Worms breeding in my tank

[Ranger]

Hey All

I have a large 150 litre axolotl tank with 3 axies in it. I turn my filter off at night so it dosnt keep me awake at night. The other day when I turned the filter on a ton of live, living, moving little white wormies came shooting out all throuhg my tank. Ive had them before but never in this number. Last time i clean it out and the tank was sweet. how do i Kill these things without damaging the axies skin? A actual product name would be helpful because i can order it through my work but at the moment i dont know what to do about them. Any help is appreciated
Thanks

 

[Greatwtehunter]

Are they threadworms and also what are your water parameters?

 

[Ranger]

Do you mean ph when you sa Parametres? the ph is 7.0 or neutral but i dont have a test kit for amonia or anything. Im not sure whet they are. they are about 1 centimetre long, white and extremely skinny.

 

[Darkmaverick]

Hi Ranger,

Testing for water parameters are a vital step for tank maintenance. I would recommend you invest in a colourimetric solution test kit that tests for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. High ammonia and nitrites in particular can cause toxicity and chemical trauma to your axies if left undetected and not removed.

Cheers.

 

[Kerry1968]

Another point to note is that turning your filter off every night is no good for the bacteria that keeps your tank in order. The good bacteria in your filter need oxygen to survive, turning off your filter starves them of oxygen.

 

[Azhael]

Very true...if a filter is not running constantly then it´s nothing more than a fancy device to annoy caudates. For it to serve it´s purpose it needs a contant flow of oxygen.

 

[Ranger]

ok fair enough but waht about these little worm thingies?

 

[Azhael]

The worms might be some kind of nematode. Most if not all stablished tanks have various types of microinvertebrates which includes Cyclops, ostracods, nematodes, planaria, plus many types of protozoans. This is normal, and even healthy.
If they explode in numbers then the most likely factor is that you are not maintaining a proper cleaning schedule. Uneaten food and feces are eaten by these organisms, and if there is an "extra" of food, they flourish. Make sure you keep your tank clean of debrish and the worms should go back to normal numbers.

 

[Jennewt]

See:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Tank_critters.shtml

As Azhael said, the key is probably just to keep the debris cleaned out better. What is your "protocol" for tank maintenance? In other words, on a weekly basis, how much water do you remove? What tool (i.e., what kind of siphon or other equipment) do you use to remove dirt? How often? What kind of substrate (i.e., sand, gravel, pebbles, bare) is on the bottom of the tank?

It is not necessary to "kill" the worm thingies. They are harmless to the axolotl. But it is important to address the tank maintenance issues that led to this problem, or they will just keep coming back. And it is better NOT to completely tear apart the tank and start over, this is stressful to the axolotls and unnecessary.

 

[Ranger]

Ok it is a relief to know that the worms arnt doing any harm. I have cleaned out the filters in the tank and have done a water change including siphoning the sand. I will leave the filter going at night with a towel over top to try muffle the noise a bit. From now on I'll do water changes at least once a week. Normaly i dont have to worry about cleaning up uneaten food as the consume every morsal. And thier poop gets sucked into the filter but i dont know what goes on in the sand so i will stir that up every few days so any debis goes into the filter.

thanks for all your help