Little Worms in my Tank!

[salman]

Yesterday, when i came back from London, I noticed that there were really small worms swimming from the middle to the surface. They are hair thick and they are about 1/4 of an inch. They are alive, since they are swimming lol. I fed them frozen bloodworms before i left, do frozen bloodworms come back to life?? I also have a couple of plants, could they have been with the plants when i added them 3 weeks ago?

[RobbieG]

They are probably planaria that came in on your palnts - give your gravel a couple of very good vacuumings and don't feed your fish for a few days

[SkarloeysMom]

If not planaria they may be nematodes. They are another type of harmless aquarium worm I read about a while back when someone sent out a link about types of worms you can get in your tanks. But whatever they're called they're harmless and like Robbie said some aggressive gravel vacuuming should keep them in check.

[salman]

But they arnt on the gravel. They are swimming in the middle of the tank.

[SkarloeysMom]

But they arnt on the gravel. They are swimming in the middle of the tank.

I've only seen them swimming right after a water change/vacuuming. My bettas eat them up when they are free swimming.

[salman]

I have 3 discus in the tank, its a 44 gallon. I dont think they will eat the worms because they only eat when the food is dropped next to them. They are lazy lol

[tropfish]

they reproduce in the gravel if i'm not mistanken, so vacuuming up the gravel disrupts their reporduction so more don't come. And i agree that you shouldn't feed for a few days and they should die.

[RobbieG]

Most of the different worms will spend a good deal of time in the gravel - if you have some free swimming ones you are likely to have spaghetti in the gravel

[zackish]

Are they red? When I added some plants to my turtle tank I had several worms like the one you described.

[RobbieG]

There are probably a million different kinds of flatworms - white - brown - red - pink - probably other colors too.