little white worms??????

[bkdiscus]

I notice that under the light, I see a lot of tiny white worms in my tank floating and wiggling around. They are about 1/4 inch long and smaller than the width of a hair. Are these harmful to my discus? And how can I get rid of them? Thanks.

[yim11]

Thats Planaria worms, its a sign of over feeding and/or under cleaning. Won't harm the fish.

HTHs,
-jim

[bkdiscus]

I do wc 3 times a week. Can I use any of the parasite med to take care of them?

[steve.ryall]

no......feed less.......clean more

[Eddie]

no......feed less.......clean more

Agree with Steve, don't use a med or chem for them. They are harmless and can be controlled with WCs. I find that doing a good wipe down before draining the tank helps alot. As mentioned, watch your feeding and up the tank cleaning.

Eddie

[Roxanne]

...actually, when they are free swimming thread like white worms, they are stylaria....planaria stays on the glass and surfaces and is flat....
...bet you got loads in your filter...don't squeeze the sponges into your tank...sometimes a water change will bring them out of their hiding holes...clean filter media more often in clean dechlored water to prevent masses of them...and like advised above, less food in each feed...a sponge over your intake will keep most of the excess food getting in there which they feed off...

Roxanne

[discolove]

I had the same thing inside of my filter going on, however the worms never made it into the tank. This was probably because any worm that got in was most likely eaten within seconds. It was no wonder since the inside of the filter was trashed with dirt and uneaten food. I drained some tank water into a bucket and rinsed out my filter and media in that until it was acceptable. It took about 4 buckets of rinsing until the water was no longer dirty. No more little white worms.

[Daniella]

Is it something common with planted tank? I never seen them in my tanks and I have a bare bottom tank.


...actually, when they are free swimming thread like white worms, they are stylaria....planaria stays on the glass and surfaces and is flat....
...bet you got loads in your filter...don't squeeze the sponges into your tank...sometimes a water change will bring them out of their hiding holes...clean filter media more often in clean dechlored water to prevent masses of them...and like advised above, less food in each feed...a sponge over your intake will keep most of the excess food getting in there which they feed off...

Roxanne

[bkdiscus]

Thanks guys for all your input. I guess I have to do more wc.

[Eddie]

Thanks guys for all your input. I guess I have to do more wc.

Also, you may just need to up your filter maintenance to be done more frequently. It really depends on how you feed and what you feed. You can usually gauge how often to clean your filter by the build-up and alot of times, your fish can tell you something is up by their behavior. Do you use a prefilter on your filter to prevent chunks of food and waste from being accumulated in the filter assembly?

Eddie