Can't Get Rid Of Worms In Filter!

[mctavish132]

Hey fish forums. So I have been battling a bad case of some type of unidentified worm in all of my filters. Under a magnifying glass they are segmented, so I know their not planaria. They wiggle in an S shape when disturbed in the water and they look about the size of a small eyelash when floating in the water. They almost look to be pinker in the middle of their bodies. My fish love to eat them, and I know they do not harm my fish.
The problem is I have 2 aquatech 30-60s and 2 aqua clear 50 HOB filters on a 60 gallon tank, for the past months i have been killing myself doing 50% water changes daily all done with extrem precision gravel vacuming, making sure the tank is constanty spotless to try and remove the worms food source and i am constantly replacing filter media and rinsing beneficial filter pads. But it seems that the worms food source is the benefical bacteria on my established media, and i am constantly finding thousands of these little worms in my filters and find myself throwing away establish media to get rid of worms or over cleaning them and removing tonze of bacteria.
(By the way ive never fed live food either, the only way they could have been introduced was a plant i put in a couple months ago.)

No matter how many i remove and no matter how hard i clean, their population seems to explode in my filters the next day. Ive been trying to get rid of them the natural way but its not working, does anyone know of any meds that i could get in canada for something like this? I cant keep replacing my filter cartridges daily, and i shouldnt be needing to rinse my bio fiber/ biomax ect every other day.

Anyone with some sort of experiance with this please help me out! Im going crazy ripping my tank apart on a daily basis. Should i just leave them alone if the fish like them? If i dont get rid of them my filters will be swarming with them?

Water parameters otherwise are perfect:
Temp = 82F
PH = 7.4
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0-5 (heavily planted)

Meds added to water:
Dosing melafix daily to help a fish with severly torn fins from the pet store (hes doing great)

 

[fluttermoth]

Try not feeding the tank for a week and see of that reduces the numbers?

 

[mctavish132]

Ok just did a 75% water change, cleaned all my filters and added new cartridges, and Im not going to feed the tank for a week, any other suggestions? because I really haven't been feeding much at all in the last month.

 

[mctavish132]

bump, Nothing else I can do? I don't feel like this alone will get rid of them.

 

[Biulu]

Praziquantel is a med which is normally used to get rid of parasital worms in fish which doesn't affect your beneficial bacteria so they say. The recommended dose is 2 mg/litre of water. You could give this a try.

 

[kcartwright856]

These are nematodes. Outbreaks are caused by overfeeding your tank. Based on your information, I'm guessing that uneaten food is being sucked up into your filter and stays there as nice, tasty treats for your nematodes.

Only feeding the tank once a week isn't the best of solutions. Simply feed less. Feed only what your fish can gobble in no more than two minutes.

I wouldn't worry about wasting any more time and money fiddling with the filter. If you cut back on your feeding enough, they will die off. If you have a serious infestation, though, keep an eye on your water parameters. A massive die-off can cause ammonia spikes.