Worms attached to glass

[Xian101]

Hi, recently started a nano shrimp tank to keep away from the main tank but have recently seen an abundance of white worms on the glass, brown ish worms in the gravel and tiny white "jumping" flies on the glass.

Any ideas?

 

[JemZ]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Could we have some pictures and/or a video?

 

[Boundava]

The white worms sound like detritus worms, usually due to overfeeding. Unsure of the brownish worms. Are the flies on the outside or inside of the tank, and I am assuming they are not in the water? How small are they? Maybe they are springtails?

 

[eatyourpeas]

and tiny white "jumping" flies on the glass.

These may be copepods or ostracods. You can look them up and compare the images to what yours look like. They are harmless.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

This just happened to me too and it completely freaked me out. I believe mine are detritus worms. They look like little white pieces of thread. If they have triangular shaped heads, they are probably planaria which I think might be harmful to shrimp. Try to get close up pictures when you can and post.

 

[Xian101]

Hi everyone thanks for the replies! I had attached the video but it never got uploaded due to the extension. Anyway, I've uploaded it here - Worm. Due to the size of them this was the best I could get. You'll notice in that snippet some bugs jumping around.

As for the jumping around, they're on the inside of the tank which is peculiar.

Nothing in the tank has been introduced from outside sources. The plants were trimmings from the main tank, the water and stones from the main tank. The only thing that is new was the sponge filter..
If it turns out to be planaria I guess I'll have to treat the tank with fire and start again

 

[Slaphppy7]

Link doesn't work for me...

 

[Xian101]

Link doesn't work for me...

try again

 

[Slaphppy7]

Detritus worm and copepods or seed shrimp, is my guess...

 

[Boundava]

Link doesn't work for me either. How long have you had the shrimp? I purchased some shrimp at what I though was a good deal, it was as I got some hitchhikers like the seed shrimp, hydra and planaria. Fenben (Fenbendazole) got rid of the planaria and some hydra. I got mine from Petsmart-its a dog dewormer. If you have an agriculture store (Farm and Fleet/Tractor Supply) you can find it as a goat dewormer as well. Jehmco also sells it, oh guess not any longer, but you can find it online.

For the seed shrimp-its a bit harder. They will out compete the shrimp and eventually the only shrimp will be the seed shrimp. What I did was buy the glass planaria traps and on a nightly basis for about a month I wild put a small amount of the smelliest food in the trap and then empty it out the next morning. For the first week the traps were full of seed shrimp. Eventually I put a enough of a dent that my shrimp were able to out compete them. I also purchased some petri dishes to put the shrimp food in and that way I could closely monitor how fast the food was eaten.

The detritus worms are from excess waste in the substrate. Best way to clear them is going to be through a good substrate cleaning and then cutting down feedings. If you have a couple left they won't harm the shrimp. In larger numbers they can strain water parameters in smaller tanks.

 

[Xian101]

Hi there,

How long have you had the shrimp?

I've had the shrimps for a year in April. They've started breeding since December because I changed the temperature from 21 to 24.

 

[Xian101]

For reference,

Nano 12ltr shrimp tank.

Main 105ltr tank

 

[Xian101]

This one is out of the water..

 

[eatyourpeas]

Looks like detritus worm.