planeria myth! (long)

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mikeymikee

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 7, 2010
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so you have you tank all set up and nice./..then a lil while later these lil white tiny worms are swimming in your water... people say its from overfeeding or poor water quality but im calling all of that a myth!

why? let me explain.... i have been to many many fish stores (mostly freshwater) and i have seen the most disgusting fish tanks in my life....some where when the fish move the dirt flys all over the place in the water ... but you know what i noticed...none of those dirty tanks or anything have the planeria swimming around...

every tank i have had (currently housing a 150g freshwater tank with a 40g sump) have had planeria... now for the past 6 months i have had only one fish im my whole tank(it has its gravel ...plats and rocks) and its a catfish... now you cant over feed only having one fish in your tank since my fish only ate raw shrimp that i feed him by hand till hes full... once a week did a small water change with gravel cleaning...

sadly the fish died to old age so i did a little test... i 100percent cleand out my whole filter with new pads... did a 100 percent gravel cleaning..and a 90 percent water change... filled it back up and let it run for about a month...keeping my eye on it if the water got low in the sump...never had the lights on so no alge ever grew ... and if you look closely their is still planeria in my tank!!!!! how can they still survive if theirs nothing to feed on for them
 
I have yet to find planaria in my tanks. Granted, my longest running is only just over 2 years with the same fish, but I never saw it at the LFS, either. When I started cleaning up the LFS, we had 80 some tanks, some of which had no filtration and all of them were overstocked. Many were overrun with various algea, some I simply tore down and ran tap water through a hose until water ran clear and then let them run empty for a week+. No planaria were ever found in those tanks either and some had been going for 10+ years.
Yet my childhood dentist had a 3 year old tank that had a ton of planaria..
IDK. It just all seems odd to me.

Watch me find them in half my tanks tomorrow :p
 
i've been wondering the same thing. i've never had a problem with over feeding cause i like to keep my fish a bit on the hungry side but a couple days after a wc i notice white worms crawling on my glass and i find out i have planaria.
 
same, i gravel vac my tank daily and those annoying little white *******s keep appearing on the side of my tank
 
My tank is barebottom with no decorations. It's just fish and water, and I **** vac daily so the tank bottom is ****less and clean. But I notice a worm here and there. I remember when I first started my tank I had a huge explosion of these worms, though I don't know why and never had another situation like that happen again.
 
I've had planaria in most of my tanks. I got planaria in my brackish tank after buying fish from a tank with planaria in it. I neglected that tank and it kept getting worse, but it seems to be going away slowly.

I have had some in other tanks disappear, and some populations crash after medicating the fish for parasites. I think most LFS regularly medicate each tank since they go through so many fish a week. Also, I know a lot of anabantids eat similar organisms in aquariums and my one tank had really bad planaria, and after adding a betta it seemed to go away.
 
atleast im not the only one... i never overfeed my fish or had my tank dirty...so their has to be something else making them live/breed
 
Most of you are not seeing planaria, they are relatively uncommon in tropical tanks. The more commonly seen nematode is a family of its own and feeds primarily on bacteria. You won't see their food source so it's no surprise they are thriving on "nothing" to the naked eye. These nematodes do best in stagnant water as current makes life more difficult. So to grow a lot of them, the easiest way is to simply introduce them to a stagnant tank. Yes, they do great in soil, gravel and filters, but will reign supreme if kept without predation in bacteria-laden water.

Your original post suggests you are not aware that spontaneous generation was ruled out long ago when science realized that living things come from other living things, not magically from dirt. So you can pile rotting food into a tank all day and if no eggs or adults are present to populate the food source, the species will not be present.
 
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