# Planaria



## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

I just can't catch a break.. It seems that I now have an outbreak of planaria in my planted shrimp tank. Tearing down the tank and steralizing everything is not really an option. What can I do to get rid of these nasty critters?


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Just responded to your other thread:

http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/crustaceans-inverts-mollusks-23/how-clean-shrimplets-37211/


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## Flear (Dec 8, 2012)

sometimes the best systems are those that reach a balance on their own.
we tinker with them trying to get what we want to decide is "optimal" while the system has it's own preferences. ... then it's a tug of war, if we win, the tank may survive, it may not, if we give up ... if the tank is healthy on it's own it will stay healthy with us doing the basics (or even less)

if your constantly finding new problems arise, and your constantly battling new problems, it might not be the tank.

for my own, i had staghorn algae, ... too many changes to say why i don't have staghorn algae anymore
then had thread algae, got shrimp
thread algae dissapeared, ... apple snails starved. ... 
tried to feed more, just had more other snails and one of the apple snails died 

history and settling in foreign lands has done the same, we go in, we add something from the 'homeland' and it upsets the balance in the new land, ... sometimes we can add something else to bring the balance back into check, other times we can just say there are now 2 problems.

it might be beneficial to find what eats your planaria, (would be my own preferences) but ... it may also have unforseen side effects

i don't have any advice, but make sure your doing your homework.

dealing with "ick", ... best remedy i've had, ... add salt & raise the temperature. ... i found out afterwards salt can upset the calcium balance in the tank, ... the snail shells were getting really bad. i got rid of the ick, took me a while to get the calcium back so the shail shells new growth was improved.

i don't know about planaria, ... i'm limiting my worm type inquiries that means planaria are not on the list.
does not mean i won't get any, and if i ever do, i have to think about what i'm doing to deal with it, ... and hopefully keep everything alive in the tank


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## DBam (Aug 9, 2010)

Lol typical.


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## mollyb (May 18, 2010)

stop feeding so much, planaria will go away.


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

I'm barely feeding anything.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

I had a planaria outbreak when I wasn't feeding anything (to my shrimp only tank). There was plenty of algae in there. It just happens.


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## TheBigCheese (Oct 1, 2012)

I've used "No Planaria" with very good success.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

mollyb said:


> stop feeding so much, planaria will go away.


not true. Planaria will survive nicely in aquariums that never have food added, feeding on aufwuchs (biofilm and microoranisms) and dead animals. They will, like all things, increase in numbers when available food increases. 
Planaria don't spontaniously appear, either. They must be introduced.


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

Well... nothing has been introduced into the aquarium since I got the shrimp a couple of months ago. Hmm..

I am placing an order for No Planaria


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

Well, finally got my hands on the No Planaria. Lost at least two shrimp during treatment, and after giving my tank a good clean yesterday (30% WC), I now have more planaria than ever.

*facepalm*


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

What the heck happened!?

I treated my brother's 10g shrimp tank on two separate occasions over the three days as directed and it irradicated them with no losses.

Sorry to hear of your losses and continued problems. It's weird that you have more than before, that doesn't make sense to me. Are you stirring up the substrate or do gravel vacuuming during water changes? I really can't think of anything else that would help Stacey.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

Likewise, I've treated multiple tanks with No Planaria with complete erradication (though eggs sometimes survive treatment) and without shrimp or fish losses. Brutal on snails, but never a problem with shrimp or fish other than reduced reproduction with egg layers.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

I didn't lose shrimp with using No Planaria either. Did a great job getting rid of my FW limpets though


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Crappy. I wonder what happened?


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

Not sure what I could have possibly done wrong.. empty contents into tank three days in a row, hard to screw that up! lol

I do find it tough to clean the substrate as it's a planted tank and I don't want to dig up my plants, and also it's Flourite which gets sucked up in the vac (a little bit anyway). But maybe I need to be more aggressive anyway?


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## JohnnyAppleSnail (May 30, 2010)

I had Planaria once and surprisingly it just went away on it's own, I'm guessing the Fish had a feast (Dwarf Chain Loaches, Red Tail Zebra Loaches, Cories, etc. etc.) the Planaria never ventured far from the substrate, I cut back on the feeding a bit but really not that much. I also did not do a full vac on the substrate....


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

I was just going to say... What eats planaria?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

Should I not stir up the substrate when I vac?


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## Sploosh (Nov 19, 2012)

Everytime I vacuum the 15G tank I end up doing a minor rescape, gravel gets tossed around pretty good. I have a couple plants that don't get moved, everything else gets shuffled from one side to the other. I find I suck up more crud when I go flat to the substrate with the tube, rather than a swirling motion. It is a planted tank with shrimps/crays/guppies. I just did a No Planaria treatment recently, haven't seen any since, no effect on the shrimps/crays. 
Maybe something else in the water is reacting to the meds, cancelling them out? Do you have carbon in your filter at the moment? As far as I recall, it is recommended to remove carbon from the filter during almost any type of treatment.

When I treated the tank, I did a large (40%) wc before, none during, and 2 smaller (30%) wc's with gravel vacs after. Haven't seen any since, though it was a very heavy infestation, so I am expecting to see them again...

Hope you get your tank figured out, it is extremely rewarding to get things humming along well


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

Foxtail said:


> I was just going to say... What eats planaria?
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


Not many fish that I'm aware of. Any fish I've seen try to eat a planaria has just spit it out again. They tend to stay hidden with corydoras and such because the fish keep disturbing them with their foraging.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Stacey -Did you win the battle? I just spotted them in my shrimp tank and ended up building a trap last night. So far i see 5-6 in there this morning so it seems to be working.. I will prob do the chemical attack in the future but since i just added the shrimp this week i want to give them time to settle first. IF you are interested a did a post on my site about DIY Planaria Trap

Side note - how are your yellows doing?


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## covertune (Aug 10, 2012)

Nope.. I've treated twice now and still see planaria in the tank, plus I lost shrimp both times I treated the tank.

My Yellow colony is a failure.. one of my first babies finally grew up, was a female, berried up, and died. There's still a couple youngsters and one or two adults, but I've given up and put a couple of guppies back in the tank. Hope to try again in the future though, when I'm a little more settled and not on the verge of moving across the country.


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