Land planaria in planted tanks: threat to inverts?

[catboyeuthanasia]

Howdy y'all, I've been seeing a couple small land planaria pop up in my planted velvet worm tank. I can't ID them for certain, but they could be Rhynchodemus sylvaticus or Microplana terrestris. They are certainly land planaria, with their swinging pointy heads.

I was wondering if anyone has any information about dealing with these or if these will hurt velvet worms. I've checked dendroboards, which states that they eat fruit flies and springtails. Someone here has posted a video of Rhynchodemus sylvaticus taking down a sac spider, which is frankly horrifying since that thing was as big as a sling. I'm also worried about my schizomids, who I put in with the velvet worms to control springtails.

I don't have a picture, but the worm was about 3mm resting, 10mm stretched, light grey/beige in colour. I haven't seen it eating any microfauna, but it was sitting on a cricket carcass that the velvet worms finished with. I dropped a fresh cricket in and the planaria did not touch it. They also didn't seem to show any interest in isopods.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Howdy y'all, I've been seeing a couple small land planaria pop up in my planted velvet worm tank. I can't ID them for certain, but they could be Rhynchodemus sylvaticus or Microplana terrestris. They are certainly land planaria, with their swinging pointy heads.

I was wondering if anyone has any information about dealing with these or if these will hurt velvet worms. I've checked dendroboards, which states that they eat fruit flies and springtails. Someone here has posted a video of Rhynchodemus sylvaticus taking down a sac spider, which is frankly horrifying since that thing was as big as a sling. I'm also worried about my schizomids, who I put in with the velvet worms to control springtails.

I don't have a picture, but the worm was about 3mm resting, 10mm stretched, light grey/beige in colour. I haven't seen it eating any microfauna, but it was sitting on a cricket carcass that the velvet worms finished with. I dropped a fresh cricket in and the planaria did not touch it. They also didn't seem to show any interest in isopods.

Definitely creepy looking like a hammer head worm.. I find this looking them up

Land planarians are carnivorous and most species are active predators, but some are mainly scavengers.

 

[catboyeuthanasia]

Definitely creepy looking like a hammer head worm.. I find this looking them up

Land planarians are carnivorous and most species are active predators, but some are mainly scavengers.

Luckily not a hammerhead worm, but a smaller native(?) species. I just hope that these are scavengers and not predators. I've got the same ones in my dart frogs and they haven't eaten all the springtails. Never seen them eat anything except for dead crickets, but I don't trust them.

Another reason not to do bioactive unless you have to.

 

[catboyeuthanasia]

Update on this: the planarians have not gone after isopods or velvet worm babies to my knowledge. I haven't seen them go after schizomids I have in there either, and I still have quite a population of schizomids

In fact, these worms disappeared to be replaced by a bunch of glass snails (family Oxychilidae). I put some in a container with a snail, and the snail was the only one left the day after, so I can only assume it ate them. Didn't know land planaria had any predators that are not other land planaria, but I'm happy that these little snails are bringing them down.

I've seen my second velvet worm baby since moving enclosures, and am cautiously optimistic. All this pest control and tank cycling reminds me a lot of reef keeping.

 

[gzophia]

Wow, a velvet worm tank with schizomids! Such interesting organisms.
I kept all kinds of planaria for a while as cultures, and although I don't know much about their predatory behavior, I will say that they can eat animal eggs and/or small juveniles
It's good that they are gone now, though. Snails can be vicious predators when they get the opportunity.

 

[The Snark]

Just make sure they aren't Bipalium. Deadly toxin on the hoof.

 

[catboyeuthanasia]

Wow, a velvet worm tank with schizomids! Such interesting organisms.
I kept all kinds of planaria for a while as cultures, and although I don't know much about their predatory behavior, I will say that they can eat animal eggs and/or small juveniles
It's good that they are gone now, though. Snails can be vicious predators when they get the opportunity.

I'd love to pick your brain about planaria facts that you've picked up while keeping them! Such elusive understudied animals. If they werent potential predators of baby onychophora, I would be happy to culture these guys by themselves.

Just make sure they aren't Bipalium. Deadly toxin on the hoof.

Luckily not these guys. If they were, I would have much bigger problems to deal with (like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency!). TTX can kill me, but so can angry farmer neighbours! Speaking of TTX, I have been feeding some of the planaria I've caught to my pea puffers, and they've been loving them.

 

[gzophia]

Sure, if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask. I was pretty young back then, but I do still remember some things.
Definitely! There's much more to them than regeneration, which is what most people know them for.

 

[catboyeuthanasia]

Sure, if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask. I was pretty young back then, but I do still remember some things.
Definitely! There's much more to them than regeneration, which is what most people know them for.

I Might want to start a new planaria thread, but what species did you keep? What was their reproduction like?

I know some land species can clip off their tails to reproduce asexually, but some aquatic ones have really crazy mating rituals like "fencing".