Hundreds Of Tiny White "worms"

[BigIan]

2 weeks ago i put a filter and some plants from my friends tank into mine to accelerate the cycle and shortly aftereards i noticed loads of tiny white curly things floating in the water, ibut there was also a huge amount of cabomba and horns wort floating around in the tank so i assumed it was something to do with that, however i`ve just inspected my tank now there are still loads of these little white things floating in the water and the ones down near the substrate are "crawling"

what are these?


any help please? they are the thickness of a piece of cotton.
very very thin

 

[WILDER]

http/www.aquariumfish.net/information/ha..._trouble_p2.htm

 

[BigC]

Yes you have an infestation of planaria worms. Do as above post says, water changes, gravel washing and above all cut back drasticlly on your feeding regime.
Regards
BigC

 

[BigIan]

that sounds like it.. however i havent even put any food in the tank. i don`t acctualy own any fish food as the tank is cycleing,all thats in there is some slate some mopani and several plants. and lots of alge untill i turned the lighting down recently. so what could they be feediing on?

I had those during my fishless cycle too. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with over feeding fish food since there was no fish to feed

But they're normal, there's no such aquarium without a single planaria. Their numbers will go down as soon as you add fish, as they like hunting them down. Just don't overfeed

thank you sir.

so are they harmless to the fish? nothing i need to wory about?

 

[BigIan]

They feed off rotting vegetation, I had plants during cycling too Even if you take off all the visible dead leaves and what not, there's still enough for them to thrive on. They're harmless, don't worry. Don't feed your fish for a couple of days when you introduce them. Your fish significantly reduce their numbers that way.

And oh, that's Ma'am to you!

Yes Ma`am, Tank you Ma`am,

I`m nervous of adding fish, I know exacty what fish i want, but i`m so scared of adding them incase i`ve got it all wrong. my cycle is over i`m just waiting for some time off work before i add them so i can monitor the tank very carefully