Emergency!! thousands of spiral worms!

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jamesucla

jamesucla

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Jul 19, 2008
61
65
51
LA
Hello everybody. This morning, after feedin fish I woke up to find thousands of hair thin spirally worms, ranging in size from .125 to .5 inches swimming around my aquarium. They kind of look like sperm without the head, swimming around like cork screws.

This is really freaking me out; I have had my Dempsey and Jag for several years now, and I don't want them eaten alive from the inside by parasitic worms of any sort.

Not sure where they came from... I do feed my fish live crickets, and feeders from a reputable fish store on occasion. They could also have hitched a ride on some plants I bought from a pond store (water hiasinth). I have to go to work now so I don't have time for a lot of research.

I do 25% water changes every week, and I have a bad-ass DIY sump filter. Very little substrate in tank.


It is shamefull, but somehow my tank, (hopefully not my fish) has become a breeding ground for thousands of white wriggling hair-thin spiral worms.

PLEASE HELP ME FIND OUT WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW TO KILL THEM AND SAVE MY FISH!!
 
Sure they arent mosquito larvae, they call them wigglers google it and check em out to make sure.
 
They are def. not mosquito larvea. Mosquito larva are not white and hair thin. Nor do they swim in a spral motion. In fact, they don't match any of the descriptions I mentioned. Not to mention that I don't have mosquitos flying around my apartment breeding in my fish tank.
 
I googled Planaria; those are short and fat and stick to the sides of the fish tank.. Mine are "spiralling around" all over the place. Also, I read that Planaria are caused by uneaten food in the tank, and I have been "under feeding" my fish lately and I have little substrate for those to hide in so I dont think its that. I will try to take some pictures on my lunch break. In the mean time, immagine thouands of "corkscrews" swimming around my tank.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Well I had planaria in my tank and they weren't fat at all. More like white hairs sticking to the glass and swimming around that literally showed up overnight. But as I google I can't find any accurate pictures other than zooms in with a microscope.

This is how I identified it for myself: http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/planaria_white_worms/

But if you say that isn't it.. then sorry I couldn't help!
 
I think pics of the worms would help better than the fish, and it doesn't sound like parasites but rather harmless worms that arise from low water quality or uneaten food particles. They might be coming from your filter, people often find barrels of them in there. It is disgusting but not harmful to the fish - just keep up water changes and salt and they should disappear.
 
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