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They can also gather in your filters so that you see big clouds of them flood out when you start the filter up again after a water change. You might also see a bunch of them stuck on the glass, forming a ring near the water’s surface. They look like tiny pieces of thread that just randomly wiggle around. Little white squiggly worms floating around in your aquarium. They stick part of their bodies out of the gravel because there’s not enough available oxygen in the substrate and they’re trying to breathe. You’ll see this behavior because the worms are so overpopulated that their huge numbers have reduced the oxygen levels in the tank. Sometimes, you’ll see them sticking half of their bodies out of the gravel in a big group, like a shag carpet made of worms. Or you could see big pockets of them squirming around. You may only see one or two moving around in your substrate. They move around in the same way an earthworm does. White, gray or red-brown worms in the gravel or plant substrate. They’re actually a good thing in small numbers because they help break down wastes.īut, if you have a lot of available food all over your tank, suddenly you can get a population explosion and the tank starts to look like a worm farm. They hang out in the background, eating leftover fish food and poop. Normally, every tank has a few of these little creepy crawlies. In fact, some species of fish will gladly munch on these worms as a tasty snack. Most of them are Annelids, meaning they’re a segmented worm in the same family as earthworms.ĭetritus worms can be gross and annoying, but they don’t actually harm fish. There are several species of worms that fall under the common name of “detritus worms.”
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Where in the tank – substrate, glass or water column.Body shape – flat-bodied, rounded, head shape, etc.
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