Planaria? Will borneo suckers eat them?

[jn]

I've got planaria in my tank with my 3 borneo suckers. I will do my best to get rid of them but in the meantime I was wondering if the suckers would be eating them? (there are no other fish in the tank)

I know they come from overfeeding etc. My gravel is the culprit. The tablets I'm feeding (LBL tabis) eventually break apart and bits get in between the gravel where the suckers can't get to it. I'm doing weekly gravel vacs and now feeding significantly less so it may pass soon with any luck. (One of the fish was terribly skinny... so much so I thought he wouldn't make it but he's filled in alot in about a month so I'm more comfortable restricting the food now)

I may remove the gravel completely and just keep large rocks which will make it easier for any leftovers to get eaten or sucked up but if the planaria will be getting eaten I could conceivabley feed almost nothing and let the suckers munch away on the unwanted little wrigglers!

Or maybe I should add some different fish who can pick at the food bits in the gravel? I have leopard fish and WCMM in another tank.. the leopard fish might be better candidates, the wcmm never pick at the gravel at all, the leopards do a litte.. they would do it for food I think.. would fry be safe with the suckers in there?

[Naz_Nomad]

Aren't Planaria non-parasitic? So fry would be safe with them, they scavenge as far as I remember, feeding off organic detritus.

If they get onto the fish, they can cause infection of the gills and mucus membrane if untreated.

They also regenerate into a full worm from a handful of cells, so anything eating them had better be pretty sure it's getting the whole creature in its mouth and better not be biting down!

Planaria will eat fish eggs if they find them, so best to rid your breeding tank of them if you find them there. Anything not protected and lying around is fair game.

They are difficult to get rid of and normally transfer on plants. I don't think just getting rid of your gravel will rid you of the planaria unless you're very lucky. Emptying the tank and sterilising it is the only way to be sure, replacing the plants and gravel and also sterilising your rock. I'm not even 100% sure that there are chemicals readily available to treat them with.

Good luck with your problem, let us know what works well and how you get on.

[jn]

Thanks for that.. with getting rid of the gravel I wasn't so much expecting that to rid me of the problem but that it would help reduce any build up of detritus cause by the feeding habits of my fish basically to help keep the tank cleaner and starve them of their typical food source (hopefully help control them)

I could just gravel vac any crumbs out of the gravel every day but I havn't got the time or the inclination With a barer bottomed tank the fish would be able to eat up all the crumbs or the crumbs would hopefully get swept up the filter. (or they would be easy for me to see so I could do a quick pass with the vac or a turkey baster! :lol: )

I have some bigger rocks in there that the borneos spend all their time on. They're more often on the rocks than on the glass. The only reason I have any gravel in there is to anchor my plants.. and its also helping me wedge some thin flat rocks up at an angle so the fish can hide behind them but I can still see them if I need to

I've bought some tiny terra cotta pots that I'm planning on putting my plants in (still with gravel). I can lift those out and clean them easily. Then I thought if I replaced the rest of the gravel with some more large flat rocks I could just vacuum under and around them when I clean. I can probably add some drift wood too and grow some java fern and tie on some java moss too. (again, mainly trying to reduce the number of spots that uneaten food can sink into!)

I read somewhere that planaria can eat immobile (newly hatched) fry. I just wondered if anyone had had any experience. I guess livebearer fry would be big enough to not be targeted.

So you don't know if they are suitable as a food source? (not that I would encourage them! Still want them gone but wondered if not feeding my fish would be ok if they'd eat the bugs instead!)

[Loopy]

planaria taste really yucky.

well at least that is what my baby bettas told me. Little 1cm long baby bettas, silly little things were swimming round nibbling at anything and everything including the planaria in their tank. I was in total hysterics watching the wee brats picking away at a worm and then jerking and shaking at the taste. They were persistant though and kept trying till the worm dislodged from the side of the tank and then they ate it and really threw a spaz! There was no mistaking their body language those worms must taste BAD! I don't think fish would eat them generally. Bettas are just strange.

On the planaria eating fry thing, I have lost an entire spawn of free swimming severum fry to planaria over night and not a small spawn either! I discovered the only fry that are safe from planaria are ones that stay active and do not rest over night. Cichlid fry tend to curl up for the night on the floor of the tank unlike say danio fry which constantly swim near the surface. It is when baby fish are on the bottom or sides of the tank that planaria will get them.

[jn]

Thats the most entertaining post I've read in a long time Loopy I can almost see it, it must have been an absolute riot to watch!!

Kribs are egg layers right? The fry would have been tiny I guess...livebearer fry should be ok then...

I haven't taken out my gravel yet but I've done a couple of big gravel vacs and changed the filter wool and reduced the feeding by a lot (about a week ago) I think I'm seeing less of them already.