# Thousands of Tiny White Worms in Water and On Side Of Tank



## Miss Vicky (Jul 6, 2012)

Yesterday morning I cleaned out my 2.5 gallon betta tank, which has only been set up for a week or so, added a new plant, placed a single root tab in the substrate and refilled with treated tap water. Last night I noticed the water seemed kind of hazy and now this morning there are thousands of tiny white worms on the side of the tank and free floating in the water (I can't get any photos because I've totally drained the tank). They're only a few mm long, do not appear to be hairy and do not have legs. My betta did not seem at all bothered by them or interested in them. 

My first thought was that they were nematodes (perhaps came in on the new plant or simply had a population explosion due to the extra nutrients from the root tab, but from what i've read about them nematodes are usually yellow or pinkish, not white. 

Should I be concerned about this?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Sounds like planeria. Harmless to fish, but main cause is over feeding.


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## Miss Vicky (Jul 6, 2012)

These didn't look like any of the planaria I've seen online, which were more of a brownish color and had arrow shaped heads. These looked like little bits of paper fiber or something. 

My betta gets only two pellets of food a day, which he gobbles up quickly, so there shouldn't be any food polluting the tank.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

hmmmm, sounds like what I had gotten before. Take the betta out and clean them out


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## Miss Vicky (Jul 6, 2012)

Well I drained the tank and refilled it. Still saw quite a few of whatever they are, so I drained it again. 

So weird. I cleaned out my other betta's tank yesterday too and am not having this problem in that tank. The only significant difference between the two tanks is that the one with the problem has live plants and the other has only artificial plants.


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## Knotyoureality (Sep 4, 2012)

I've had planaria outbreaks in probably 80% of my planted tanks/vases (not surprising as I switch media/plants/livestock from my established tanks to the new ones) and pretty much 80% of the time they went away on their own. 

In heavily stocked tanks restricting feeding and upping my wc and gravel vacs helped keep them in check, but they still basically just went away on their own. My most recent vase--a 3g snail farm--was crawling with them (like 10 per inch on the walls!) about 10 days after set up and I decided to try doing nothing to try and treat them. Kept up my feeding, did only regular wc. Result? A week later, they're gone. Not a one in sight. 

As to the appearance, there's hundreds (probably thousands) of varieties of planaria of all sizes and colors. The ones I get typically look like fine white filaments that crawl up on the glass and wave in the current. Too small to even really see the shape of the head.


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## Miss Vicky (Jul 6, 2012)

Knotyoureality said:


> I've had planaria outbreaks in probably 80% of my planted tanks/vases (not surprising as I switch media/plants/livestock from my established tanks to the new ones) and pretty much 80% of the time they went away on their own.


That's probably what's going on then. The new plant was one of those they sell in tubes at Petco, so it just had some of that gel stuff and not water. So it probably wasn't that after all. Just a coincidence. The other plants on the other hand were all transfers from other tanks. The petite anubias and hornwort were from my neon tank and the aponogenten had been in my shrimp tank. I've never seen planaria in any of my other tanks but they've all been running for several months instead of the week or so that this one's been up.


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