HELP! Planaria - Flat worms

[Loopy]

I have a bit of a problem with these little flat worms. They have devoured practically a whole spawn of day old angel fry. :evil:

Yes, i am sure it was them. A clean tank, nothing in it but a seasoned sponge filter and about 30-40 day old free swimming angel fry. I came down the next morning to find 8 fry. No bodies, no explaination. Stripped the tank. Put the remaining fry in another tank. Took the heater and filter out and found dozens of the little flat worms tucked in all the dark areas of the filter and heater, so i assume they were transfered with the equipment. And thus i probably have planaria in other tanks too. :evil:

I have read the planaria will eat it if they can catch it and i can understand that they could catch young angels at night because they huddle in a corner in a pile to sleep.

So now i am peeved :evil:

I am not sure where they came from and not sure how to get rid of them.

I have read that they can regenerate a new critter from a 1/125 (or something) of a body part. I would rather not strip the tank down but if there is no other way then i guess so be it.

Has anyone else had to deal with these nasties? What did you do?

[Ira]

Best way to get rid of them is to stop overfeeding and keep the tank clean. In your case, I'd probably go a bit more drastic and sterilize and cycle the tank they're in again.

They're not going to hurt anything older than extremely young fry. I'd say they're only vulnerable for the first few days, maybe a week.

[Damiana]

I found one in my tank once. Cleaned the heck out of it and I've not seen any since.

Totally aside, but in my high school biology class we did an experiment with them. (Something I wouldn't do now, as I'm considerably more conscientious these days..) Basically what you said is true. You can chop a planaria into tiny bits and it'll make new ones from the bits. My lab partner and I sliced our worm's head in half so that it had two heads. (I feel awful about it now. ) But they are really, really resilient creatures, and they're pretty amazing. There are some other experiments that psychologists have done with them. They've conditioned them to associate light with an electric shock, then chopped them in half. The *tail* half automatically knows to avoid the light to avoid the electric shock! What the heck?? Stuff like this raises huge questions about the nature of memory and the mind, all from a lowly worm....

Anyhoo, good luck with the battle at hand.

[alanmin4304]

I found angel fry do best in a bare tank or they lose the excess food in the gravel and that will encourage planaria. You can clean a bare tank easily with salt

[Loopy]

cheers for the tips!

I think i have it sorted now. Another pair of angels laid yesterday so i am gonna be extra careful with them this time.

[magenta]

I didnt know they were a problem - I've found them in the garden lots of times and dropped them in the tank - the Clown loaches love them

[Loopy]

I would imagine they wouldn't normally be a problem in a tank with bigger fish like Ira said but this was one of my fry tanks with fresh new babies in it.

I have also heard that some of the planaria don't taste very nice. (i don't know how anyone would know that and i am not going to eat them to find out :lol: )