Planaria

[xautomaticflowersx]

I hope this is in the right section of the forum!
Earlier this evening I noticed that on the glass of my tank there are loads of tiny little white worms (which I believe are planaria) congregated around a patch of algae that I missed during cleaning. They are about 2mm long and are quite fast moving. Here's a not-so-great picture that I managed to get...

I think I know why they are there. The fish that was living in the tank died just before Christmas and whilst I've been waiting to get more fish I have been putting the odd tiny pinch of flake food in the tank to help sustain the bacterial colonies. I gather that planaria usually thrive where there is excess food in the tank, so I guess that's why they are there. I'm not in a state of panic or anything, since they are pretty harmless to fish. However, they are unsightly and I'd like to get rid of them (plus they are a symptom of conditions that are bad for fish).
My questions are these:

1. I will perform a water change and siphon up any detritus from the substrate before adding the new fish. I will also rinse out the filter sponge in tank water. Will this be enough to get rid of them?
2. I also plan to house some amano shrimp in this tank... will they make a snack of the planaria if there are any remaining once I'm rid of the excess food?

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Not sure about the shrimp, but fish will eat planaria if you cut off the excess nutrients source that they live off as far as i know .

 

[Teelie]

I think Amano are purely algae eaters only and won't touch the planaria. I've never had planaria so I don't know how to get rid of them but I wouldn't mind having them occasionally. Live food, however small I think would benefit my fish. They're harmless and probably will go away once the tank is inhabited again even if they don't all get sucked up by the siphon.

 

[xautomaticflowersx]

Thanks a lot for your swift responses! The fish I plan to put in there are black and red phantom tetra, so they are possibly small enough to notice the planaria and see them as a snack . I wasn't sure about amano shrimp eating them either, since their diet is primarily herbivorous. However, I've heard of various freshwater shrimp eating tiny grindalworms and sinking catfish pellets so I was just curious to see if anyone knew if they'd eat planaria. Oh well... I'm sure they'll scarper once I have some fish n shrimp in there and the excess flake food is no longer available for them to munch on .