# Fish eating Planaria



## zozo

This is actualy a topic of which not much is writen about.. Seems like those darn wurms are not realy on anybodies menu.. But i kinda experience different..

Now i got 3 tanks and 2 with lifestock, both i feed regularly life or froozen foods.. One tank only tetras, oto's and cory's, they definitively do not eat those buggers. Everytime i throw in some meat food, dozens of planaria surface and dine together with the fish on whatever i present, bloodworms do the best, also for catching planaria, a few bloodwurms in the trap only takes minutes. This tank is littered with planaria and i had to drasticaly cut back on the meat feeding to get it a bit under control.

The other tank i started out with 2 puffers, a school of Oreichthys cosuatis and a school of Hara Jerdoni. Now the puffers health needs life and froozen food, they eat nothing else. So in this tank i can not realy cut back on life and froozen foods and feed it few times a week. But to my surprice even after over 3 moths i still did not see 1 planaria in this tank. I recently cleaned the sump a bit and did find planaria in the sump but not in the tank.

The Oreichthys cosuatis constantly digs the substrate it never doesn't come to the surface and even doesn't eat from the surface.. The Hara Jerdony also only digs the substrate and sometimes is on the plants.. I also do see the puffers scavenge the substrate and pick up dead or life bloodworms after feeding time and also see them search the substrate in regular intervals outside feeding time.

I yet wasn't able to determine which one it is, but one of these 3 must have Planaria on the menu.. I see no other reason why i never see any planaria in this tank not on the glass nor in the substrate just nowhere else but in the sump. I even placed planaria over from the other tank, still i do not see them..

What are your experiences?  Any other fish on the list possibly having these buggers on the menu?

In my case i suspect the Oreichthys because this is the hungriest fish in my tank the school is constantly fighting over food.. But yet can't be conclusive..


----------



## Aqua360

Planaria occurs in tanks with excess food reaching the substrate, not being gravel vacced. More water changes, more gravel vac'ing needed


----------



## rebel

Wish I knew about planaria eating fish. I don't think they can see em...it's like they are 2D.

No planaria works a treat though.


----------



## zozo

rebel said:


> No planaria works a treat though.


Not in my experience, it kills all the snails as well that twice the damage if you have a lot of them as well. It works and kills indeed planaria and snails. Tho they say it doesn't kill most snails and i had the most common snail on the world and they all died even the apple snail perished. Anyway, all the dead snails and planaria in the tank can have rather negative effect on shrimps, i had a few to many amano's dying after the no planaria treat. Be carefull with that stuff..


----------



## rebel

yes, of course the planaria/snail load can be a problem if ammonia collects etc. I wish it killed small ramshorns.... I've never been able to get rid of the little fellas.


----------



## zozo

I had over a hundred ramshorn babies in the tank before i introduced 2 dwarf puffers.. I was astonished it took those 2 only a few weeks to eradicate them all.. Now i'm breeding snails in the planted only tank.. If i put on in the puffer tank, no matter how small they find it within a few hours.. I had to buy me a bunch of ramshorn lately to keep up with the demand..


----------



## Cento

Celestial pearl danios. That's the key. Stop feeding and within a week, you will be able to see them hunt down the little swimming white worms and planaria. 

Of course that whole experience taught me the benefits of feeding once a week. You're water will be healthier and so will your livestock.


----------



## zozo

Because i have those little puffers with a big character in the tank and reading all horor stories about them i rather keep them well fed. Not that i overfeed but try to attend specialy to the pufers belly filled, so they do not get the idea of hunting others because they are hungry..  At least every other day i feed them a few live bloodworms if i have or other frooozen bloodwurm.. But it's not easy with those sharks around..

As you can see, it takes a few attemps before i get to the puffers.. 


Planaria eggs usualy come 90% with froozen foods, but in this thank there is none to be seen, never.. In the other tank always see a few if i throw in some bloodwurm. They get active the moment they smell blood..


----------



## Tim Harrison

Hi Marcel I had something similar I posted my experience here http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/which-small-fish.21908/#post-400631 I think the little barbs I kept took the population of planaria out but I also think that as the tank matured conditions became less favourable for the worms.
I also think Celestial pearl danios will eat them.


----------



## zozo

Thanks Tim, nice read..  Tho thought i did an extensive UKAPS search but didn't come acros this topic.. So my suspision is kinda correct with the barbs  Oreichthys is one of that cyprinide family.. They do a pretty good job must say..  The tank in which i cut back on the meat food has still obviously more planaria than the tank i regularly feed meats.


----------



## roundasapound

I bet you guppies will eat them.  Nothing escapes those greedy little sharks..


----------



## Aqua360

dwarf puffers are awesome, i'm setting up a tank for them again shortly


----------



## castle

Another vote on CPD's, had loads of Planaria last year, living in filter (which would be turned on 12 hours in a day) when filter was turned on CPDs would be at the filter mouth waiting for them to be pushed out. 

Mind you saying that, my CPDs are voracious, seen them eat snail eggs and their own


----------



## Lindy

Lovely video zozo. Unfortunately it demonstrates why it is better to keep these puffers without fast moving, greedy fish!


----------



## zozo

ldcgroomer said:


> Lovely video zozo. Unfortunately it demonstrates why it is better to keep these puffers without fast moving, greedy fish!



Partialy you are correct, those high fin barbs are very fast moving, very greedy and also very curious, cocky and hierarchical.. They provide constant commotion in the tank.
The information to be found on these fish on the net is rather scarse and what is to be found is rather incomplete. Databases describe them as peacefull community fish, in a way they are, never would infilct physical damage but psychological they can drive a tank totaly crazy and create havoc with their character, which is not realy described anywhere and they are far from peacefull. This fish is definitely not an overall peacefull community fish and someone should realy know how to correctly combine characters into community. Rather difficult if this character isn't fully or even wrongly described .. And that's what i experienced first hand now with having a pair of puffers with 8 of these together in the same (actualy to small) tank. 110 liters doesn't provide enough room for a combination like this, maybe 200 liters will only if setup correctly and carefully

Because the high fins are so active they established them self in the right hand open area of the tank, which is kinda their claimed territory. Master puffy took the left hand corner as territory where a single high fin only occasinaly explores and sub puffy was constantly chased back into high fin territory. He had no place to go, if not chassed around by master puffy he was surrounded by thise constantly cocky and nurvious high fins. He got frustratted and started to get physical on the barbs and bitting fins, he was trying to claim peace he couldn't find anywhere in this tank.

So sub puffy got his own little heavily planted tank and seems to be happy now in his own peacefull territory. And master puffy also happy and has all of the big tank as his.
He is peacufull minds his own bussines and not realy minding the barbs..

When it comes to feeding time, master puffy learned quick and he knows me by now and understands my strategy. When i come with the bloodworms he already goes into possition near the surface where the barbs never come and there he can eat in peace, i feed the barbs rh side and puffy lh side of the tank now. The video was from the early beginning, where we still needed to get to know eachother..


----------



## sciencefiction

roundasapound said:


> I bet you guppies will eat them.  Nothing escapes those greedy little sharks..



No, they don't....If they try it by accident they spit it out. I had guppies and planaria at the same time some years ago 

Rarely anything eats planaria. Planaria is a carnivorous pest that get introduced into a tank. It doesn't appear because of overfeeding.  I've read it doesn't taste good to fish...I am not sure what eats planaria but planaria  is quite the pest large ones can kill shrimp. They look cute though.
I think that most confuse planaria with the white detritus worm that tends to swim in the water column. The latter is readily accepted by any fish and is harmless.


----------



## roundasapound

Ugh.. Proper rank!! 
If the guppies don't want it you are fooked!! Looooool....

Do you wear gloves when putting hands in the tank now when it's infested with planaria/detritus worm, etc? Is there harm to humans through eggs, bites, etc if there's skin contact, ingestion or they get near eyes?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------

