What the heck is this???

[Synirr]

Today I woke up and noticed that, all of a sudden, the water in my female betta community tank had become cloudy. I've never had cloudy water in any of my tanks before, so this is a little odd to say the least. The trumpet snails are crawling all over the sides of the tank during broad daylight too, which is a little out of the ordinary. So, when I got home from class today I did a nice big 40% water change and gravel vacuum. When I checked the botom of the bucket for baby snails like I always do (I feel bad about just letting the little things dry up,) I noticed these weird little worm thingies crawling about . I have never seen these things in my tank before! What the heck could they be?? They're pretty small, but opaque and easily seen with the naked eye.

 

[David]

What's the thing beside it? A snail?

 

[MrMashashin]

they could be tape worms. I've seen those things in a river not far from here. They get to be like 6 inches long and are the biggest problem becuase they are like leaches and suck anything to death.

 

[lucky62]

Maybe leaches , or nematodes [ sometimes called round worms ]

What color are they ? It's hard to tell from your pic

 

[Synirr]

What's the thing beside it? A snail?

Yeah, that's a snail.

My guess was some sort of nematode, but that still leaves a pretty wide range of things it could be... the more important question is how in the world did it get into my tank in the first place?!

 

[cometcattle]

Are they white? Could it be planaria?

 

[Synirr]

Are they white? Could it be planaria?

No, they're brown/black and all about the same size.

After doing a little research, I've found that it's not roundworm... Googling for more possibilities...

Edit: They look like the images I googled for planaria, but I thought planaria were white?

 

[Teelie]

They could be different colors I suppose, the cloudiness looks like a bacterial bloom to me though.