Should I be worried?

Question

There are these little white wormy things that I noticed in the gravel today. I know there are the kinds of white wormy things that float around in your tank when you have to much nutrients/food in your tank, but these looked slightly fatter than the floating ones, and they were in the gravel. Do you think that they are parasites?

Answer 1

If white, wide, and flat, and they move like a snail by crawling over surfaces, these are planaria. Not parasites, but another indication of high amounts of organic matter in the gravel.

http://www.notatall.blogger.com.br/planaria.jpg - planarian photo
http://www.caudata.org/cc/images/articles/critters/planaria1JOHNSON.jpg - on the side of a tank

Answer 2

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
1. Clean Your Aquarium. Click here to read about Cleaning Your Warm Water Aquarium. In particular you should clean your gravel with 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.

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,

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.

Answer 3

That sounds like something from a horror movie

Answer 4

I would clean the tank and boil the gravel.NOW!!!!

Answer 5

might be you should get rid of them just in case