I've been noticing these little white worm looking things in my tank. They almost look like little worms but I dont ever see them moving or anything. They are mostly on the side of the filter, and on the floor of the tank.

I dont really have much testing equipment, and my first hunch was maybe alge? It is starting to make me paranoid because there is more and more of these little white things.

I do have a couple pictures of that im talking about.

I feed my oscar pellets, he lives in a 55g tank. He doesn't appear sick or bothered by these white things. Another thought I had was maybe uneaten food. I know its a shot in the dark, but if anybody could please look over these photos and if you know of what this might be please help me out. I know I didn't include all the information required to diagnose this, but I do water changes, keeep the water at around 76 F

Here are the photos





I know the image isn't very clear it was from a webcam.

If anybody can help me I would appreciate it!!!

-paranoia will destroy ya

please help tyyymyshoe

if you click on the img it will give you a *slightly larger picture to see

They are more than likely Planerian flatworms. Although unsightly, they don't cause any harm to fish. They tend to live off uneaten food site so it might be a good idea to limit the amount of food that goes in for a while. I've never had them myself so I can't give you the benefit of my inexperience on how easy it is to eliminate them. However, carry out your tank maintenance on a regular basis, don't feed too much, remove any food that has not been eaten and see if the numbers drop. It may be a case of carrying out an extensive cleaning program to remove most of them but you may find that you have them for good unless you strip the whole tank and filtration down. I'm not in favor of using chemicals to kill things like this . Not even sure what I would use.

If they are little white worms then it is most likely planaria. It is caused from over feeding and leaving food in the tank. It is harmless and will go away with weekly water changes of 50%.

u could also treat them with a water change vacuum the rocks really well and do a treatment with quick cure if u want to get rid of them fast

i had this in my 55 once and cutting back on feedings, and gravel vac'ing the hell out of my substrate when doing my weekly 50% waterchange cleared it up. pristine water quality and a clean tank these will die off.

I am 99.9 percent sure this is a planeria out break. There is no need to panic. I concur with the above solutions. To summarize it. vacuum substrate weekly, 50% water changes weekly, cut down on amount of food during feeding sessions, remove uneaten food in a timely fashion. These steps will elminate these pest. They are little more then pest, they will cause the fish no harm. I had an outbreak a few weeks back and these steps eradicated the planeria
PS. A little paranoia is good

the guys got you covered... nothing to add except to WELCOME you.
welcome aboard!

Hey thanks everybody this makes me feel much better. Hearing the same soloution from a couple different people makes me feel a lot better. This website and community is impressive... by the time I got back from walmart and taco johns there was some help.

Usually if you post online there might be one reply to your answer.

I have used the gravel vac and I'm sure I will notice a decrease when hault feeding for a bit.
I'll be around here somewhere! If something doesn't clear up I'm sure you'll hear from me.

I'm gonna put a link from my site so other people will find this site.