Tiny white worms

[Louise02]

My daughter's shrimp tank has tiny white worms on the glass.  What are they?  Do I care?

[Louise02]

They are very thin and not quite an inch long.

[Lynaea]

They are probably detritus worms, they shouldn’t cause any issues as long as you don’t overfeed. 

[AtomicSunfish]

On 9/18/2024 at 11:28 PM, Louise02 said:

They are very thin and not quite an inch long.

Yes, they’re likely detritus worms (family Naididae). A certain low number of them is normal in any aquarium; they are part of the natural community of small organisms that live in the gravel. However, their numbers can go up for a few reasons:

1) Letting detritus accumulate over time, which feeds the detritus worms,

2) Overfeeding, which speeds this process up,

3) Not having any predators of detritus worms (ie - fish) to keep their numbers down.

If they become abundant enough, you can see them out of the gravel (often at night, dusk or dawn, or when it’s dark, but not exclusively). Although themselves harmless, in numbers they can be an indicator of too much detritus in the tank (plus they’re unsightly). In that case, gravel vac to remove detritus, and maybe feed less. You may also want to introduce small fish (compatible with your shrimp) to prey on them.

Edited 13 hours ago by AtomicSunfish

[AtomicSunfish]

On 9/18/2024 at 11:28 PM, Louise02 said:

They are very thin and not quite an inch long.

Note - If they’re thin, then yes, they’re probably just detritus worms. However, if they were flatter then they could be planarians (Turbellaria), which would be a bigger problem, because some can be predatory on small aquarium animals, especially shrimp. Plus they’re even yuckier than detritus worms 😁 

Again, either way, good aquarium hygiene should get you sorted out.