Before I Add Fish...

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attibones

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So I am now done with a fishless cycle in a planted tank, and I'm doing a water change. I noticed I have a lot of planaria in the tank though. Am I still okay to add fish tonight? Should I do something about them first? I knocked a bunch out of my cholla wood and they seemed to be enjoying the remains of some unhappy plants (I'm upgrading this weak lighting in about two weeks). The only other creatures in the tank are some hearty pest snails who hitched a ride with my plants.

Thoughts?

I'm not adding the fish for a few hours. I need to make sure the temp is right and all that.
 
I'm not familiar with planaria unfortunately so can't comment on them being safe, but I don't think I'd be wanting to start off with snails. I wash and then soak my plants in snail treatment now. In previous setups I've had clown loach to deal with them. I like large "feature" snails, but find lots of the smaller ones unsightly, as they reproduce at an alarming rate.
My advice would be to keep on with the cycle just long enough to deal with them. My gut instinct tells me the planaria will quickly be used up and cleared naturally, tho a snail treatment may possibly impact on it. Some may say leave the snails, its only my opinion that you should treat them now without fish in or introduce a fish that will keep them in check.
Enjoy your new tank, its always an exciting time.
 
As I was unfamiliar with planaria I've just done a little reading up on them. Most described small white worms that thrive in conditions unfavourable for fish, the main cause being uneaten food. So, I could see a connection with ammonia during a fishless cycle. However, not all fish will eat them, apparently, and they can get into the gills causing irritation. Ok, I'm only reporting what I've read, but I don't think I'd be introducing new fish into a potentially unsafe environment when they've been stressed already simple by moving them into new conditions. I can't help thinking something is a miss in order for them to be there and I'd want rid of them first.
 
I've no experience of them either atti! Sorry!
 
I have had planieria in a snail tank i was doing a while back.
 
Unpleasant looking critters in a tank.
 
I dealt with the planeria by adding some panacur dog worming powder which has fenbendazole, thats whats I gather as the best med to kill planeria.
 
I had to dose my tank twice to get kill ALL the planeria and then cleaned the tank as this stuff turns the tank white basically.
 
All fine now and now am careful when feeding the snails as I think it was overfeeding that caused the planeria to crop up.
 
However, I have heard that some keepers just leave the worms as they apparently are mostly harmless and is looked at as food for the fish, but would not leave them if its just a shrimp or snail tank set up.
 
Hi again, did a bit more reading. Apparently planeria and detrius worms are commonly mixed up. Detritus worms are just as the name suggests. Ordinarily they reside in the substrate feeding on waste matter. Its only when excessive waste causes the population to increase rapidly, resulting in too little available oxygen in the substrate, that they move up into the water seeking more. These detritus worms are more or less harmless, just indicative of poor tank hygiene. Treating them, a the resulting poor water quality as they die off is more of a problem. So to true planaria. They are flat white worms and as said earlier can cause irritation of fishes gills. Either way I would want rid asap, moreover I would be concerned as to why they are there with no obvious food source?? Please check out my facts, as I'm only passing on what I have read.
 
It's a dirt tank which does provide a good home for the planaria. The snails are not the intended residents of the tank (I don't mind a few of them, but I'll probably pick out a majority of them as I find them). They must have come in on some plants, though I do rinse the plants well. They must have been very tiny because I only started to see them last week. This tank is for peacock gudgeons and blue-eye rainbowfish, both micro predators.

I haven't seen any in the substrate. They hang out on the glass, or they did until I wiped the glass with a paper towel while I drained the tank, and now I'm seeing far less, but these all swim. They look like microworms, but less micro. They have been feeding on my dying plants a fair bit too, as most of my plants require moderate light, but my light is really low right now. I had to pay for some car repairs instead of the light upgrade.

I've been finding a lot of mixed reports on planaria, too, so I'm still not sure what to do about them.

Ch4rlie said:
I have had planieria in a snail tank i was doing a while back.
 
Unpleasant looking critters in a tank.
 
I dealt with the planeria by adding some panacur dog worming powder which has fenbendazole, thats whats I gather as the best med to kill planeria.
 
I had to dose my tank twice to get kill ALL the planeria and then cleaned the tank as this stuff turns the tank white basically.
 
All fine now and now am careful when feeding the snails as I think it was overfeeding that caused the planeria to crop up.
 
However, I have heard that some keepers just leave the worms as they apparently are mostly harmless and is looked at as food for the fish, but would not leave them if its just a shrimp or snail tank set up.
When you say you had to clean the tank, did it ruin your substrate or was that all okay? What about your plants? Also, where did you find this stuff?
 
When i say i cleaned the tank, i took out most of the water, lots of gravel vac whilst syphoning water out, wiped plant leafs with clean cloth and de-chlored water and the glass off all this white powdery residue, was unsightly, much better and cleared up shortly afterwards thankfully.
 
I found out about planeria form various sites, but the main one that made me take action was from this -
 
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=5416
 
 
And here is where I started to find out about Fenbendazole as a treatment against planeria -
 
http://www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html
 
 
And obviously did more research but these two site are the mean starting points for me. And eventually found out that Panacur, which is a dog deworming tablet/powder that contains Fenbendazole and found some people had successes with that so was certainly worth doing, but no one mentioned about the mess Panacur powder leaves behind :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for those links. I read the second one, very useful. I'll have a look at a few of my stores to see what they've got. This tank is really difficult to clean because of my driftwood pieces, but I'm sure I can make it all work.
 
Of course some say fish will eat these planeria but thats not something i can comment on since i did not try that method :/
 

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