How to get rid of planaria?!?!?!

So I found a nasty little slug-like worm in my aquarium. Googled it to find out it's planaria. Not sure how It got there, the tank just barely finished cycling and there are only a few endler's and cherry shrimp in the tank as of now.

How the heck do i get rid of them? They gross me out.

Lessen the bio load like less feedings, siphon substrate of bio waste and uneaten foods, and water changes.

All of that is good info.

Honestly, I wouldn't treat the tank unless there's a ton of them - they're harmless.

Nevermind; see below.  

Ok, good to know. Thanks guys!

Smashley745,

Kool another livebearer gal on the board!!! NICE and in the Northend tooo!
As for the worms it's natural food for your fishes and probably came in on a live plant or in used gravel.

[Color=indigo]gotta giggle a tiny bit here because some one posted an aquabid yesterday on one of my fb fish groups trying to sell a whopping 3 of these for 30$ plus shipping. They seem to show up when there is over feeding. I had some out competing bladder snails until the snails were decimated then the worms dissapeared and the snails were back. [/color ]

Planaria are NOT harmless, FYI. They secrete a mild toxin in their slime coat that can paralyze a shrimp, then they'll eat it. Most of the time shrimp are quick enough to get away, but I have watched them overwhelm one of my adult females and it's not pleasant. I've heard dosing 0.1g/10G of fenbendazole (dog dewormer, I use Panacur-C in the yellow box from Amazon) will kill them and not harm anything else. I'm trying it out right now, actually.

I guess I've just never had enough of them to cause any harm to my shrimp.

As I mentioned in SirWesDragon's link above, I successfully used the same dose of fenbendazole to eliminate hydra in 2 tanks with no effect on shrimp or snails.

Yikes!    I've definitely never seen anything like that; that's a compelling argument for treating the tank.

Gizmo wrote:Planaria are NOT harmless, FYI.  They secrete a mild toxin in their slime coat that can paralyze a shrimp, then they'll eat it.  Most of the time shrimp are quick enough to get away, but I have watched them overwhelm one of my adult females and it's not pleasant.  I've heard dosing 0.1g/10G of fenbendazole (dog dewormer, I use Panacur-C in the yellow box from Amazon) will kill them and not harm anything else.  I'm trying it out right now, actually.

Done the same. No ill effects on shrimps. But to prevent future outbreak is to siphon substrate of bio matter, not overfeeding, and regular water changes.