Worms in Substrate - Good or Bad?

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While moving one of my tanks, I noticed I have worms in my substrate. I knew there were some that came in on a bunch of floating plants (about 8 months ago or so), but I didn't realize they were still present. I only actually saw one, but I'm assuming there are more. It was about 3 or 4" long stretched out, and red. I believe it's a bloodworm, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I left it in there since I haven't had any obvious problems and I like biodiversity in my tanks (as long as it's not anything harmful). Now I'm wondering if I set myself up for future problems. I did have a problem with camallanus worms in the past, but that has been resolved and I know these aren't camallanus.

Does anyone else have worms in their substrate (that you know of)? Are they harmful, helpful, or neutral?
 
I think in this case it's a neutral. Worms are a negative if you over feed and have them crawling out of the substrate etc like many folks that over feed live foods.
There is little benefit except as..... well......food.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Sounds like a bloodworm. Do you have fish in the tank yet? If they don't eat it, than maybe it's something else.

I've had my 75 gal going for about a month, and I noticed a couple days ago little tubes in my substrate (flourite/sand) along the glass. They're maybe 0.5 mm wide, 1 cm long, sort of bent with one end reaching the surface. The substrate isn't very compacted, so they're not tunnels in the substrate but rather tubes made by some creature. Most appear to be vacant, but in a few I could see just barely a waving motion, like a worm was waving in the tube. At night I shined a flashlight on one and found a barely-visible worm partly sticking out of the tube. I just did some searching on the web but couldn't find anything that referred to freshwater worms making tubes. I assume it's probably not parasitic (I expect someone would be alerting people to it if it was) - hopefully it will actually help filter the water. I also am for having an aquarium diverse in microscopic organisms - that's why I'm not anal about vacuuming my substrate - I like the look of mulm and feel it's good for my plants and fish.
 
I definitely don't have an infestation of them, and I don't overfeed so hopefully it won't become a problem in the future. I thought maybe it would be beneficial to have just a few in there, like having worms in a garden. Neutral is fine with me though.

Yes the tank is stocked with fish, but the worms never seem to appear on the surface of the substrate so it's not likely they'd get eaten. Also, the only fish in there big enough to eat them (at least the big ones like the one I saw) would be my honey gouramis, and I'm not sure if they'd bother with them or not.

Biotoper - try a search for "planaria". I've never had planaria in my tanks, but from what I've read about it this may be what you're seeing.
 
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