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i have a 7 gallon quarantine tank, which is filled but has no fish in it at the moment. There is snails though and lots and lots of smail poop! I just noticed yesterday that there was tons and tons of little white things, and they seemed to be wriggling around. They are all white and about the size of 3-5mm or 1/4-1/2cm. They are wiggling around the tank like worms. Does anyone know what these are? They are disgusting!]:|:#(

You are right... they are disgusting. Can't remember their name, but they occur because of high nitrates and to much fish/creature waste and food scraps in your tank. Getting rid of them is easy - start doing 10% daily water changes with a vacuum, and by the ned of the week, they will all be gone.

planaria is completely harmless to fish and snails. I'm surprised your snails aren't eating them all. They show up most often in tanks with low circulation and excess food or waste. Fry tanks are good canditates for planaria. So again do more water changes, suck out the snail poo, keep the nitrates low, and they should start to go away. I've also heard you can use pieces of meat as bait and remove it the next day covered in the worms but I think that would foul the water too. It isn't as effective on planaria as pest snails.
Last resort if they won't go away strip down the tank and wipe it out with vinegar. That's what I'd do if it only has snails and is bare bottom or with few decorations. Dump it all in vinegar and fill it with new water and the planaria should be dead but you'll have to watch the water quality so they don't come back.

Last edited by sham at 10-Apr-2005 18:24

I know why they are occurring!...I don't have either the filter or heater turned on, and i have't done any water changes becvause there si no fish in there.I meant ot empty it out but I never got around to it!I will empty it and refill obviously before more fish go in.It is loaded with snail poop at the moment.

I left a tank like that once but mine was with about 1/2inch of sand in the bottom. That was really bad. There were bubbles coming up from the anaerobic pockets and all sorts of little creatures showed up in the water. I thought I was gonna throw up when I tried to scoop the sand out. That smell was awful. If there's any substrate just ditch it. It's nearly impossible to clean after it's sat like that. Wipe the tank with vinegar and rinse. It's safer than bleach and kills just as many germs/bug creatures.

I don't have any substrate but I am going to empty it out soon and I will rinse it with warmish water. I never use anything like bleach on anything to do with fish even if I will wash it after.There is always a risk of leaving some on, and killing the $75 peppermint catfish that is next going to be quarantined in the tank!!!!!!!:%)

But thanks any way guys!

Last edited by labrakitty at 11-Apr-2005 16:40

That's why I use vinegar. It's nontoxic. The only thing it will do is lower ph if you left some in the tank and had soft water. If you rinse it even just once there shouldn't be enough to do even that. I never use bleach or anything else on a tank.

Using bleach isn't always so bad. That's normally the only way I can clean off the brown algae that plagues my non-planted tanks. Just go easy on the bleach, rinse, rinse, rinse, then soak in dechlorinated water with extra dechlorinator.

But for a tank... definately go for vinegar.