Guest Anonymous Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 Just discovered I have planaria in 3 aquariums, most likely introduced across systems by plants (including floating). These guys are tough! I need to remove them & any eggs from breeding tanks. Is anyone aware of a dip or something that will kill them. I have a large variety of plants, some very delicate (fern & crypt which I cannot move for more than a few hours as it really doesn't handle it) which I want to keep. Looking at heating all wood/filter media etc... to sterilize & burn out organic material. I need a means of disinfecting large filters (plastics & tubing), glass etc... Chlorine bleach is apparently ineffective against these guys for this. I need to be able to put plants through a wash that will quickly destroy the worms but not harm plants. Substrate will be totally replaced. No idea how to do this yet but... will passing a current through a bucket with plants in it kill the worms & not effect the plants? Meths... can it be used safely as a disinfectant? (for lack of sufficient isopropyl). This doesn't get me around the plants issue. I suspect that any bath of salt sufficiently strong will damage plants too much & would guess that these organizims if capeable of surviving chlorine may be effectively immune to this treatment. Has anyone ever managed to irradicate these things from a planted system? I will be stripping the affected tanks completely for the treatment. These organisims dont appear to be fond of lights however it is not an effective means of preventing thier transmission & cannot be relyed apon to drive them out of plants. They can & do use surface tension to get around. Ideally I need a technique which causes cellular disruption of the organisim at all stages of the life cycle which doesn't attack plant cells. Copper treatments cannot be used as these tanks are breeding tanks for a variety of tropical community fish. Any disinfecting system must be completely neutralizeable / removeable so as to leave no traces of itself. Found, another species of worm (not flatworm) similar in size to whiteworm length but much skinnier living in filter systems. Want to keep several species of snail (was planning on picking out as many as I can find of each species), but need to be sure they're not carrying the flatworm. The main problem with the worms is predation of eggs. I realize the recommended treatment is underfeeding & heavy vaccuming of substrate to control numbers & have heard that once you have these they're around to stay. I have 1 empty 80 liter tank free of them (new) & about 120 adult fish including bristlenose, corydoras, zebra danio, tetras, hatchetfish, rainbows, flying fox etc... Plant volume is about a fish case full (60 liters ish unplanted). Half filter media is plastic & unheatable. Filter units have unreachable cavities in pump heads which cannot be scrubbed so must be cleaned chemically. What is worm rid? Where do I get it & or what is its active ingredient & dose rate etc... (noticed it mentioned in another post). Have you got or had Planaria, did you find a solution? If no solution is known is anyone interested in helping me develop a cure? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 I wasn't logged in when I posted the worm post (thought I had it set to auto) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 It is my understanding these are a result of overfeeding. Cut back on the feeding and the worm numbers will also drop. Here is what my Baensch Atlas suggests... Fill a small gauze or fabric bag with meat and at night hang it near the bottom of the tank. The worms scent the meat and will gather in quantities. If the bag is removed before morning the worms come with it. They can be destroyed in boiling water. Planarians are also eaten by macropods. I wonder if by macropods it means paradise fish? Pardon my ignorance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 Macropods do you mean Paradise fish family? Can you give me a specific latin name? I have no idea how paradise fish would do in these tanks @ up to 28 C & are they any trouble? If I use them it'll only be till the worms are gone. I'm going to look into things like hibiclens, dettol etc... it might be ok for plants as a dip then wash under running water hopefully clean & doing ok with a trim to most. Waiting for a loaner microscope to arrive, chemical removal is certain conditionally, the fish cant carry the worm & the plants need to survive the treatment. There must be a system that'll result in 100% deinfestation of worms & only controled quarantined entrances to tanks (treated for bug enroute), hopefully guaranteed worm free, plenty of snails. I can breed new clean snail strains in beaker systems. How common are planaria in tropical tanks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 They are quite common but not usually noted as they are in small numbers and hide in the gravel, coming out at night. They are also harmless to fish but in plague proportions do eat fish eggs. Paradise fish - Macropodus opercularis. Temp 20 - 24C. Hardy but aggresive when spawning. Not seen very often these days either. They are bubble nesters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interfecus Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 The ads on this page are funny. Do any of you have tapeworms? Planaria are scavengers and shouldn't harm your fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 Thanks... I'd heard they shouldn't be a huge problem as don't affect fish (I'm assuming by that none of thier lifecycle is hosted by the fish or hopefully snails either). Sid (ex Otautau) had them I think I got them from wood & plant from him. He hated the things especially in breeding tanks. I'm still going for total irradication as these are breeding tanks & will be subject to overfeeding to some extent. I have at least 5 species spawning in these tanks on possibly a daily basis so the worms are getting plenty of eggs to feed on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 Interfecus, re: tapeworms... hopefully not already got enough worm troubles. Do you have tapeworms? I've got a couple of books here (that I'm yet to read the tapeworm sections for) that might give some answers. Do you need help with tapeworms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted October 26, 2004 Report Share Posted October 26, 2004 Inter said: The ads on this page are funny. Do any of you have tapeworms? You will find that the ads change... depending on the most active topic of the moment (in most cases) I suppose the bots search the site every so often and change the ads to suit the topic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 26, 2004 Report Share Posted October 26, 2004 mmm... missed the ads, got em filtered out (zone alarm pro). am finding some interesting stuff out in search of bugkill, I've got what I think are the 2 top fish disease books here at the moment. They're lab stuff mostly 800x microscope is a requirement (hopefully I will be able to borrow one up to 1000x later in the week). Looking into a computer based microscope system down the track for diagnosis etc... ie study of small stuff mainly to do with tanks. I've been noticing other small bugs lately have no idea what they are yet as they're well smaller than 1mm. Might be nice to try build a semi sterile system, no fish, no plant just bio filter started with "cycle" to see what else shows up in there. Plus I want to see what is alive in "Cycle" etc... knew someone who had a look with a microscope (very basic low powered) once & he didn't see anything. 1000x magnification might do the trick? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelj Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 I had a planted tank with no fish that showed signs of planaria, roundworm sp. and what looked like small fast moving copepod sp., approximately a month or so after initial setup. As well as partial water changes and filter maintenance every few days, adding a group of hungry neon tetras and a couple of Siamese algae eaters seems to have them under control to a point where I have difficulty in spotting them. I've seen the tetras eat the pests and I believe from a few accounts that SAE will also eat these worms (although I have not observed this yet). A healthy tank will always have critters you did not intend to have in there. A tank without them is TOO clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 I've never seen anything eat planaria although I suspect Corydoras may be helping keep them under control. They aren't a problem overly... now I suck em up at water change time... one way to remove the bulk each time you change water is to have shallow gravel & a piece of wood on it, move the wood & vacum under it as most of the planaria will be there. Syphon removal seems to be the most effective control I've found.... bamboo makes them go nuts. They can be destroyed but when it happened I was unsure of exactly what got them in the finish had been trialing formalin & temperature shock & starvation & suspect it could be possible paraformaldehyde formed & took them out but I dont know as I didn't repeat the process enough times & confirm any specific set of parameters. The strong baths of formalin weren't the most effective (at 100x the normal formalin dose). If you have planaria: Minimize gravel volume Have some wood you can vaccum under Keep your gravel very clean & move it around a bit when syphoning as this loosens planaria Dont feed heavily Dont assume theyre gone when you havent seen them for a while (they'll be there). Dont transfer anything from a contaminated tank to an uncontaminated (I use seperate nets even & syphons are very dangerous for transfering them). I did try leaving plant in an empty tank for months in an effort to starve them off but it didn't work. Only one guaranteed removal method exists I'm aware of & thats strong chemical sterilization (sodium metabisulphate does the trick). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BK Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Guppies will clean them up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Most of my tanks have guppies... as far as them cleaning up the planaria I haven't noticed them having any effect on the population. I suspect Corydoras & Angelfish possibly do have an effect but cant confirm this 100%. I've heard members of the Gourmis family do eat planaria most noteably Paradise fish. Thanks for the suggestion though, do you have planaria? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 I tried to get rid of some with copper sulphate at about 20 times the dose used to kill snails (was after them as well) and they came up out of the gravel then went back down again. I don't think it thinned them out at all. Hardy little blighters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aftaburn Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 I tried to get rid of some with copper sulphate at about 20 times the dose used to kill snails (was after them as well) and they came up out of the gravel then went back down again. I don't think it thinned them out at all. Hardy little blighters. Assuming you want nothing to survive... sodium metabisulphate disolves them pretty well (home brew sterilizer). I take it you've still got them albiet no snails now? Hardy... yeah and some. Potassium permangenate upsets them (they split like crazy with double (might've been stronger) dose). I ended up using sodium metabi... on top so dunno if it would've finished them off eventually but doubt they'd divide out of existance. Formalin doesn't seem to bother them much if at all even if way higher dose than anything else will cope with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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