What should I use to rid my fish tank of parasite worms?

Answer 1

It depends somewhat on the type of worms you mean. If you have external worms (anchor worms) then a medication such as Flagyl or Anchors-A-Way ( both available in pet stores) will take care of the situation.

If they are internal worms it's a little more difficult to treat since commonly available medications such as those above are not well absorbed by the fish and rarely will be effective so the best course of action is to use medicated foods so that you can get the medication inside the fish faster and easier. When buying medicated fish food be sure to get the type specific for parasites, not the antibiotic food. A positive species identification of intestinal worms in a fish is totally impossible without a good reference book and a trained eye at a microscope, luckily positive identification is not required for treatment as the treatment is the same for all species of these nematodes.

Feel free to email me with any additional questions.

MM

Answer 2

If you're seeing small "worms" swimming near the bottom of your tank, these may actually be the larvae of a small terrestrial fly called a midge. They can be either white or red. These won't harm your fish, and your fish may actually eat them. Evenually any left will become adults and leave the tank.

If the worms are tan, grey or white and crawl along the glass like a snail, these ar planaria. They won't harm your fish either, but indicate there's too much organic material in the tank - you're either overfeeding your fish or need to do more siphoning of wastes from the gravel. Once their food supply is gone, they will be as well.

If the worm you're seeing is an actual parasite that's attached to the fish, there are a number of antiparasitic medications. If it's external, try Clout. If it's an internal parasite like camallanus, levamisol HCl is the best I've found to treat it, but you'll neeed to find this at a farm supply or veterinarian.

Answer 3

here is what my freind did with his tank but not sure you want to go with this route, depending on how many fish you have, grab an extra tank to quarintine the fish, your extra tank dont have to be the same size but just to house them while you get rid of the problem, once empty get rid of all the gravel you have, take your water filter out and clean it compleatly and throw away your carbon filter, replace with a new filter but dont change all the water you will need some of it for the benificial bacteria, grab some chemicals that will get rid of the parasites and there are some that might be safe with fish, keep the tank filter running for a while, half hour should be good, throw away the filter and add the new gravel, top of the rest of your tank with fresh water, add some water conditioner and return the fish back to the main tank

Answer 4

go to the pet store
they have drops to put in your tank that rid of like 99.99% of parasites

Answer 5

That depends on the worm. How have you determined you have them and what type of worm do you think you have? Feel free to e-mail me to discuss details.

Answer 6

well all three answers sound good, the first is one solution to get rid of, with me i have my Friend come over and he uses a diatom filter to polish and clean my tank, the other two sounds good too.
Good luck and hope you find your answer to the problem your having

Answer 7

Ask your local pet store