# Planaria Attack- Warning: Graphic pic



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

As most of you know, I have multiple tanks set up, so I suppose it was bound to happen at one point or another that I would get planaria in one of my tanks.

The good news- Only one tank out of 30+ has planaria, and it has happened within the last 30 days or so, so I should be able to nip it in the bud. My meds arrive tomorrow.

The bad news- It happened in my Nessie tank.

I'm glad I ordered the meds. Several posts on here says they won't attack shrimp. I was really hoping that was correct since this was my first ever tank to have it since I began shrimping.

Unfortunately, this (for me anyway) turned out to be false info and yesterday I saw one of my best Nessie shrimp not yet dead attacked by planaria. For the doubting Thomas, I took pics before disposing of the body/worms on it.

















I just hope no more of my Nessies die when I dose the meds. I'm going to use fenbedazole, and maybe dose a little less than recommended.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Dont dose less than recommended, there's no reason to. It is safe for shrimp, but not for planaria. Also, planaria are harder to get all of them with one dose. So dose .1 grams per 10 gallons, and do it again three days after the first dose.


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## Duck5003 (Oct 1, 2012)

What a shame, at least you caught it though before it turned into "why are all of my shrimp disappearing." You know, i've been noticing a lower baby survival rate in one of my tanks and havent been able to figure it out, i'm wondering if planaria could be the culprit? Was the attack the first you noticed them, or is there a sure fire way to tell? Be sure to let us know how it turns out, makes me want to treat my tank just in case!


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## fermentedhiker (Oct 28, 2011)

Part of the reason why some people have different experiences with planaria and shrimp in the same tank could be a matter of what species they have had show up. I had a 20L setup as a "pond" tank for a couple of years. It had seed shrimp, MTS, pond snail, scuds, yellow Neos, thai microcrabs, freshwater isopods, blackworms, and brown, black, and white planaria. I never once saw a planaria on a live shrimp. But after the first year only the white planaria were left(the brown and black were apparently outcompeted......or eaten). They are live prey eaters exclusively, so it would seem they could pose a direct threat to shrimp(even though I never saw it) while the brown and the black are just as happy to be scavengers. I will say that they had zero impact on the scud/seed shrimp population(I only wished I could find something that would've eaten seed shrimp and not anything else in that tank


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## shrimpzoo (Sep 27, 2011)

Don't dose even a little less than the recommended 

Show no mercy! Good luck with your situation.

They'll generally head into the substrate to "flee" from the medication so you'll want to dose like mordalphus said again after 3 days.


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## Dolfan (Apr 8, 2005)

Sorry to hear about your outbreak Soothing. I'm sure you have read this before, it's not like a newb like myself could give you any advice, haha but for anyone else that was wanting info, here is the link from planetinverts.com about using fenbedazole (dewormer) to treat planaria. It helped me out a few months back.....

http://planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html

Good luck with your treatment, and I'm sure they will be back to normal before you know it.


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## jimmytruong87 (Oct 16, 2012)

You can buy " No planaria " from eBay. It works well


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## auban (Jun 23, 2012)

how many planaria are on the shrimp in that pic?


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## GreenBliss (Mar 7, 2012)

Damn poor thing. Sorry to hear about this. Is one of those planaria huge or are those many of them? 

More paranoid of the worms in my 18g. I'm always keeping an eye on them just in case they turn out to be planaria. Haven't seen a decline of shrimp/shrimplets.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

One neutralized the prey and then others "swarmed." Not pretty.

And Dolfan, I appreciate the link. I knew others had gotten them, but I've never had to deal with it before. So, yeah- I'm a newbie at planaria.

You know, I've dosed tanks with panacur before and lost shrimp. Hopefully it won't happen this time. I'm very gunshy from my experiences in the past.


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## DoubleT (Apr 18, 2012)

While waiting for the meds you should make a DIY trap out of test kit test tube and airline(bait it with some bloodworms) and get a head start on those suckers.


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

that is a cool idea. i think as far as my accounts have been concerned i dont think i had that type of planaria. there are other flat worms that are called planaria and i think that might have been what i had as they never went for shrimp. i wish you the best man. never fun. i am shrimpless at the moment as i lost the few i had left when i moved. they got to warm and cooked in the car ( no ac in the car)


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## sayurasem (Jun 17, 2011)

DoubleT your a genius!


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Thank you, DoubleT. Supposedly the meds are arriving today. I think I'm going to remove the shrimp I can find to a container for the next few days, then dose. That way if I lose any shrimp, it will be minimal.


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## jmhk (May 3, 2013)

Hopefully you have good luck with the fenbendazole on your nessies. I had to dose my tank one week ago when I saw some hydra. Of the 35+ rili and malawa I got from you, I only saw one fatality - one of the peewees died about 4 days after I dosed. The rest are doing great; about 8 of the rili are showing saddles already and pushing the ottos out of the food dish. And I don't see any hydra....


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

That gives me hope. Thanks jmhk.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

OKay. Decided to leave the shrimp in. Just did the first dose. Die Nazi Planaria! DIE!


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Oh, when I dose 3 days later, do I do a water change before the 2nd dose?


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

I do, but I don't think its necessary.

I change water on the third day and dose with the new water.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Thank you, suh.


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## auban (Jun 23, 2012)

do the planaria in your tank move like an inchworm or more like a slug?

the reason i ask is because i had some leaches a while ago that stayed small and white, and looked a lot like planaria. the biggest difference was that they inched along instead of gliding like a snail. they DID go after shrimp... 

either way, the same medication will kill them.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

These just slug along. White, triangle head, etc. I've had my lights off since medicating yesterday. 

Looked this morning and all shrimp including babies are alive. YAY! 

I do see one big planaria still trailing on the glass as if no cares at all, and one is frozen on the glass. I don't see others though.

When do I add meds again? Tomorrow or Friday?


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

i would say friday. tue-wed (day 1) wed-thurs (day 2) and thurs- fri (day 3)


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

OKay, Friday it is. I see lots of planaria on the glass today, but they are shrunken in size, triangles are retracted and rounded, and they look frozen in their places.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

You can speed thingsup by swiping those ones with a paper towel or aalgae scraper.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Also keep an eye on ammonia levels, they might spike with all the dying planaria


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Well this is a little disheartening. I turned on the light in my tank and I saw at least 2 planaria doing just fine and slithering along the wall. *sigh*


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## stealthypotatoes (Feb 2, 2013)

I also used what DoubleT made. 
I make these and sell them. If you want any just PM me


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## Nemue (Apr 27, 2013)

I recently had to treat my tank with fenbendazol, got some planaria 0 just in case of a thing like this happening. Give them no mercy Soothing, no mercy!


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

I hear ya Nemue! I looked today and I saw 3 planaria slithering, while a large portion were frozen on the glass in an oval shape.

I decided not to even remove water as if there's any old med left, maybe it will add to the % of med in the water.

I'm hoping this nightmare will be done with after this treatment. We'll see if I need to dose again...


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Just a small update. I no longer see planaria and most shrimp survived. I lost a few babies, but everyone else survived, so I'm good.


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## I<3<*))))>< (Jun 10, 2013)

Yay Im glad you seemed to beat them! Sorry to hear about the shrimplets that didn't make it, but look at it this way. If you didn't treat your tank you would have lost way more in the end.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Absolutely. Thanks.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

So, for the benefit of us in the future, what'd you end up doing? You kept dosing or you came up with traps? Because the previous post was that you still saw some gliding along ..


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

Yes, it will be great if you could recap what you've done so far. Do you think some planaria might have a chance to survive the dosing by hiding deep in the substrate? How about their eggs? Will the med wipe the eggs out too? Or, need to wait for any left over eggs to hatch and then dose again?


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Okay, so a real quick recap. I bought some Fish Bendazole on the net.

The container came with 3 packets in it. Each packet held 250mg.

I poured out the powder from a single pouch onto glass and using a razor blade, split the powder into roughly two equal halves. This gave me roughly 125mg to use to dose my tank with.

I used a small container, scooped some water from my 10g tank and mixed the 125mg powder with the water, then poured it into my tank, and turned off the light since it is light sensitive.

I waited three days. Most planaria gone, but I still saw some occasional ones on the glass. I then dosed a 2nd time without any water change figuring if the planaria that survived were strong enough to survive the first dose, then any powder still active combined with the 2nd dose would be stronger yet and knock them out.

The 2nd dose did it. After three days I didn't see anymore planaria and did a 20% water change.
---
An interesting side note, I had a 10g project tank that I noticed a good amount of hydra in and used a quarter of a packet. ~63mg and the hydra have retracted their tentacles and have turned into little balls. Still waiting on a final verdict, but it's nice to know the packets can be stretched out if needed.


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

I looked up on Amazon.com, each Fish Bendazole 250mg package contains 100% or 250mg Fenbendazole (Could you pls verify this?). So, you were dosing 125mg Fenbendazole for your 10G tank on day 1 and then dose the same amount again 3 days later.

However, from an earlier link: http://www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html
This person was dosing 22.2mg of Fenbendazole on day 1 and then another 22.2mg on day 2 evening (~36 hours away), also on a 10G shrimp tank.

I wonder if you lower your dose and it still be effective.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Yes, that's right. 125mg is .125g, which is close to .1g which is the recommended dose.

22.2mg would be ~.02g . Beats me if it is still effective at that dose for planaria. My concern would be if it made med resistant planaria.


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

med resistant planaria? That is a good question and I hope not. Then, I probably agree to use the max dosing qty (that the shrimps could still tolerate without casualty) as a sure way to exterminate the planaria all at once.

Do u see any shrimps eating the death planaria? If not, I wonder how much the ammonia level goes up in your 10g tank as a aftermath....


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Ammonia level is a good question, however I didn't really test. Didn't see any shrimp eating the dead planaria, but doesn't mean it didn't happen. heh I do have snails that will eat just about anything except live plants though.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

~63mg for 10g and all hydra gone.


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

I am going to dose ~50mg for my 10g (with 100+ red cherries & shrimplets and 5 Otocinclus). I see planaria but no hydra and this is the only tank I have this problem. The planaria must come from the algae wafers, the only food I ever use for this tank only. I didn't introduce any new plant into this tank. All plants already growing there were setup almost a year ago. It must be from the food. Absolutely no other way.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Derek, I'm pretty convinced that my troubles came from the manufacturer of a food as well. I'm back to Jake since I've never had any problems with his sticks.


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## Shrimpfreak (Jan 19, 2013)

It is hard to tell for the picture what they look like do they swim like snakes?


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Slither on the glass, substrate, plants like slugs


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Derek1126 said:


> I am going to dose ~50mg for my 10g (with ...planaria... .


What were the results?


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

1st dose of 50mg was administrated on Thu night. I relocated my nerite snails to a refuge tank before doing so (probably not necessary but just play safe). I also collected a few planaria off the glass and placed them in a clear plastic cup with the med water from the tank for observation. 

I checked the tank 24 hrs later on Friday night and everything looked normal. The water is clear. Shrimps / berried mothers / babies / Otos were all doing fine and seemed nothing ever happened, except I couldn't find any planaria in the tank. They usually come out during feeding but no planaria shows up this time......Nada.

I checked those I collected in the plastic cup and they all curl up.....almost dead but could still expand and retract their bodies if disturbing them with a toothpick. They lost the mobility for sure.

That is encouraging!!! And, absolutely no mercy.....so, I add another 50mg to the tank on Fri night. When I turn the light back on tonight (Sat), all my shrimps are still there.....happy and no sign of distress whatsoever. 
I did a 10% WC and vacuum the bottom around the lava rock area that I usually could suck up quite a few planaria but found none this time. They are simply gone.

I go back to the plastic cup. Most are dead now except one still trying to hang on. Those dead ones turn into a sticky lump and start to melt away.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Thanks for the update.


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## Derek1126 (Jan 21, 2013)

The last planaria finally died in the plastic cup. This super dude lasted 4 full days with the med. It does take a course of several days or a week to wipe them out. So I would recommend (if the shrimps show no sign of distress) to delay the WC (or just 10% or less) to allow the med to take down the last toughest one.


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