looks like rhabdocoela worms, if they are shaped like grains of rice. If they are long and thin like noodles, they are detritus worms. Both are really quite harmless and sometimes tanks will see blooms of various kinds of worms. Your betta might just eat them if you skip a few feedings.

 

[mattgirl]

It seems most fairly new tanks will go through a bloom of one kind of worm or another. Most of the time they will just one day be gone. I never noticed worms of any kind but did have copepods show up in both my 55 gallon and my 5.5 gallon at about the same time. They were there for a week or so and then they were gone.

Most of the tiny creatures that show up in our tanks are totally harmless and are naturally occurring in most bodies of water.

 

[AquaticJ]

Those are detritus worms, and they’re harmless.