Tiny Worms

[JetVTEC11]

Hello,

This morning I woke up to feed my discus and I noticed a tiny white worm probably a quarter of an inch or less long wriggling around in the water. Upon further inspection of the tank I noticed another one on the bottom of the tank (not moving) and another on the side of the glass crawling up. What could it be? I have one Discus that was from a LFS but I thought I debugged him a while ago. The rest of them are from a breeder who I know so I don't know where they could have come from? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

-Jon

[Lowporkwa]

Sounds like planaria, which is completely harmless. Usually means you are feeding too much as there are too many excess nutrients in the water! Try some more frequent water changes

[JetVTEC11]

Yes I do feed them a lot. But I do a 20% water change almost everyday. Should I cut back on food or change more water? They're always hungry. So I don't have to worry too much about the planarias?

[White Worm]

Planaria wont hurt the discus. Up your water changes and cut back on the feeding for a few days. Up your regular w/c's also.

[t_j]

Mikes right if you feed your discus a lot 20% w/c's is not going to make them go away. You can keep feeding like that but your going to have to do min. of 50% w/c's every day along with cleaning the glass. I use to get the same thing and this was the only way to feed them heavy and keep the worms away (but I did more like an 80% w/c each day).

[jerhbear]

I've had them, and haven't been able to get rid of them no matter what I've tried. I believe I picked mine up when I brought in new plants. Then of course they spread to my other tank because they share cleaning equipment.
They don't harm the fish, but if you startin trying desperate messures to get rid of them, that may harm the fish.
My 2¢ is either ignore them, learn to live with them, or move your livestock to a different tank, and break down the infected tank completely and re-cycle or re-seed from a non-infected tank. My newest tank just recieved livestock, and the older tank that is infected is getting broke down this weekend. I'll have one to go, and hopefully put this behind me......It's a good excuse to buy a new tank, and upgrade the rest... :)

[Apistomaster]

I've had them, and haven't been able to get rid of them no matter what I've tried. I believe I picked mine up when I brought in new plants. Then of course they spread to my other tank because they share cleaning equipment.
They don't harm the fish, but if you startin trying desperate messures to get rid of them, that may harm the fish.
My 2¢ is either ignore them, learn to live with them, or move your livestock to a different tank, and break down the infected tank completely and re-cycle or re-seed from a non-infected tank. My newest tank just recieved livestock, and the older tank that is infected is getting broke down this weekend. I'll have one to go, and hopefully put this behind me......It's a good excuse to buy a new tank, and upgrade the rest... :)
Your "worms" as you describe them sound like Hydra. These are likely if you feed a lot of brine shrimp nauplii.
If they are Planarians then cut back on how much food you feed at a time. Better to feed less and more frequently. Doing so along with siphoning all left overs out should bring them into control.

[phidelt85]

Do these worms wriggle quickly in a snake-like movement? I found some of these in my sump lastnight but I know they're not planaria. Planaria are more flat and slow moving. This thing looked like it need Ridlin.

[Apistomaster]

You are right, Planarians don't wiggle and are not threadlike.
That leaves two other likely possibilities; 1) Nematodes or 2) Oligochaete worms.

Like Planarian worms they are both associated with overfeeding and pollution. These free swimming worms are not among the parasite type of worms but they are a nuisance.
They really should go away if you get your tank cleaner.
These worms are not uncommon if you feed a lot of beef heart especially if the beef heart blend lacks enough binder to retain cohesiveness. That is, if the blend readily falls apart into its smaller particles too easily then much of it is uneaten by the fish and it feeds the worms instead.
If you happen use a substrate finer particles also fall in between the grains where again, the fish can't eat it.
In addition to cleaning the tank and continuing to make water changes you may want to avoid beef heat and use a prepared discus pellet food and frozen blood worms for awhile and see if that helps.
These worms are very rare in a clean environment.

[JetVTEC11]

Now that I've started feeding less and stepping up my water changes the problem has disappeared, I haven't seen any worms for the past week. Thanks for all of the advice!

[phidelt85]

I agree Larry. I haven't seen the worms in my tank; just in the sump. I do daily to every other day 60-75% wc's, but I do feed BH, pellets, flakes at least twice a day.

[Apistomaster]

Beef heart is a messy food and although wild discus probably don't eat many cattle in the wild it is unsurpassed as discus food when growing discus both fast and large is the goal.

If you are making your own beef heart blend try increasing the amount of binder you use and minimize the amount of water as best you can and still blend it fine. I used to use Knox unflavored gelatin but not for the past 20 years. I now use agar which is available from health food stores. It takes a little experimenting to find the optimum amount of agar to use. too much and the blend sets up like concrete. Just right and the blend will stick together with a minimum of unwanted particle dispersion. Folding in by hand of freeze Dried Blood worms makes the food more nutritious but more importantely the blood worm skins act like a fiber reinforcing material helping to hold the mix together. I usually presoak the FD Blood worms in VitaChem as a way to help deliver vitaman supplements to the discus. You don't blend these or you lose the binding effect.
You still have to feed only what they can eat in a few minutes. Allow them time to hunt down as much of the fines as possible.
You may find it helpful to keep a couple of Hypancistrus plecos like L260 or L333 or L134 Leopard Frog Peckoltia. They are pretty good at finding and eating the fine bits. They are much better at this than Corydoras cats.

[kaceyo]

Larry,
Do you find that there is more slime build up on the tank walls when using binders than without? Also, are you mixing the agar with water before adding to the mix or do you put it into the mixer w/out water?
I've tried knox geletin but didn't like the buildup on the glass or the idea that it desolves into the water adding to the bioload etc. Can you give a starting point of how much agar per lb?
Thanks,

Kacey

[jerhbear]

Your "worms" as you describe them sound like Hydra. These are likely if you feed a lot of brine shrimp nauplii.
If they are Planarians then cut back on how much food you feed at a time. Better to feed less and more frequently. Doing so along with siphoning all left overs out should bring them into control.

Thanks for the info. Whatever I have, they don't go away with massive changes in water/feeding. They do wiggle a big like snakes, and some get to about 3/4" in length. I have only fed occasional frozen brine shrimp (SFBay brand), and really noticed them after adding some plants from a LFS.

If what I have isn't the same as what you're seeing, please disregard my previous posting....Whatever I have, they're EVIL and won't go away. They don't seem to affect the fish, but I can't stand seeing them in there. I'm 1/2 way complete with "move stock to a different clean tank, break down the affected tank, repeat" until it's all gone.

[phidelt85]

Yes, Larry, can you give more details on the Agar. I still have about 10# of BH mix I haven't frozen yet and would like to try this.

[FishyMatty]

I just started noticing these Nematodes in my tank only after water changes. I want to kill them but I don't know how.
I do 50%-80% every other day and they still pop up. There isn't a lot but their noticeable.