white worms: friend or foe?

[dilandau]

so i have had my shrimp since April and only today have noticed these extremely tiny little white worms that can be mistaken for dust and particulates.
don't look like what larva shrimp or snails look like but they seem to be only interested in the algae so I'm not stressing out about it .....for now.
tried to take a video about it and hope its clear enough.

would like to know if this is a normal/ healthy organisms or pest.

thanks guy.

[Varanus]

They remind me of planaria I've seen in one of my freshwater tanks, but not sure if that's what these are.

[Mustafa]

Yes, they do look like tiny planaria, but planaria are supposed to be very sensitive to salt. Are they still in the tank?

[skylorvivo88]

woa thats interesting. I dont think iv ever seen that and it doesn't look like mosquito larva

[DrKirk]

They could be marine flatworms (either planarians or polyclads). There also are marine segmented worms, called polychaetes, and some of which are microscopic. In either case, they will present no problems.

[dilandau]

Yes, they do look like tiny planaria, but planaria are supposed to be very sensitive to salt. Are they still in the tank?

yep, they're still in the tank... and seem to be only found on the top 1/4 of the tank and like to feed on algae on the glass. i kept watch on them to see any interesting behavior and found that they can free swim around the tank.
i have tried to get more footage but they are sooooooo tiny that my camera can't really focus on them.
they are about 1/2 mm to 1mm at the longest.

[Mustafa]

Let us know how they fare in your tank. With the restricted food regime in Supershrimp tanks they shouldn't last too long or at least not grow in population size, but you never know. Did you use live rock or something? Trying to figure out how they may have been introduced.

[dilandau]

Let us know how they fare in your tank. With the restricted food regime in Supershrimp tanks they shouldn't last too long or at least not grow in population size, but you never know. Did you use live rock or something? Trying to figure out how they may have been introduced.

So, it’s been a while since I have first posted and A LOT has happened.
But first, to answer where the white worms may have come from:
I have no live rocks. I did get crushed coral but it was dry and the décor/ substrate was new.
I have 3 Marimo, 1 I have had as a “house plant” in a closed jar as parts of a terrarium for a long time and would have noticed worms if they had them and were not in a tank when I bought them. However, I had bought 2 of them in an aquarium shop that was housed with fish and have since had the chance to ask the people there about the worms. They were house with A) fresh water B) fish that would chow down on that kind of thing and C) all tanks have filters and are kept fairly clean so this was all new to a store that sells fresh/salt fish and invertebrates. But hey, this place sells a lot of exotic stuff so …. Maybe? Also, I did not have these one quarantine long enough to notice if it may or may not have had the worms.
another culprit may be a Cheeto! A bought one from the super shrimp website but I saw one in a pet store once and on a whim, I got it. I thought the more the merrier and gave it a good wash before putting it in the tank to be safe. I forgot where I got it.

and that’s it … if it was anything from the super shrimp website, by now there would be others with the same problems so it can’t be that.

now there has been an up date on the worms. I’m going to go WAY OFF TOPIC but this is relevant (I’m thinking of maybe posting this separately for others later IDK, tell me what you guys think)

so, I should mention that my tank was thriving! My shrimp were full with berries and when they hatched, I had larvae’s everywhere! And no sooner did they hatch that the females started to show with berries once again and if the surprises were not enough the I started to see a baby snail kicking around the place like it own the place. I only fed once a month and only 6 pellet.
Why? Algae.
But the worms eat algae….so guess what I start seeing more of? …. Worms! But no matter, they had a place and they didn’t bother the shrimp, larvae, or the snails and the tank seem to be looking like everything was perfect ecosystem.
I had some reno done I’m my room almost 1 month a half ago I had to move the tank around and the lighting changed. let me explain, I live in a basement apartment and I have almost no natural light so my tank has always mooched off the terrarium light source. But the light source has change to a pink grow light that was meant for plants because the light before this wasn’t doing too well. So, I thought the tank would go into over drive with this new fancy light ……GUYS…. THE TANK IS CRASHING…. The algae didn’t really die but it just stop growing, the females kicked off all the eggs and haven’t had any more, the larvae that didn’t have their first shed freakn’ died! The sails are so frantic, even getting stuck on the surface of the water looking for something to eat. And now my Marimo are showing signs of not liking it.

I haven’t seen the worms but this may cost me my tank! So now I’m off to remake a new light box just for my tank because i tossed the old one and this can’t go on.

ps. if you wondering what kind of light I had on this tank, it was 800 lumen LED light bulb from the supermarket in a Plug-In Socket on an extension cord I had laying around inside a macgyvered light box I made with cardboard lined with aluminum foil.

[Mustafa]

I had some reno done I’m my room almost 1 month a half ago...

*That* is probably the culprit. Just changing lights or even removing all lights won't cause a sudden die off like the one you're describing. Something got into your tank...be it toxic fumes or dust or chemicals during your renovation.

In any case, how are things going now? I hope you did a 80-90% water change immediately.

[dilandau]

*That* is probably the culprit. Just changing lights or even removing all lights won't cause a sudden die off like the one you're describing. Something got into your tank...be it toxic fumes or dust or chemicals during your renovation.

In any case, how are things going now? I hope you did a 80-90% water change immediately.

no, i did not do a water change. since my tank is just small enough to still be moved, it was re-located to a safe place till renovation was done and it had a permanent spot. it has always had a lid to protect against dust and cat hair.
also, I'm sure the light was the problem. for one, not only did the tank apocalypses happened after the light change but the light change only happened well after the room Reno was done with and when the tank relocated back into the room. this was partly due to the light being a pain and taking forever to mount and partly due to the light being mountable only after i had literally EVERYTHING ELSE moved in first.

secondly, I'm happy to report that immediately after my last post i place the exact same light system back on my tank and it almost changed overnight. it has been 2 months and algae has grown back but has had a bit a trouble due to a sudden burst of baby snails viciously mowing it all down, I'm happy to find that 4 juvenile shrimp have survived the whole thing out of the 20+ larvae who strait-up drop dead after the light change, and as of a week and a half ago i have a berried shrimp who has yet to kick off any eggs(Dec.29 edit: make that 2 berried shrimp). other then an army of snails ferociously keeping the algae from growing to its former glory, everybody seem happy again.

IDK man, maybe there is something highly irritating about the light?i mean i get my girls kicking off eggs if they're stressed but larvae dying? however, if the water was somehow contaminated then i don't think me changing back to the 800 lumen bulb should have worked at all. surprisingly the tank was not the only one to suffer, a few of my plants have not taken to the new light. some have loss all there flowers, grown strange, or have there growth stunted. i have had a pink light before but this is bizarre to me and I'm going to have to research this. so far the only thing that grows on this light are some air plants.
BTW this is the Costco grow light and i don't recommend for plant. its obviously somethings not right with it.

ps. haven't seen worms. don't recommend the apocalypses in order to get rid of them. but I'm still keeping my eyes out for them. (knock on wood)

[Mustafa]

The only thing I can think of is that your light is emitting enough UV radiation to affect the shrimp.

[dilandau]

The only thing I can think of is that your light is emitting enough UV radiation to affect the shrimp.

so i have done some research on this light in particular and on any related topics and found that as far as this light in particular this has had bad reviews.
so this light is actual garbage that has a high likelihood of getting its specs off. complaints are similar to mine for people who use it for indoor plants. people who use it for food production say that seeds will first sprout, get leggy, then shrivel and die shortly after.
as a far as related topic concerning this light and shrimp/aquatic tanks, there has been one comment asking if it could be done but there is non because no one has done this before! NO ONE! much less has a faulty pink lighting system.

thing is, i broke the cardinal rule on lighting system with plants of any kind... installed a system without any info on Lumen (and/or Kelvin). this is universally considered suuuuper sketchy. you need this info because regardless of the plant, in or out of water, they have requirements (you may see this a lot with aqua-scape people who pay for good lighting). however if the company is not confident in giving you that information on the box before you buy or anywhere else for that mater, then you may want to pass regardless of the sweet price. this company didn't have a website, only sold thru costco, and the review were %50. so now we know how to buy our lights.

so my algae were better off in the dark. what may have happened was that the light burned my algae so fast that the larvae starved to death. may be odd but this may also explain why only the ones that molted manage to live. while the adult and the juveniles may cope with a little famine, the larvae may be a bit too fragile. i also remember that they would not touch the pellets and since that was the only food in the tank at the time, they were screwed if they didn't eat that. i asked about it at the aquarium shop but i couldn't give them anything else other them more shrimp pellets and hope they ate.

so now i have more snails then i could have ever wanted , my juveniles have gotten so big, i have 4 berried shrimp (i guess the fourth doesn't really count cause she only has 2 eggs, lol) I'm hoping this run with my larvae goes better but I'm getting spooked into doing a water changed now that you mentioned it ... seriously, i will never recover from the sight of all my dead larvae at the bottom of the tank. but i'm not sure how to go about a water change for small shrimp, any links?

ps. so not a worm...like, at all. i have been keeping an eye out for them and it seems that i have gotten rid of them for now. (knock on wood)

[Mustafa]

Hmmm..interesting. Well, thanks for the additional info. I'm just glad the problem is gone.

[Varanus]

As far as I'm aware the larvae don't actually eat until they take on the form of tiny shrimp. However the larvae do seem more fragile/sensitive than the metamorphosed shrimp, so perhaps this plant-killing light did somehow cause them stress that led to their deaths.

[dilandau]

As far as I'm aware the larvae don't actually eat until they take on the form of tiny shrimp. However the larvae do seem more fragile/sensitive than the metamorphosed shrimp, so perhaps this plant-killing light did somehow cause them stress that led to their deaths.

may be? there is no info on this anywhere! no one has ever put on a malfunctioning pink grow light on a shrimp tank before. i had all my berried females kick off all there eggs and it was just the most bizarre thing to see.
i asked the aquarium shop that keeps and sells a wide variety of shrimp and they say that larvae do eat a little but when they do its mostly just the tank algae which is why i was thinking they could have starved but if a light can burn plants and stress adults shrimp like that then maybe... really messed up.

the white worms only ate algae and i was REALLY successful at growing it back when i had to cycle my tank, so when they got introduced somehow, they just went hog-wild. when the algae died so did they and i haven't seen them since and when you think about it , if some microscopic parasites couldn't make it, it's not necessarily surprising that my larvae didn't ether.