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i noticed over the last couple of days that small white worms have been multiplying very quickly. They "crawl" along the glass and are about 1mm in width by about 4mm in length.

The tank is a 29G and currently has 40-50 5 day old danio fry.

Any info on these worms is greatly appreciated, thank you.

They are probably Planaria--quite harmless, but annoying.

Whatever CAUSED them to be there in the first place is the main concern. You're probably overfeeding or not doing enough regular partial water changes, or something similar that would have the same effect (bad water quality and extra waste in the tank).

Try doing a gravel vac (be sure not to suck up any fry), and changing out a decent amount of the water, and feed less if you're overfeeding...

Planaria are fun little critters--you can split their head in half, and they'll grow back the other halves of each head, and have 2 heads... and then split those, and then those.....

Good luck

i had the same thing happen, but in my SW tank. i scooped them up with a net and havent seen um' since. I still can;t figure out how i got off so easily getting rid of them but w/e.

but you should probably net some of them (all ofthem) with a net and if that doesnt help do a water change and if theyre still there idk what you should do haha.

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pnh

Thank you guys.

I established that it is, in fact -- Planaria.

I scrubbed all the planaria off the sides of the glass, then did a nice size water change, and netted most of the other planaria. So, hopefully they will eventually all go away.

Will planaria die if they have nothing to feed off of? Ex: Waste, old food, etc?

Yes, planaria feed off of excess food, so limiting that will cut down on them. However, they're not really a bad sign; to have invertebrates at all means that your water has to be good enough for them as they're more fragile than vertebrates. Of course, they are kind of unsightly. If you do water changes only, for example, monthly, you may also want to start doing them every other week instead. Changing or rinsing out the filter cartridge to get rid of debris may also help.

Planaria can also be eaten by certain species of fish. Gourami are sometimes recommended to get rid of Planaria. In my opinion, I wouldn't even worry about them, as they are not dangerous.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Guppies like to eat them too.

They're completely harmless, and will go away almost immediately if you clean the substrate really well.

I've also heard they are a sign of good water quality, as they can't live in polluted water.

I studied planarria regeneration in Biology. Pretty interesting stuff.

Chris