Oscar tank maybe in trouble

Question
Hey Ron,

Matt again from Electric Guitars.  Tonight while feeding my Oscars, I happened to notice what I thought to be water micro bubbles on the sides of my tank, and I thought to myself, "I haven't seen this before this many days after a water change..."  so I looked closer and to be honest I am somewhat scared for my fish.

All over the sides of my tank are very small, 1-2mm white things that for lack of knowing any better, I'll call worms.  I am assuming that these are parasites, since they remind me of Bird mites that I've seen on discovery channel, of all places.  I've also now taken notice to some white wounds on the smaller of the two Oscars that I have. I had assumed earlier this week that they were from the recent fighting that my fish have been doing, but now I find myself wondering if these worm creatures have anything to do with it.

Please clear me up on exactly what I'm looking at and let me know what I can do to get rid of them if I'm correct in assuming that they are bad news.

Answer
Hi Matt,
  They are worms, but they are not parasites. Basically they feed off excess nutrients in the tank.  They are always present but when you see them in large numbers that tells you that you need to do substantially more water changes (more volume and/or more frequent).  For oscars in particular, I strongly recommend changing 25% of the water once a week, EVERY week.   

 In the short term, do a 25% water change 3 days in a row and I bet the number of worms will go dramatically down.  I DO NOT recommend treating them with some sort of medicine.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>