found tiny white worms sticking to the glass of aquarium.?

Question

I have an aquarium with baby mollies, guppies and mickey mouse fish. today suddenly i noticed that there are millions of white small worms sticking to the glass. I figured that i must have been overfeeding in my enthusiasm of feeding them several times a day. I have 2 questions

1. how much is enough for a month old babies - about 50 of them

2. how do i get rid of the worms? one suggestion i read was to stop feeding altogether for about 4-5 days but is that a good idea with babies?

i have also recently discovered snails in the aquarium. could have come with the live plant... so what do i do??

Answer 1

These are called Planaria and are in no way harmful to your tank or fish, they are just an eye-sore. Usually brought on by overfeeding which is understandable in a fry tank. I would certainly perform some extra maintenance in the way of water changes and perhaps vacuming the gravel if it's been a while. Cut feedings but seeing they are young you may not want to stop feeding for several days, I think if you cut back to small doses once or twice a day it should be fine. As they grow you can gradually cut back to one feeding every other day. Adding plants can also help, they provide some food for the fry and also help consume eccess nutrients. For a tank that is not setup for plants, floating plants such as frogbit and hornwart do very well.

Here's one of many links found on Google in regards to Planaria:
http://www.aquariumfish.net/information/having_trouble_p2.htm

Hope that helps

Answer 2

A agree with the last answer, probably planeria. If not then the larvae of a small fly or gnat. Either way they are not harmful to the fish and might even make a nice meal for them. With fry in the tank I wouldn't try to treat them, just remove as many as possible by scraping or with a cloth.

As to how much to feed the babies... that's really the same old answer, as much as they can eat in 3-5 minutes. I do agree with the idea of feeding babies more often than adults and usually feed mine 4-5 times a day. You do of course have to take extra care to remove uneaten food and to change water far more often than with adults. I change water in liverbearer fry tanks every 3-4 days and thats a 50% water change.

I wouldn't stop feeding to kill the worms. Not with babies in the tank. Making sure you get out any uneaten food will certainly help a lot as will removing as many worms as possible, but basically I wouldn't worry about them until it's time to move the babies out of the tank.

MM

Answer 3

DO you have any snails in the aquarium?? They could be snail eggs....They look like little white dots(kinda like worms) and they tend to be spred out all over the glass....Other than that you should feed the fish once a day....And I have never heard of worms in an aquarium.

Answer 4

what iceni said, but keep up the monthly water changes too, especially in a tiny tank like that, maybe even more than monthly if you are a chronic over feeder!!

Answer 5

You know that this f in lady doesn't know **** and didn't me that dewormer stuff in time and our cat died on my lap because of that type of worms tha were in her food so whatever animal you have you definitely need to bring it to the vets and if you go to the forestdale one tell them you don't want lori and you want david because lori doesn't know ****