Worms?

[marl_nyc]

Hello everyone. So I was doing my scheduled water change today on my 29 gal growout tank for my discus. I have a thin layer of gravel on my tank. Everything was goin okay and I vaccumed all the detrius from the gravel and I refill the tank and add prime to it. After the water change was done I noticed a lot of small threadlike debris floating around. While looking at it and wondering where it came from most of them started to wiggle around! ***! You can imagine how surprised I was. How did these worms get in there? Now I'm wondering how they got there and if they are a danger to my discus. Any steps that I should take? I feed my discus at least 3x-4x a day since they are juvies and do a 40% wc every other day. This is the first time I have seen this in my tank and it's been up and running with the discus in it for at least 2 months now. Has this happened to anyone before? Comments and advice would be most appreciated.

Marl

[brewmaster15]

Hi Marl,
They are no harm at all....commonly called threadworms or stylaria.. You can decrease their numbers with better tank hygiene, but they really are no threat to your fish.

I'd suggest you get rid of the gravel in this growout tank... 29 gal for a growout and you'll want it really clean....That'll be easier if theres no substrate and that will also help with the threadworms.

hth,
al

[Peachtree Discus]

really makes you want to reach arm-deep into the tank, huh??

fish will eat them if are really hungry (don't wait for this to happen). i agree with Al - go BB, especially since it's a growout. more wcs and consider switching to sponge filtration. try not to overfeed (good luck in a growout).

[doc3toes]

i thought they were called planaria?