Algae, Fungus, Snails, And--Nematodes?!?

[NewFeesh]

It is official. I have the creepiest tank ever. It's a fishless cycling 10 gallon aquarium set at 82 degrees F with several live plants that must have transferred the snail eggs and creepy worms. Substrate is half gravel, half sand. My piece of driftwood is covered in white fungus and long brownish wisps of algae that are also clinging to the tank walls in clumps. The tank has been cycling for just about 2 weeks now. Ammonia is currently at 1 ppm.

There are white strands of very skinny wormish-looking things on the walls of my tank (and probably everywhere). They're just a strand of white with a slightly wider knob at one end. They move and squirm and squiggle.

This is DISGUSTING. I'm trying to cycle the stupid tank, and every creepy thing in the world is trying to slip into my aquarium! Should I just hang my head in defeat and give up? I can't even do water changes without messing up my cycling process.

Can I treat the tank with something the kill the little parasites, or will they EVENTUALLY die on their own if there aren't any fish in there? Or will they just feed on the snail population and never go away???

 

[KittyKat]

Have you got Hydra? Google for photos.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

if they actually are parasites, they should die soon because they won'thave any host and i doubt that the snails are good hosts. if you want to get rid of the algae, i reccomend keepng the snails for now. they will eventually eat the algae. not sure about the worms though. maybe you can identify them with this thread.

 

[GrayScale]

I actually had a very similar issue with my display tank after it was cycled. I overfed a little bit and posted a pic on the forums. Someone identified it as planaria which happens with an excess of ammonia and nitrites. Once the tank settles down a little a cycles some more they should go away.

 

[NewFeesh]

Thanks for that link, AstonN24vantage. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything in there that quite resembled these wormy guys.

Not a hydra, thankfully. Too mobile and not enough appendages. And I've seen planaria before and I thought they were a bit thicker than these stringy guys.

Here's a picture of what they look like. There's loads of 'em.

 

[NewFeesh]

Greyscale, is this what your planeria looked like? Because, actually, these might be them. That'd be alright; they're not parasitic, right?

 

[mbsqw1d]

look like planaria to me! and yeh your snails will be from your plants. ill send you an assasin snail when i get some babies soon if you want!?

your planaria are harmless. they exsist in normal tap water or in pipework between the waterworks and your home (tapwater isnt 100% clean you know!!) in fact if theyre still there when u add the fish, your fish will love gobbling them up as a tasty treat!

 

[GrayScale]

Yea mine were a bit smaller but there were lots of them. Just keep the glass clean, do a 20% water change every 3 days or so and they'll clear up soon enough.