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Hi all I have a question about my tank Yesterday I found a lot of little white worms free floating in my tank they are about 1/16 of an inch long. Does anyone have any idea what they are and what I could use to get rid of they. I plan on doing a water change to start then I planned on doing a salt bath and maybe raise the temp. of the tank to 85 degress. I Do not see any of the worms on any of the fish yet, but I did notice that one of my Barbs has redness and what looks like some white stuff just behind the one eye almost looks like a scrape. I put some rid ich in as a first measure.




My Tank 55 gal

(5)Tiger Barbs
(4)Albino Tiger Barbs
(3)Green Tiger Barbs
(3)Golden Barbs
(3)Yoyo Loaches
(2)Flounders
(1)Bala Shark
(1)Common Pl*co
(1)Tiger Pl*co
(1)Kuli Loach

Silica & Graval Substrate
Driftwood
(2)Sword Plants
(3)Frill plants
(2)Marineland Penquin 330 Filters
(1)200 Watt Submersible Heater
(1)CO2 Injector
(1)"New" Whisper 60 Air Pump

Last edited by Barb_Fan2 at 12-Jan-2006 08:34

Barb,

The critters sound like planaria. Although generally harmless, the population explosion may be an indicator of potential problems. These creatures exist in any aquarium but when they become apparent to you, it generally nmeans that something is overfeeding them.

Step up your aquarium maintenance with an additional water chnage or two together with a good vacuum cleaning of the substrate. You will also want to do filter maintenance.

Overfeeding and under maintenance and possibly a missing fish in the aquarium will let these guys take over.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Thanks for the info. I shutdown the filters and the air pump and let the tank settle down for two hours. Then I did a water change and cleaned the filter and vaccumed the gravel. I did raise the temp but only slightly and did a salt bath. I did have three ottos last week but i know they died but when I went back to remove the they were gone nothing lasts long on the bottom of my tank not with all the bottom feeeders I have. I really dont over feed my fish I only give them a pinch of food maybe twice a day and I try to give them a variety of foods through out the week from flake, crisps, tubix worms, wafer discs for bottom feeders, cucumbers and ghost shrimp from time to time, brine shrimp.

To be perfectly honest with you i had the same problem with my tank everytime i feed tubifex worms.i called a very reputable lfs and asked them whats was up. they told me sometimes in tubifex worms little unharmful parasites that arent a threat but very frustrating get into them and when added to water come to life.i dont know if they have eggs then they hatch or what but the just crawl around and eat excess waste.they do grow tho so its best to get rid of them quickly.just what u did is fine and should work out great. you did more to get rid of them than i did when i had them so you should have definetly gotten rid of them.