HELP!!!!

[jenBLKAROWANA]

I have a little problem....There are little thread like "worms" floating around in my tank...I noticed them crawling around on my oscars face...What are they, and how can I get rid of them??? :swear:

[repair]

What color are they? do you feed live? what do you feed them? what is your water temp? how big is the tank? what kind of filters do you run?

If this was on of my tanks I would

#1 move him to a sick tank so I could watch and see it they are comming from him or something else.

#2 raise the temp in the tanks to around 82 F

#3 bring the salt levels up ( I like 1 cup per 30 gal ...this depends on tank size as to how fast I would add it)

#4 I would catch one of the worms and look at it under a magnifing glass (microscope would be best) to try and ID it.

[jenBLKAROWANA]

Ok....its a 90gal, the "worms" are a white color...I do feed live, but we ALWAYS give the feeders a good salty bath for a good 15 min before we feed...and only once a month...The filters I have running are a HYDOR PRIME 30 canister filter, and a TETRATEC PF500 hang on the back filter and a bubble wall...I have the temp set to about 80 degrees already, I have an OSCAR, an INDO TIGER, 2 polys and a pleco in the tank. Now I looked at my OSCAR this morning, and the little worms were not on him anymore...They are also not on the TIGER or the other fish...HMMMMM....BUT they were just "floating" around in the water....
What are these little things? They are really annoying...OH....The tank has been set up for about 2 months now, but we used our other tanks water to cycle it faster...The other tanks do not have any worms in them either...

[repair]

do they seem to be alive?

I would still raise the salt level...never hurts

[jenBLKAROWANA]

Yes, they are wiggeling around...I did raise the salt level at lunch time...I hope that kills the nasty little buggers...If not, I will have to find something I can add to the water to kill all parasites...I hate to stress the fish like that though...

[fishyboi]

I had those worms before and mine were clear. I just gave my tank a water change and cleaned up my filters since they were breeding there i guess.

[rwatkins]

Sometimes adding coppersafe works. It'll kill any kind of invertabrate. Make sure you remove live plants and carbon before adding it!

[WckedMidas]

you have planeria its harmless but its from a dirty tank. do a big watter change cleaning the gravel realy real good. add alittle salt if ya think it make a difrence but i dont think so. also keep doin watter changes like every other day to every day. till you see no more

[guppy]

Check your filter media and see if they live there. Also try to catch one in an eye dropper so you can get a good magnified look at one. If they are flat and evenly segmented with a slightly bulbuos head, you have flat worms and need a vermifuge to feed all exposed fish. If they are flat but unevenly segmented It might be one of the crustaceans and salt will usually work. If it is flat with a broad head and no segments but 2 eyespots it is planaria and are harmless but annoying, again use salt. If they are like tiny white earthworms and live in you filter media they are microworms and make great food for tiny fry and tetras, they are harmless and people even raise them. Salt works. If they are tapered towards both ends, round and smooth they are nematodes and are either gut borne or living in the fishes eye sockets or nasal passages. They will need a vermifuge that is fed to the fish. hope this helps.

[repair]

anyone want to go out for spaghetti ? :cheers:

[jenBLKAROWANA]

LOL repair...
As for the dirty tank post...Its a newley set up tank, I do religious water changes, and I clean the filters out once a month. We did feeders about 2 weeks ago, but as I stated before, they get a salt bath for at least 15 min before we feed them...So where these little buggers came from is a mystery to me...But REPAIR, I thank you for the great advice...I will add a little more salt again today...
Jen

[repair]

NP ....good luck with it.

I've killed way more fish treating then with meds then seem to die if I just raise the water temp and bring the salt up.

I mainly keep cichlids and I have an optical salinity scope so I know what % of salt I have in the tanks and I have run my salt as high a 6% for as long as 3 months without hurting anything .......you won't have any snails........but they won't spawn so I brought it back down.

The amount of salt that I recomended won't even read on the scope so if the worms wont go away and you want to hit the worms hard with salt I can tell you how many cups per gallon to bring the levels up to 5%. By the way 10% salt and the fishs scales come off and they die......had a friend screw up.

[jenBLKAROWANA]

OMG! So its a 90gal tank...I have already put about 6 tablespoons in there from the last water change. We do put salt in there already, but I skimped on it on the last water change, I only put like 2 or three TBS in, I do have a INDO TIGER in there, how much salt per gallon should he have?
Jen

[repair]

I'll have to look at my notes when I get home.

[jenBLKAROWANA]

I'll have to look at my notes when I get home.

Thanks repair, I will be at work till 5pm CST - I do not have a computer at home...YET...lol...I am still in the dark age! lol

Jen :lol2:

[guppy]

I think you meant 0.05% which is about 3 1/5 teaspoons per US gallon, 3-5 days of this at 80+degrees. It is a little hard on the plants. For a preventative dip you can double it but only as a quick dip or the fish do swell up, shed scale and sometimes skin, then die. For slightly brackish maintainance use up to a half tsp per gallon or about 15 tablespoons per a 90 gallon tank. This is the mix I like for fish like violet gobies and archer fish. 10% works out to 1 lb of salt in around 1.2 gallons of water which is a level you could use to preserve meat.

[jenBLKAROWANA]

I think you meant 0.05% which is about 3 1/5 teaspoons per US gallon, 3-5 days of this at 80+degrees. It is a little hard on the plants. For a preventative dip you can double it but only as a quick dip or the fish do swell up, shed scale and sometimes skin, then die. For slightly brackish maintainance use up to a half tsp per gallon or about 15 tablespoons per a 90 gallon tank. This is the mix I like for fish like violet gobies and archer fish. 10% works out to 1 lb of salt in around 1.2 gallons of water which is a level you could use to preserve meat.


Guppy, will my oscar and pleco and 2 bichirs be ok in that brackish of water?

[repair]

I think you meant 0.05% which is about 3 1/5 teaspoons per US gallon, 3-5 days of this at 80+degrees. It is a little hard on the plants. For a preventative dip you can double it but only as a quick dip or the fish do swell up, shed scale and sometimes skin, then die. For slightly brackish maintainance use up to a half tsp per gallon or about 15 tablespoons per a 90 gallon tank. This is the mix I like for fish like violet gobies and archer fish. 10% works out to 1 lb of salt in around 1.2 gallons of water which is a level you could use to preserve meat.

The meter I have says 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9- ect all the way to 100 so I've always called it % but it is ppt

here is the meter I have..http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/932/cid/207

The fish will be fine if you go off my notes. In the last year I've spent $15,000 on fish ,tanks and tesing supplies and I've never lost any fish to salt....lost 2 apple snails before it dawned on me that THEY ARE SNAILS and SALT KILLS SNAILS!!! :22_yikes:

The pleco and the rest will be fine if you stay under 6 ppt.

[jenBLKAROWANA]

I did the same thing with snails....I had some really pretty rams horn snails, killed them...But ya live and ya learn! Thats an expensive meter there! How about a hydrometer? Will that work, or is the salt content too small for it to work?

I also found out what those little worms are! They are PROTEIN WORMS! They are not harmful to the fish...They are just eating the waste in the tank...Which is weird because I have had the tank set up for only 3 months now...I do my water changes, clean the gravel, and the filters...I did however just by a pleco, and I dumped the water it came in into the tank...I know, I know...Thats a really bad thing to do...lol...BUT, none the less, I did it...They could have come from that...So, I will try coppersafe, and regular cleanings to get rid of them....

I thank each and everyone of you for all of your suggestions! This site is awsome, and so are you guys!!!
Thanks again!

REPAIR - Thanks!!! :)

Jen

[repair]

Glad to hear they are not after you fish... They have a less expensive meter. $42

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/931/cid/206

I bought 2 types of the hydrometer and they are hard to get exact readings....they have a problem that they get bubbles on the pointer and you have to try and get them off so it reads right.... I would say that it's worth the extra money for the refractometer.

I bought 2 of the less expensive meters for my friends to use and they seem to work just fine.

[guppy]

I had a feeling that was what you meant, the one we had at the hatchery read the same way and it led to some fish kills. 5 PPT =0.05% lol, your notes are right on tme money and other than snail and a few of the more delicate plants his fish would be fine. I have very old references, I wonder if microworms and protien worms are the same thing, if so they make great food for tiny fry.

[Vince]

Planaria is hamrmless and it is due to overfeeding, i.e., beefheart, shrimp, squid. They are not caused by goldfish. If you add salt, it will kill them, but remember that waste material turns into ammonia. So if you add salt, it will kill the "worms", but will also increase the ammonia. If you do add salt, you will need to make a water change the next day..or sooner. But the worms are harmless and will go away after several water changes, and hold back on the feeding for at least one or two days....