Worms In Filter?

[paw-paw]

HI!

I never had worms in my filter before so I almost freaked out when I cleaned the filter media yesterday. I saw small yellowish round stuff and wanted to check what it was and then I saw a worm like creature escaping into filter media. I didn't have a chance to look it better but it was brownish in color. I threw the medium out and took some medium from my other filter and also added new medium. The filter is internal.
All water stats are OK, and those worms aparently aren't harmful to the fish since guppys started to swim and pick at the filter when I removed the first part of the medium.

Now I had this tank for over 5 years and this has never happened to me before. But his is a female guppy plus fry tank so I started to give them liofilized tubifex worms recently (before that I was only feeding them micropan staple food for fry, daphnia , artemia and bloodworms) - once a week. And I am now wondering if this could be the reson for filter worms? Cause I know that artemia eggs that I hatch are liofilized, right? Could there be tubifex eggs or something in liofilized forms that survived and were than hatches in my filter? It is disgusting, really...And I was totally shocked to see that.

THX

 

[darknirvana217]

I doubt eggs would have survived the freezing process, but I guess anything is possible. Since you have been doing this for five years, I doubt you have had an outbreak, as it probably would have occurred before. Besides, tubifex worms live in horrid conditions, on the verge of sewer water. It is not uncommon to have worm like creatures in the tank They can be brought in on plants, new fish, and decorations that have been exposed to other tanks. Did you add anything to the tank recently, and is there any plants. Also what is the water stats and could you give a better description on the worm like thing.