I have Planaria!

[Aero]

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I need to find the most effective method  of dealing with this horrible outbreak without harming the other inhabitants of my tank?!
I have a happy and expanding colony of shrimp and a couple of Nerite snails. As well as eight Chilli Rasboras. I’ve seen the Rasboras take a couple of the smallest Planaria but the infestation is not bringing controlled by them and I’m losing shrimp to them and I’m afraid they might attack my snails too. I’ve done some research but the treatments I’ve found all seem to be harmful to the shrimp and snails. I’ve purchased some traps but they haven’t arrived yet. Aggghhhh they are horrible. 

[Guppysnail]

Unfortunately anything harmful to planaria is harmful to snails. They have similar body composition. 
You could quarantine your snails and use no planaria. I do not know how long no planaria will linger in substrate and such though. 
Quarantine snails  for at least 30 days past the last planaria sighting in the qt as the planaria can get up in the shell. 
For nerites veggies like cucumber and lettuce can replace the Natural algae/biofilm food source. They do not take quickly to it but will eat it vs starving. Also place an algae wafer in the qt.  The nerites won’t eat it but it will attract any planaria that made it into the qt tank  

 
Do lots of gravel vacuuming on the main tank and cut your feeding way back. Planaria thrive and overpopulate due to excess food. You may even try a shrimp food dish that suction cups to the wall so excess food does not lay in the substrate. 
Be sure to run Carbon after no planaria treatment and do lots of water changes to be sure the chemical is gone before you return the snails. The traps will never eliminate planaria just reduce numbers. 
 

Best of luck I hope this helps you out. 

[RockMongler]

My tanks have planaria.  

I use the traps occasionally when I see their population boom, but I still have a very successful colony of red cherry shrimp, and a lot of malaysian trumpet snails despite the planaria.  They are kinda gross, but I don't think they are something you necessarily need to kill off completely in your tank.  If you see lots of them, that should tell you that you are over feeding, and the food isn't all being eaten by the livestock you actually want to keep.

The planaria might be a symptom, not the cause of your shrimp having problems.  Also remember that there are many species of planaria, some of whom might be negative for your other livestock, but not necessarily.  I actually tend to see the number of planaria and the number of shrimp I see directly related to one another; the more shrimp I see, the more planaria I see, likely because of the amount of food that makes shrimp breed like bonkers will also have the same effect on other invertebrates.  I can easily see a dozen shrimp at any given moment, and maybe only a few times a week do I actually ever see the planaria after reducing my feeding and using traps to cull their numbers when they get populous enough.  Consider going for slower, safer methods than jumping immediately into chemical treatments.

[RockMongler]

As an addendum; Planaria is not a species name, it is a (I believe, my Taxonomy knowledge isn't that great) family level designation, so there are probably more species of planaria than probably anyone who posts on this forum knows about unless they are a specialist in studying them.  The ones I have in my tank might have that traditional arrow-head, but might not be a species that does do negative things to the livestock I keep, so my response might not be as great for people with a different species of planaria in their tank.  The planaria I've seen in my tank mostly appear to be eating the same food as I am feeding the fish/shrimp (When they eat a bunch of it, you can see the color of it in their digestive tract).

[Aero]

Thank you @Guppysnailand @RockMonglerfor your responses.

I ended up treating the tank with Genchem No Planaria successfully and haven't had a sighting or a loss of a shrimp since.

I took your advice and took the snails out as a precaution. I will return them at the end of the week after a 50% water change.

 

Aero

[Guppysnail]

On 12/1/2022 at 10:33 AM, RockMongler said:

so there are probably more species of planaria than probably anyone who posts on this forum knows about

As a kid we used to collect and keep groups of them because they are crazy cool to watch. Here are some photos I snagged from the web to illustrate your point of many types.