Found A Few Planarias, What Should I Do?

[bb1991]

I just found a few planaria in my tiny 15L-ish shrimp tank. The tank contains 5 cherry shrimp and one very small baby shrimp. I just found two planarias about 1cm or smaller. I killed one of them that was climbing on the glass, while the othe got away under the soil. I used two have a mild planaria outbreak with 4-7 planarias climbing on the walls; killed all of them and haven't since any since yesterday. I was wondering whether i should just change my feeding schedule from once every other day to once every 4-5 days. Or do i need to take drastic measures to save my baby shrimp and future baby shrimp by killing them with chemicals or totally clean my tank including the soil with tap, hot/boiling water. I ofcourse will take the shrimp out to my other tank while i'm cleaning the tank.

Since the outbreak is so mild, do you guys think that feeding the shrimp less would eventually kill off the planaria? Or are they f'in tough and nothing but a total cleaning or chemicals are the only things that will successfully eradicate these baby shrimp killers.

 

[snazy]

Planaria are harmless, fish eat it, and they are associated with extra amount of waste in the tank. Do not use chemicals for them. Since you are saying you are feeding every other day, maybe you put too much food at once? Why not feed every day tiny amounts of food instead so they get a chance to eat it all. Remove any left over food if not eaten in a few hours and then feed to the amount they eat in a couple of hours or so.
You need to do regular thorough vacuuming of the tank every week and and a nice water change and that gets rid of them without manual or chemical cleaning. I used to have some in my fry tank that had an undergravel filter so the waste and food constantly went mostly into the gravel and I was of course feeding more because of the babies.

 

[bb1991]

The problem is that it is a shrimp tank, so there's no fish to prey on them. And i know for a fact that planaria will eventually prey on the baby shrimp when the planarias reach a certain size or color. Since they're about the same size or a bit smaller than the baby shrimps, i don't think its an emergency right now. But i've been reluctant in changing my water because i'm scared the baby shrimp will suffer from water shock. But nevertheless, I'll take your advice and if i still see planarias emerging after a few days, i'll vacuum the soil abit and change the water often in very small amounts like 5-10%. Thanks snazy

 

[snazy]

Yeah, to shrimp it wouldn't be as safe when they grow. I overlooked this. It's definately overfeeding and waste gathering so you need to address this somehow. You need to check the amount of food and leftovers, siphon regularly and change the water. 5 shrimp won't be eating too much as they'll have enough natural growing food in the tank. Maybe get food that doesn't fall apart easily and remove everything after a couple of hours.

As for shrimplets getting a shock, you only change a certain percentage of the water, not 100% at a time and that shouldn't give it any shock. In fact, shrimp don't like high amount of nitrAtes at all so water changes should be done very often in a shrimp tank. Also, if you do regular maintenance, there won't be great difference between tank and tap water unless your soil has some type of Ph lowering stuff in it or the opposite.

 

[bb1991]

I would normally feed them only one sinking food pellet every other day, but since you said its only five and i have a buncha moss in tank, i'll eventually learn to feed them once a week. I'm starting to wonder if the liquid vitamins i dose the food pellet in is causing the planarias to grow rapidly. The liquid vitamins are just vitamins specifically made for the shrimp, and it doesn't include calcium. The calcium the shrimp get is enough from the tap water. I guess the only thing i can do now is faste my shrimp and vacuums thems planarias. Thanks again snazy, your reply is noted.

 

[snazy]

Here a nice article about it in shrimp tanks and recommends Fenbendazole to kill them should you want to go that route:

http/www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html