thousands of white worms

[Ben]

there are thousands of worms crawling on my aquarium :'(. they are about 2mm long. for now they aren't doing anything to fish. but they are spawns everyday on glass. what can i do? please help me.
thanks for your helps. ben

[Carol_Roberts]

If you have little worm dots stuck to your glass they are planaria. Planaria are a sign of overfeeding. They love slick surfaces.

Cut way back on food. Increase daily water changes. Wipe down the inside of the tank AND the inside of the filter (they hide in the filter) every day for a week or two. You will see less and less everyday, soon they will be gone.

Do you also have thread like worms on bottom of tank? They are not related to planaria, but also are a sign of dirty tank.

[OEG]

Ben, I agree with Carol. i just tried something new to try to deal with this problem, i have a 55 gallon tank with about 10 3-4inch fish and i had these dang worms everywhere so i tried something i had never done. I used Formalin(37% formaldahyde) at a rate of 4 ml/50 gallons and they all died out with two treatments and my fish were not effected at all by this. Heck it might even help my fish. Maybe you can try this and see what happens with yours. Or just do what Carol suggested. I just wantd to try something to erradicate them instead of just reducing their numbers.
Oscar

[troy]

Hi

I have had these worms to for the last two years , they make a bare bottom tank look bad .
I have tried a complete strip clean of my tank , using sterilizers and boiling of filter equipment then formalin baths for the fish ,a few weeks later they were back.
I have tried feeding small meals once a day to the fish to see if that would work but it only cut the numbers down a little.
I have also tried formalin in the tank which only cut the numbers back for a while before they returned.
I find these worms to reproduce and spread extremely fast. I syphon and wipe down the tank daily with once a week filter clean , this dose help but i still have hundreds of them on the bottom of the tank.

I did have a log in my tank that was a breeding ground for these worms and a parasite of some form (another thing in my tank), removing this log cut the numbers back about 60%.
The worms do not seem to any bother to the fish, i have even breed some discus in there.

Carol ,i have two adults and four 2 inch fish in one of my tanks that i feed quarter of a teaspoon of blood worms and the same amout of discus tucker daily all rinsed in tap water before feeding , later that day i will feed two pinches of tetra bits and a small amount of live worms once a week.
Do you think this could be over feeding?
I am at a loss to solving this problem.

Troy

This is the first time I answer on this topic. I've never seen one single worm in all of my aquariums for all these years. I've never have to deal with them. That's why I'm not familiar in this area. One thing different with my tanks are that I always have a few Bristlenoses in each tank. They eat all the excess food left over by the discus. All of my tanks are loaded with fake plastic plants, rocks and driftwoods. I'm not sure if the bristlenoses are the guardian angels to keep them in check or not. My glasses are always clean and I only wipe off the water line on the top where the bristlenoses can't reach. HTH
Jimmy.

[Ben]

thanks for your helps.today i wiped all of my tank and changed half of the water. for now they are gone if they come again i will transfer my fish to another tank and clean my tank.

[troy]

Hi

I think Jimmyl is right, the bristlenoses may be the best answer, i have a community tank with a plec in it and it dose not seem to have any problems wth theses worms.

Troy

[rich]

I dropped the pH for a couple of days and they were gone.