General Care Discussion :: tiny little worms in the tank. What are they?

[greerman29]

so I have had river rocks in my tank for a while and they made things hard to clean and messy so I decided to take them out today when I clean out the tank and see how it goes.

After I had cleaned out the tank and put back some of the decorations I noticed like 15-20 of these really small worm looking things moving all around, not swimming just kinda squirming.

The only other live food I've had in their is a couple guppies that got eaten and around 10 ghost shrimp that have been in their for a long time cuz my turtles can't catch them.

Also my tank is always pretty clean and I do a partial water change around every couple weeks.

Anyone ever had this or know what they might be?

[SpotsMama]

What color were the worms?

Can you see little lines on the bottom of your tank?

[greerman29]

they are kinda pink. There are no lines on the bottom of my tank.

[scripta_elegans]

what size are they? Do they look flat or round? Can you see any segmentation? can you get a pic?

[DavidY]

you might want to put a couple in a small bottle or container of rubbing alcohol so you can bring it to a vet for testing, just in case.

[SpotsMama]

There are so many possibilities. There are many, many different kinds of worms. They can be fly larvae, they can be from stale turtle pellets, they can be worms that came in on feeder fish or veggies, they can be internal turtle parasites.

If they are parasites, then you'll have to get help from a vet.

I had worms in the tank once. They were fly larvae from fly eggs that had some inside from outdoors and after they all died off, no more worm problem. Other types of worms can be hard to get rid of.

There've been several posts regarding worms in people's tanks. Here are some:

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... orms#72522

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... orms#72026

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... orms#61482

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... orms#56120

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... orms#53789

[steve]

I'm thinking fly larvae too. Do a search for "planaria"

[DavidY]

Aren't planaria just flat worms? I don't think they are fly larvae. But you might be right, they do sound like they could be planaria. They're non parasitic scavengers/carnivores.

[SpotsMama]

I think you are right DavidY, from what I recall of biology class. The fly larvae I had were red - very very tiny. They were rather hair like. Greerman said pink. When I've heard of planeria before they've been white. There could be pink planeria, I suppose.

[steve]

I think I had my wires crossed! Thanks for the clarification!

[greerman29]

well the worms are gone now, I dunno what happened to them but it doesn't seem like they're there anymore.

Thanks for all the replies also.

[SpotsMama]

The turtle probably ate them! If they were red fly larvae, the turtles think they're pretty tasty. It's what the blood worms that are sold as turtle treats are made from. If they were fly larve, you may see some in your filter the next few times you clean it, then they should all be gone. Hopefully, that will be the end of the story.

[marisa]

It sounds like planaria, which aren't harmful to your turtles. They're from excess debris (food, poop) in the tank, and if crap was getting stuck in the rock you had in there, it's not suprising that you had them.