Planaria in the aquarium: fight flatworms or discworms

Fight planaria flatworms turbellaria: In today's Guides let's take the dreaded one planarians at. This pests come especially in Nano aquarium and shrimp, as well as snail tanks. In addition, planarians can also feel comfortable in aquariums with juvenile fish, because there they will find enough food. But what are planarians? Where do these animals come from and how do you get rid of planarians? How do I recognize planarians and what means are there to combat them effectively. We try to answer these questions below.

What are planaria or discworms?

One can speak of a true marvel of evolution here. Up to 200 species of different planarians or flatworms are currently known. Again, not all of them will be found in the aquarium. The white planarians can be found there. Colloquially, one hears terms such as discworms or flatworms again and again.

But of course there are many subspecies such as the roundworms or the chain flatworms. All belong to the group of planarians. Of course, they also have various Latin names. The genera belong to the Seriata or Rhabdocoela, which are mainly found in the aquarium. If you look at Wikipedia, then you talk there mainly about flatworms (Turbellaria) which belong to the class of flatworms. This already gives first indications of their appearance. In the video below you can see the animals live. Of course you can also find pictures.

A distinction of the planarians is extremely difficult. The animals, which are up to 18 mm in size, are usually very similar and only tiny features can be distinguished. On the one hand, this can be the coloring of the planaria, but also the shape of the head. In the aquarium one finds mostly white almost transparent animals. These have a particularly distinctive head shape with a triangle.

The physique here resembles a worm, with most planarians being rather flat. But not all of these animals are dangerous. In the literature, a distinction is made here between real and false planars. We do not want to go into detail about these, because we believe that as soon as planarians appear, something must be done about them.

Let's start with the animals' appearance and anatomical features. When young, they are difficult to recognize. On the one hand they hide well and on the other hand they are only a few millimeters big there.

The body of the planarian, which is basically similar to a worm, has some peculiarities. On the one hand, they have two eyes with which they are even able to see light and dark, and on the other hand, they have a mouth, which is not on the head, but rather in the middle of the body. The body is surrounded with mucus, which tastes extremely bad. That's why they have very little predators, but more on that later at the Combat more.

The mucus that comes from the skin glands has several benefits. On the one hand, this offers the planarians protection and, on the other hand, it makes it easier for the planarians to move. But this slime also has a purpose for food intake, because the prey animals can be enveloped with it. In addition, the planarians still have rhabdites on their skin. These are rod-shaped secretion bodies that look like arrows. This secretion is poisonous. This enables them to stun prey and then eat it in peace. You will find out later what is on the planarian menu.

 

How is the reproduction of planarians and flatworms?

Now we come to the reproduction of the planaria, because this is also something special. It is not for nothing that we spoke at the beginning of an evolutionary miracle. Even if it is not desired in this case. Planarians are same-sex and therefore also hermaphrodites. Therefore, fertilization is possible in both directions. However, this differs depending on the species. On the one hand there is reproduction with sexual organs such as a penis and on the other hand there is also reproduction and reproduction by transverse division. This is then called asexual reproduction. Above all, the animals that appear in the aquarium reproduce in this way, which can cause us further problems.

 

But what is a cross division anyway?

Basically, these planarians can reproduce by dividing the body. If you cut one apart, it could regenerate itself and form two new ones through the fission. A new planarian forms quite quickly. Due to this fact, you should definitely avoid dividing with a knife or crushing, because this will significantly increase the number. The new cell types are thus stimulated and quickly form again.

Unfortunately, there is another special feature of the planarians, because some can also reproduce in terms of eggs. When fertilized, eggs are formed in hard cocoons with the female sex organ, which are then either dropped or attached to leaves of aquatic plants or furnishings. The planarians only seem to shed these egg cocoons at night, so you can't find them either. This also creates so-called permanent eggs, which are extremely robust against a wide variety of influences. Be it at colder water temperatures or also against certain chemical agents, they are extremely resistant. When the young hatch is mainly dependent on the water temperature. At 20 - 28 degrees this usually happens within a week. If the water is cold, these eggs can survive up to 4 months or more before hatching. Another challenge for us aquarists.

When planarians are ready to breed depends on the species. There are also differences here.

 

diet of the planaria

Let's come to a very special topic, because planarians are true survivors. They can go several months without food. The intermediate storage of food also works particularly well. In addition, they consume themselves as soon as the supplies are gone. As a result, planarians can even become smaller again and completely regress. It is said that they can shrink down to 1-2mm and can therefore survive for an extremely long time without any food. It is unclear how long it will take for them to die. In any case, this is not a way to fight the planaria, because they outlive almost all other animals in the aquarium. A starvation of the animals seems to be out.

One can therefore speak of real survivors. Even without food, they can survive for quite a long time and can also reproduce with the same sex. The permanent eggs give them another opportunity to reproduce, even if the animals are all dead, new ones can always hatch from the eggs. However, the lifespan of the planarians is quite different and ranges from a few weeks to several years.

 

What do planarians eat?

But what do the planarians eat anyway? Basically, their diet is well covered, because they can feed on various things such as bacteria or worms, snails, mosquito larvae or freshwater shrimp. Above all, however, they are dangerous for our shrimp or larvae, because they even eat young shrimp or older animals if they have recently skinned them. Even young fish can be victims of planarians.

Their digestive tract is just as special, because they have no intestinal outlet, but instead excrete non-digestible substances through the mouth.

 

Where do planarians come from?

Of course, one now asks the question where do these animals come from, or rather how do they get into the aquarium? There are different ways how planarians find their way into the aquarium. Be it through the introduction with the aquatic plants or in frozen food and live food, planarians can become established in the aquarium. There is also the possibility that they will stick to furnishings and thus get into the aquarium. The eggs can only stick somewhere and then hatch in the warm water.

Of course, it also depends on the species in your aquarium. Not all of them can multiply and introduce themselves in the same way. Again and again, however, we also read that they stick to snails and that's how they get into our aquariums.

 

Can be confused with other worms

It is also important to be careful if you mix it up with other worms. There are a few more worms in aquaristics, which you can always find in the aquarium. These include bristle worms and leeches. It is usually difficult to separate and keep them apart at a young stage. Nevertheless, they can be recognized primarily by their locomotion. Flukes attach themselves in front and behind and crawl in a completely different way. The locomotion of the bristleworms is also different. One should therefore take a close look when determining the planaria. If you are not sure, please send us pictures to kontakt (@) aquaristik.org and we will help you to determine.

How do I fight planarians?

Now we come to the crucial point, because how do I fight these animals now?

If you have read everything carefully so far, then you should quickly get the idea that it will not be easy to be able to do anything at all against the planarians. It's really not easy to get rid of these animals, because if you see a few, there are already hundreds in the tank. Planaria hide quite well. Be it in the substrate or in the last crack of the aquarium. If you think when you see some that there aren't any more, you're making a big mistake here.

First we need to take a look at potential predators. Due to their special secretion and mucus, there are only a few fish that like to eat the planaria. You can basically only from Thread fishing or labyrinth fishing go out. Whether you can keep them in a shrimp tank is questionable. Not only because these are mostly nano aquariums, but because these fish would also attack the shrimp. So this possibility is already out of the question and is only used occasionally.[the_ad id=“1019″]

There would also be the possibility of starving the planarians if it is possible to get the other residents out of the tank. But this possibility is also ruled out if you know how long the planarians can survive without any food intake.

A fairly effective method is boiling water, but here too there must be no stock or water plants in the tank. If you pour boiling water on the animals, they die off quite quickly. In practice, however, this method is not easy to carry out either.

Another method that has already been successful in various tests is the reduction of the PH value. You can use carbonated mineral water for this. The animals don't tolerate this at all. Unfortunately, this is also difficult to do in practice with a fully stocked aquarium, because the fish would die accordingly.

Now we come to a possibility, which we find very good. We are talking about a so-called planarian trap, which can be bought in specialist shops. Basically, this is a tube where you place a bait inside, which is irresistible to the animals. You can usually use raw meat here, because the planarians particularly like proteins. Once they crawl into the tube, they can't get out. You can certainly remove some animals mechanically, but you won't have great success with that either. Be it because of the eggs that are still there. or because you can't catch all the animals. Nevertheless, the spread can at least be contained.

Here is an overview of the previous options:

 

 

But what really helps against planarians?

Basically, you only seem to have good success if you use the Chemical club against the planars. Unfortunately, this also has certain disadvantages, because the snails are usually particularly endangered and do not survive such treatment. In the meantime, there have been a number of tests and recommendations for the preparations. Opinions differ widely as far as effectiveness is concerned. In any case, you have to prefer multiple dosing, because new planarians can always hatch from the eggs that are still available. Therefore, one treatment is not enough. Depending on the preparation, there are a few days between treatments.

Let's look at the possible chemical preparations. Flubenol and flubendazole is one of them, whereby the snails in particular suffer from the treatment. This preparation is usually only available in pharmacies or in specialist shops. But you also have to be careful in the shrimp tank, because certain sterilities can occur here.

The preparation Panacur should also help to contain the planarians. This is an agent that is primarily responsible for deworming. Here, too, you will have to have this prescribed by a veterinarian, as it cannot be bought over the counter. Please ask for the exact dosage there.

No matter which preparation you work with, you should definitely pay attention to one thing, because all planarians will die with it. So suddenly you have a lot of organic waste in the water, which in turn can lead to problems with the water quality. That's why you have to vacuum up all residues well and also extensively Water change . perform

 

Chemicals against planaria

• flubenol
• panacur
• flubendazole

 

As you can see, it is difficult to get rid of planarians once they have spread through the aquarium. We recommend a mixture of mechanical removal using a planarian trap plus a trip to the vet. You are also welcome to get advice from experienced shrimp farmers in particular, because that is where the pests are particularly common.

 

Finally, we linked an interesting video that summarized everything nicely.