Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They grow in the mud of ponds.
Must purge them in clear water for 24h before feeding the fish if you don't know where they come from, if you do just rince them out a bit to let them get the mud they have in the intestin out.

kp, it could be a sign that there is too much detritus in you sump tank. as Amacafish points out they grow in mud. just a thought.

There aren't that many... I suspect they are coming in from the pond. I will readily accept that there is detritus in the bottom of that. Always has been. I've been meaning to fix it for a while, but it's a difficult sized volume to drain.
The goldfish in there love it.

That's what I've got - the mystery is solved. To think I first started wonderring about this in July 2006 :-). We've ben going for a while hey. I squashed a whole heap tonight. The barra don't eat them - so they will breed up in the barra tank no doubt :-)

you can buy them frozen in aquarium shops. they are used as feed to assist in the breeding of aquarium fish.

i remember feeding them to fighting fish at tafe. they ripped them to pieces.

an interesting animal to say the least.

I had planaria (white hair sized thin worms) in my fish tank.
So it is okay to have planaria in the fish tank? I thought it would potentially harm fish if they eat them or reproduce a lot inside of the tank.

As long as the planaria are not parasitic I can not imagine them harming the fish....and might be a source of food.

If they reproduced too much, I suppose it is possible that they might be a large source of ammonia or otherwise reduce water quality, but their total mass would need to be large, at least 50% of the mass of the fish.

Note: this is based on first principles, not on extensive knowledge of planaria in general or your species in particular.