White Worms?

Question

I have little white worms in my 10g. tank 2 of my three Orange Leleupi Cichlids have for them I think. Does ne one know what they are and had to treat fo them. the pH is7.9 nitrates 0 nitrites 0 temp is 80, please help.

Answer 1

Are these actually on your fish? See this link and look under "anchor worm" to see if this matches what you're seeing and what to do: http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/stressdisease.shtml

Are they on the glass? see "planaria" in the above site.

Are the swimming in the water in "s" shapes? These are midge (fly) larvae. You have to net these out by hand. The adult flies lay their eggs on the filter material and surface of your water, so you should try to make these areas inaccessable to the flies (about 1/4") with covers/netting.

Answer 2

Hello. I'm pretty sure these are planaria, which are flatworms and members of the Platyhelminthes phylum.

Planaria are often found in aquariums with uneaten food. The planaria won't hurt the fish, but they are a symptom of too much gravel containing too much uneaten food, and that is not good for fish.

Uneaten food causes all sorts of problems, and uneaten food in your aquarium may have been part of the reason that your mollies died.

Here are my recommendations.

1. Clean Your Aquarium. Cleaning Your Warm Water Aquarium. In particular you should clean your gravel with a Gravel Washer. Click here for more about a Gravel Washer.

2. Add Aquarium Salt to your aquarium up to a maximum of 1 Tablespoon for each 5 gallons of water in your aquarium. 29-gallon aquarium, which probably has about 25 gallons of water. If so, you should add a maximum of 5 Tablespoons of Aquarium Salt. If, for example, you already have 2 Tablespoons in your water, add 3 more Tablespoons.

3. Don't Over React. Clean your gravel every day with the Gravel Washer. When you've removed 20% of the water, stop and top your aquarium back up with tap water from the faucet. In your case 20% of 25 gallons = 0.20 x 25 = 5 gallons. Repeat this procedure every day.

4. It may take several days of gravel washing to get your gravel really clean. When it is finally really clean, begin removing gravel, until it is at most 1/4" deep. If you have an under gravel filter, because you'll need some more advice

5. Add Quick Cure. Each day after you clean your aquarium and wash the gravel, treat the water with 1 drop of Quick Cure for each gallon of water in your aquarium. In your case this will be 25 drops once a day each day. You can also replace the Aquarium Salt that you removed, which would be 1 Tablespoon in the 5 gallons of water.

6. Small fish such as baby mollies might eat the planaria. I would try adding a few small fish to see if they will eat the planaria.

Repeat steps 1 to 6 listed above, until you don't see the worms any more. This procedure will take several days and require quite a bit of your elbow-grease, but it's the safest method for the rest of the fish in your aquarium.

I hope my comments help you. Good luck with your fish.

Answer 3

Take your fish out imedietly untill you know more about them. I dont know what it is but very possibly it is some kind of parasite.