How do I get rid of Planaria?

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KristaM92

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 23, 2011
130
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Wausau, WI
I have planaria on the glass of my 120. I know that planaria usually comes from overfeeding and/or poor water quality. My water parameters are perfect but I think that the brine shrimp I feed my Lima is the root of the problem. All the other fish eat their food right away but when I feed the lima, she lets a lot of the shrimp drop to the bottom of the tank (she wont eat anything unless it's right in front of her face). If this is the cause, I'm going to train her to eat something less messy like krill.

What I need to know is how do I get rid of them without removing all my sand? There isn't a lot of them right now so can I get rid of them with water changes alone? I know salt kills them but I don't know if my clown knife could tolerate that. I want to tackle the problem before it gets out of hand.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Planaria are basically harmless...but if you really want to get rid of them, change the way you feed the lima and maybe gravel vac more often
 
I have pool filter sand as a substrate and I vaccum twice a week. Hopefully changing the Limas food will help prevent it in the future. But how can I get rid of the planaria that I already have?
 
KristaM92 said:
I have pool filter sand as a substrate and I vaccum twice a week. Hopefully changing the Limas food will help prevent it in the future. But how can I get rid of the planaria that I already have?
Click to expand...

Get rid of their food source - the excess food - and they'll die off soon.


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Okay that's what I figured. Thanks!
 
Do some extra water changes and a gravel vac, without available food floating in the water they will also go back down into the gravel again and the excess will die off. I occasionally run into this issue when I first cycle a tank and there aren't enough bb yet in the filter.
 
Seems simple enough. I was worried for a second there. I thought I was going to have a big project on my hands. lol
 
you can also try an old school method of putting something like chicken liver in a coke can over night. It's a planaria trap. it gets rid of a bunch but planaria is so common and harmless. Keeping your tank really clean is the best method but they also hide under the rim of the glass. Guppies, danios, tetras and other small fish will also keep them unseen.
 
I had a very bad case of planaria on a 20 gallon quarantine tank. The worst I have ever had in 20 years. It looked like snow flakes on the glass because there were so many and they would bunch up together on the glass in various spots. I ended up putting some small silver dollars in there and the planaria was just about all gone the very next morning.

Generally speaking, when I did have the issue before on other tanks. Cutting down on feeding, more gravel vacs/WC and some patience usually took care of the issue.
 
Stir up the sand u wont believe how much crap gets stuck in the sand

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