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Planaria

keano

Member
Joined
19 Jan 2018
Messages
77
Location
Lancashire, UK
So i noticed these white planaria in my main tank two days ago.

I don't think I over feed the tank only feed it once a week. Ive stopped hoovering the monte carlo carpet as frequently though and just water change with water from the column.

Could this be the reason for the outbreak?

I've just thrownm some of the 'no planaria' in and ive used a pop bottle with pin prick holes in with some bait overnight. This morning bottle had about 5 of them in.

They make my skin crawl.

Also where do they come from? How do they get into the tank as ive not added anythign to my main tank for months.. ?
 
I've not used no planaria as I have a group of cories that either ate them or ate their food source, but I've seen you need repeat doses to get them all.

As for where they came from, they can hang around in the background without being noticed for quite a while. So I'd guess conditions have become more favourable lately and you've seen the population increase. Ime you can still get them in the most well maintained, clean systems, so don't take it personally.
 
I had a nasty outbreak of planaria about 6 months ago. It's really disheartening when you're sure you aren't overfeeding and even cutting back more and trying to siphon out as many as you can seemingly makes no difference! They're horrible things.

I first tried ESHA NDX, which was useless even after repeat treatments. But no planaria did the trick. I can't remember if I just did the one treatment, or had to use it a couple of times, but the planaria (and by this point there were a lot) were wiped out. Touch wood, there has been no sign of them since.

Good luck!
 
Will shrimp eat planarium? If so, just don’t feed the shrimp for a while.
 
Some fish eat planaria, they say some Gourami do. I've seen some barbs from the Oreichtys family snack on planaria. But the list of planaria eating fish is very small. It seems they releas a bad tasting toxin when threatened, that's what makes them hard to swallow for most fish and get spit out again. Still planaria doesn't like light, the majority lives in the substrate, so even anything eating them above the substrate never gets them all. Seeing a few in the light means you already have an uncountable number in the substrate.. They can come with new plants and come with feeding froozen foods like bloodworm etc. This food always can contain planaria eggs that survive freezing conditions.

They are meet eaters, maybe even canibalistic and eat their own dead as well. But eat anything that contains proteine. If you don't see them in the light they don't do harm, they do cleanup.. If you see them on the glass can be an unsightly look. But as said, than you have a huge number in the substrate. Than be carefull with using chemicals or what so ever to kill them.. A treat will leave you with a ton of dead worms in the substrate, fauling and rotting away. This can cause ammonia issues leaching from the substrate and maybe some bacterial issues, bacteria living of rotting meet is nasty stuff. Than after a succesfull planaria genocide it's advisable to do a lot of extra water changes for quite some time. Using a vacuum bell syphon to give the substrate a good clean will definitively help.

I failed doing this after my first Shrimp safe No Planaria experience.. All planaria dead, but 3 weeks later all 15 Amono shrimps dead too. They all died with poissoning symptoms. Not from the No Planaria, most likely the toxins leaching from all the dead stuff in the substrate..

Lesson learned.. :thumbup: And an expensive one over € 40 shrimps down the drain..
 
I'm hoping i caught them early.

I only saw them when id turn the light on and catch them on the glass when it was dark. I've just done second days dose of no planaria and ive had my water bottle trap catch a few. Ill treat again today which will be the third of three treatments then ill give the substrate a good hoover.
 
Be carefull with No Planaria and snails.. Not all take it very well, yet not fully documented what snails takes it and what not... Personal experience, Pond snail and Ramshorn are not affected. But Apple snail, Nerite and MTS go completely lethargic and finaly die probaly form starvation, no idea if its a painfull death.
 
Be carefull with No Planaria and snails.. Not all take it very well, yet not fully documented what snails takes it and what not... Personal experience, Pond snail and Ramshorn are not affected. But Apple snail, Nerite and MTS go completely lethargic and finaly die probaly form starvation, no idea if its a painfull death.

I’ve got trumpet snails in there and they’re fine...at the moment.

Was it a typo when you said “No Planaria and snails”?

I’ll be rescaping this tank, so it’s not a concern, just don’t want to make the same mistake again n the larger tank.
 
I had a 50 gallon aquarium for many years and never had anything like that. Move on several house moves later and I set up a 35 Litre Nano and got planaria in it. Everything I tried failed so I had to strip the tank down in the end. Horrible looking things. There’s an article in the spring PFK about them, they can attack and eat Shrimps apparently.
 
they can attack and eat Shrimps apparently.

I'm not 100% sure but i think i can second this.. Lately i had a planaria infestation in a tank running for 4 years. First i noticed a decline in the cherry shrimp population goimg from maybe a 100 to a 2 dozen.. Later i noticed quite some Planaria, saw them crawling all over the place even at day time. And that's a sign it is definitively an infestation. Used No-Planaria and haven't seen any planaria anymore for months now and shrimp population is rising again.
 
I could be wrong but I was under the impression that praziquantel as in Fluke Solve will kill the planaria as well, as they're a form of flat worm...Fluke solve is safe for all other critters like shrimp and snails and will de-worm the fish's as a bonus.

I've tried, it doesn't. Tho must say not the recomended dosage for ordinary flukes.. Also tried a much higher dosage with planaria in a seperate container. That seemed to work. But it exceeded the normal dosage rather a lot..

I'm not willing to experiment with such high dosage against planaria with other life stock..

Can't find any data on the highest and safest prazi dosage possible..
 
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