# Planaria surprise :(



## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

While feeding my tanks some frozen bloodworms last night I discovered something. About 5 minutes after feeding, I happen to glance at the tank, and there's planaria crawling halfway up the front and sides of the tank!  A lot of them! I had never noticed them before, but obviously they must have been there. I have fed bloodworms before, and never seen that. This was a new batch. 

Could there have been some pheromone in the frozen bloodworms to attract the planaria? I haven't introduced any new plants, fish or hardware into the tank in ages. The fish are guppies, a couple of algae eaters and some rcs. 

I'm heading off to find fenbendazole today.

By the way, I have two 50 gal tanks, and both had them, though population was much heavier in one of them.


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## jestep (Nov 14, 2009)

Flying foxes eat them as well if you want something natural. 

I would completely cut feeding for a few days, and do daily water changes until they go away.

What's you current water change schedule? Every time I've seen them it was because of excess food/waste.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Awe, man, now I can't help but wonder of I'm going to end up with them, as I just started feeding frozen bloodworms and mysis shrimp a couple of weeks ago. Your post made it sound like they were already there though, so I guess I'll have to wait and see.

So are planaria that bad? I had always thought of them as detritivores, though I'm sure there are more species than I've heard about. What's the negatives about them if they show up in a tank?


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

Fenben will work (dog de-wormer can be found cheap at PetMeds). I don't think they are any threat, just unsightly. Small cichlids or other carnivores will eat them, but your best bet for assured extermination is the de-wormer.

I wonder how they got there in the first place. You don't suppose they could have survived frozen (eggs? ) with the bloodworms? Or maybe on a wild-collected plant from long ago and you are just now seeing them?

-Dave


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

davemonkey said:


> ...I wonder how they got there in the first place. You don't suppose they could have survived frozen (eggs? ) with the bloodworms? Or maybe on a wild-collected plant from long ago and you are just now seeing them?
> 
> -Dave


My guess is they have been there for quite a while. There is no way they could have come in with the bloodworms, unless they came in from a much older feeding because I have been out of the bloodworms for a few months. They must have come in from plants long ago, since I haven't added anything new to the tank in months.

Last night I confirmed there's something in the bloodworm feeding that makes them come out. After about 5 minutes of feeding, they were crawling all over the glass again.

I have done various searches for them and can find no information stating that they are a danger in the tank. They are not parasitic. Can anyone offer any personal info on this?

Still, I will be treating the tanks with the de-wormer.

Regarding water changes, weekly 50% changes, and I definitely do not overfeed. These are old established tanks, so they must be surviving on detritus and de-composing plant matter, etc.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Extremely interesting. Since they are not parasitic (to the knowledge of those who have so far posted), while I hope not to ever see them, I doubt I will treat for them if they show up. I imagine that my zebra danios and Trig.espeis would do population control (guessing that these things are about snack size for them).


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Update - I have treated with fenbendazole, a 0.5g suspension for a 50gal tank. No effect on fish/planta/snails or shrimp. 

Some folks have told me that the first batch of frozen bloodworms were probably the source of them originally. Has anyone else had this experience with bloodworms and planaria?


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## Karebear (Oct 6, 2008)

What brand of frozen blood worms do you use? I would have a hard time beliving that the eggs or larva would be able to survive the sub temps in long term freezing that the product would have been thru.


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## Ovrkill (Nov 18, 2009)

They are as much as I can tell harmless. I have some in one of my tanks and I can't tell you how stressed out I was the first time I saw one crawling on the glass, then 1000 more. I threw everything at them that I could without killing my fish and even thought of that to get rid of them (I didn't lol).

I even went so far as to take all my fish out, all my plants and decorations, and add the max killing power I could. Even bleached the plants to the point I lost almost 80% of them. Still didn't get all of them.

I know where mine came from. They came from the play sand that I used as the substrate. After a little research and looking into them and watching my fish very closely to make sure that it wasn't something parasitic I eventually learned to just live with them.

In some spots in my 10gal there is poor circulation and at times uneaten food and waste has built up and I have a small “outbreak” of them. One thing that I have found that will kill them pretty effective and not damage your tank is to add aquarium salt right on top of the outbreak spots. You will see them turn a slight green color and die off. Wait for the salt crystals to dissolve and kill them off then just vacuum them and their “food” up, do a water change so you don't have excess salts in the water and everything is golden. The less food you have for them the less you will see them to the point you wont even see them anymore. I could probably look through my tank for hours now and not even see one.

In all it probably took about 4 months of salting/vacuuming to get to this point. I also don't overfeed anymore and whatever doesn't get eaten is removed. The only thing that stays for any point of time is the algae wafer for my pleco, only because he eats on his time not mine lol.


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