culturing/feeding Planaria (flatworms) to fish

S

stunt 101

1 fish, 2 fish, red fish, blue fish
Feb 18, 2004
203
0
0
36
Northern VA
Visit site
Back in 7th grade we had a lab that included elodea, crayfish, feeder guppies etc., basically it was about how an ecosystem works. anyways in the lab we fed the fish planaria. has anyone ever fed their fish these guys or cultured them successifully? I haven't heard about them besides that lab and wanted to know how they stood as a live food. thanx
 
Last edited:
I dont know anything about feeding planaria to fish, but we just studied them in my grade nine science class (biology unit) and if you cut their heads in half with a scalpel, the pieces will grow into two new heads (regeneration) and thats pretty cool
 
My experience wth planara (short term) is that some fish will eat them some don't even notice them. they are good at hiding in a tank, and will reproduce if your organic levels are high in a tank. When I don't get my maintenance done in time I see a lot more of them, but when I do my weekly's there are only ever one or two I can see when I disrupt the surface areas of the tank.
Not sure what would be the ideal way to culture them, or how much nutrition they provide.
Dave
 
how often will they reproduce? I've always thought they were neat since I studied them in HS, but have been afraid that they'd take over the tank like snails.
 
Just like snails, they tend to only reproduce to the available food level. and they don't seem as prolific as my snails as a rule. I have never seen more than 10 in my 115g tank at once, The biggest I've seen was probably 1 1/4" long or so. but by the same token, they are pretty much invisible unless I force them out into the open water so a true count would be difficult to impossible. In the guppy tank, every one I ever saw was eaten immediatly so Unless I import plants, there are none in the smaller tanks..
Dave
 
To me they mean the tank has excessive organics in the substrate. The color forms of the 3 Spot Gourami eat them (ditto nematodes and hydra), but to me they just mean pollution in tanks.
 
O.k. I'm hijacking a bit now, But I have to ask.
RTR When you say pollution, what exactly are we talking. my tank has a high level of organics, but the water parrameters are excellent to the point that I have to dose KNO3 to keep my nitrates at 5ppm depite a reasonably light plant load. I do a lot of cleaning because of my messy fish, and also have some pretty intense filtration going. The only thing I wish to improve upon right now is current in the tank, as almost all of my current is baffled very well. I have planara in the tank, but not many. when I run my algea sraper along the uper water area, there are always a few small worms swimming around after the turbulence. As said the FM will eat them, but doesn't hunt for them. Whenever it is brought Up that I may have a pollution issue, I look for more info. Sorry for the Hijack Stunt.
dave
 
By "pollution" here I mean organics. Some organic load in the substrate is inevitable, the gravel is well equiped with a full coat of biofilm, and we do count on that to some degree, but too much is symptomatic of possible future problems. High organic substrates (planted or unplanted) are time bombs exactly as are untended conventional UGs. Planaria and nematodes in numbers enough to be noticed by a casual observer are Sx of too heavy an organic load, as they eat the infusoria/bacteria resulting from that - as with snails, population explosions in macroscopic inverts generally means there are basic tank issues developing which need management.

The substrate can hide a lot of garbage - but the good news is that it generally serves as a nitrate sink as well while doing so. If you have to supplement NO3 you either are high light/high supplement & CO2, or you don't really have an issue yet. Heavily planted tanks being driven hard rarely show any water column nitrate beyond operator additions, even though the substrate may be going sour underneath.

Make sense?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom