Anyone know much about brown/black planaria?

[ShadowBass]

Apparently I had some of these on the clump of java moss I took out of my 220g sump and put in my betta tank. Never have seen them before so I wasn't sure exactly what they were until I looked them up (I always thought planaria were white, but apparently there's various species of different colors.)

I noticed my betta ate a few, and I wasn't aware that fish tend to eat planaria. Does anyone know anything about their nutritional value or what species of fish tend to eat them? If they're nutritious I could probably propagate some and feed them to my betta and possibly my other fish.

The only thing I could find on them was about their physiology, which is apparently quite interesting, and they're studied pretty extensively (you can even order them online for study). But not much about fish eating them.

 

[JakeH]

Some fish will eat them, but most dont. There is a list out there on Google... Anyhow, I'm on a mission to kill planaria, not breed them. Can't be tough, though--take one planaria, chop into 3 pieces & VOILA, you got 3 planaria! Rinse & repeat.

 

[Dark Jester]

take one planaria, chop into 3 pieces & VOILA, you got 3 planaria! Rinse & repeat.

Heh. I'm gonna have to try that. Take 1 cup pf planaria and stick them in the food processor... 1 million becomes 1 billion in the blink of an eye...

Then give em a week for the pieces to grow back whole.. That would be sick.

 

[JakeH]

Keep in mind that those little "harmless" planaria have decimated 3 of my snail breeding populations & are VERY difficult to kill.

 

[ShadowBass]

I'm not worried about breeding snails, so that's not a problem for me. And my betta seems to have eaten all the ones in his tank lol.

The ones in the 220g sump definitely aren't gonna effect anyone in that tank since it's all large fish and no snails/eggs would survive in there without getting eaten anyway. I have fish lay eggs in there constantly and they disappear within an hour.