Inherited a 20g tank with planaria!!

[Liliana Araoz]

I hope I don’t make it too long to read… Sooo, someone gave me a 20 gallon guppy tank, broke it apart to bring it home, at the moment all guppies are in a 5 gallon bucket, and plants are in another bucket. As I was working on the tank at home (it still had one inch of water in it because there was a few fry I couldn’t scoop out) I saw a couple of planaria on the glass. (Photo attached)

So, I decided to give this tank a fresh fresh start and took all the substrate out and cleaned the tank completely, at the moment is clean and dry. BUT the guppies are at the moment in that 5g bucket with old water from the aquarium. I really don’t want to risk transferring planaria to my other tanks, as I have shrimp in several of them, so I wanna make sure and get rid of it. 

Aquarium co-op has this Expel-P (levamisole) med. and claims it treats for planaria, but reading in other websites, apparently levamisole doesn’t treat planaria. 

What should I do? Do you guys think there’s any chance I transfered planaria to the bucket?, should I treat the guppies in the bucket and then add them to the tank? What is your med of choice for planaria? Thanks in advance!

Edited December 28, 2022 by Liliana Araoz

[Guppysnail]

Hi new tanks are exciting. It’s always a bummer to have to deal with the issues that came with them. Praziquantel would be my go to. If you can’t find that fenbendazol. The praziquantel is a touch gentler on the fish from my experience. Hikari prazi pro is an easy to use liquid. Use an airstone on high while using any medication. 
For the plants using Reverse Respiration will disinfect your plants so no planaria or other not yet noticed critters are transferred. 
Place plants in plain seltzer water weighted down so they stay submerged. Place in the dark with no lid for 12 hours. Then place in aerated water. 
Hope this helps. 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Liliana Araoz]

Wow, interesting method for the plants, I never heard of it until now. Won’t be necessary for now though, as I resolved just throwing away the plants I got from this person, they weren’t many and I have same ones in my other tanks.