Planaria

[TJ]

Natural congregation of planaria on the side of a tank housing Paramesotriton caudopunctatus:

 

[TJ]

 

[TJ]

 

[TJ]

 

[kaysie]

supplimental food source

 

[pamela]

They remind me of the controversial martian microbes!

Are they a good food source for newts?

(As usual Tim, GREAT pics.)

 

[edward]

Hmm, looking for a newt egg lunch.....

 

[benjamin]

I used to have some blue planarians in my C.o. tank. if the newts didn't get to their food fast enough it it would be writhing with these clearish, blueish worms. They were quite large almost 1cm but I have some huge brown ones in my pond which are about 2 cm. How large are the planaria in your aquarium?

 

[TJ]

I actually haven't witnessed the caudos eating planaria. I figure that if they do eat them, there would not be so many in this particular tank. They even seem to avoid the bloodworms that are taken over by the planaria. There are many more planaria than can be seen in the above pics, mostly in the gravel.

I've played with the idea of introducing danios to get rid of the planaria. I'd first have to look into temperature tolerance for the different danio species. But I'll be moving in December anyway, so that would be a good time to transfer the newts to a new tank and leave this one to dry out.

Pamela, thanks! Ed, no worries on that score as I haven't been blessed with the same good fortune as Paris. Benjamin, the biggest are around 1 cm, I guess.

 

[joseph]

Tim: mind doing an experiment of slitting the head or tail of one of them in two lengthwise with a razor? Apparently, you end up with a 2 headed or 2 tailed planaria. hehehe

Wonder if you coukd get 4,8, 16....

(Message edited by fishkeeper on November 09, 2004)

 

[TJ]

I'll leave that kind of experimentation to the slicers-and-dicers among us, of which there are many

 

[kaysie]

Tim's not a cutter. He's a hippy worm hugger.

 

[jesper]

Oh, a little bird whispered something about Tim thinking about starting to use worms....