Parasites eating freshwater plants?

[Daniel Morrow]

I noticed one side of my aquarium having a large number of small 3 mm
sized white worm looking creatures on it (maybe 1-2 mm in size, pretty
small in other words), should I be concerned about them eating my
plants? You may have noticed my previous post about my plants and
already know my plants stopped growing. Some small (I think they are
called mystery snails because I can't find reference to them in my
books) 2-3 mm in size red snails came with the elodea I bought 2
months ago and have multiplied and are in my aquarium - should I be
concerned about them eating my plants or are they harmless? I am
pretty sure that they are harmless from what I can tell. Thanks all -
later.

[RedForeman ©®]

The white worms are planaria, harmless in a way, but a sign of poor water
quality, or maintenance issues.... I've had them, and most everyone has at
some point... not vacuuming or gravel cleaning is why it happens...

scrub the glass, do a vacuuming and they'll be gone for the most part... and
stop feeding so much...

Snails, well, other than pond snails, they're all ok...

> I noticed one side of my aquarium having a large number of small 3 mm
> sized white worm looking creatures on it (maybe 1-2 mm in size, pretty
> small in other words), should I be concerned about them eating my
> plants? You may have noticed my previous post about my plants and
> already know my plants stopped growing. Some small (I think they are
> called mystery snails because I can't find reference to them in my
> books) 2-3 mm in size red snails came with the elodea I bought 2
> months ago and have multiplied and are in my aquarium - should I be
> concerned about them eating my plants or are they harmless? I am
> pretty sure that they are harmless from what I can tell. Thanks all -
> later.

--
RedForeman ©®
Sorry about the troll, the ball is rolling there....

[Daniel Morrow]

"RedForeman ©®" > wrote in message >...
> The white worms are planaria, harmless in a way, but a sign of poor water
> quality, or maintenance issues.... I've had them, and most everyone has at
> some point... not vacuuming or gravel cleaning is why it happens...
>
> scrub the glass, do a vacuuming and they'll be gone for the most part... and
> stop feeding so much...
>
> Snails, well, other than pond snails, they're all ok...

Thanks for the response red, and salutations! I am probably going to
ignore the planaria as there is not too much more that I can do. At
this time I am ignoring vacuuming the gravel because I have baby
guppies in the tank and I don't want to suck any of them up and lose
them. Your recommendations are good though, just a different situation
here. I have read it is normal for fry to be in what normally would be
bad conditions for growth or getting a good start reasons. Breeders
writing about how their water stunk bad for the first few significant
amounts of time with baby betta fry for example (tfh breeding bettas
if I remember right) because of the green water or etc. Anyway -
thanks!

[Daniel Morrow]

> Thanks for the response red, and salutations! I am probably going to
> ignore the planaria as there is not too much more that I can do. At
> this time I am ignoring vacuuming the gravel because I have baby
> guppies in the tank and I don't want to suck any of them up and lose
> them. Your recommendations are good though, just a different situation
> here. I have read it is normal for fry to be in what normally would be
> bad conditions for growth or getting a good start reasons. Breeders
> writing about how their water stunk bad for the first few significant
> amounts of time with baby betta fry for example (tfh breeding bettas
> if I remember right) because of the green water or etc. Anyway -
> thanks!

By the way - I always change 15-20% of the water in my tank every 2
weeks approximately. I use a length of airline tubing with an air
stone on one end and the other end in a bucket. I put the air stone
end in the tank and start the siphon. No babies are ever sucked out
this way. Later.