flat worms

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cobyb

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 9, 2010
Messages
102
Location
federal way wa
well it appears that i have flat worm, i first noticed them in my breeding tank and didn't know what they were so i didn't think much of it. well today i noticed that what ever they were, now were in ny main tank. i googled reef aquarium pest's and sure enough flat worms are what i have, and before i google solutions for it i would like to get your opions on the best way to get rid of them.
thanks a lot
coby
 
One important thing will be to properly ID what kind of flatworms you have. If they're Acro Eating Flat worms, they can be a scourge!

If they're Red Planaria, they really aren't that big of a deal, though they reproduce quickly and CAN reproduce to the extent that they can COVER your corals, not allowing the corals to receive enough light. The only other time that they cause problems, is when people treat them, chemically, without realizing that the dead release toxins.

If you have a small population, manual removal is the best option, along with increasing flow. They don't like high flow. A lot of wrasses will consume them, such as Melanarious and/or 6 lined wrasses. You can siphon them out, rather easily and they'll tend to congregate in low flow areas.

When considering if you have a small population or not, keep in mind that there are usually MANY MORE than you actually see.

Salifert Flatworm Exit works great and is reef safe. However, read the directions very well. You can triple the suggested dosage, without any problems at all.

The MOST important things to consider are:

Flatworms become toxic, when they die. There's many many more than you see. If too many are left in your tank, dead, their toxin can crash your tank. For this reason, it's CRITICAL to remove as many as you can, by siphoning them out, BEFORE you treat. When you treat, they'll start dying, almost immediately. They'll be floating all over the water column. Use a brine shrimp net, to scoop them out, as they're floating around. Use a turkey baster or power head, to blow all of your rocks off. This will suspend any dead worms that are in the rocks.

Again, the MOST CRITICAL aspect of treating for flatworms is to remove as many as you can, before treating and then to remove as many dead ones as you can, during and after treatment.
 
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Blue velvet Nudibranch did the trick for me Also upping the flow in the tank, I haven't seen a flatworm since I did both those things in over 4 months.

Be careful with the flatworm X, it works but like was said before if you kill too many flatworms at once you may nuke your tank.

Steve
 
When I dose Flatworm eXit by Salifert, I usually do a couple of doses a couple of weeks apart. I've had to dose in the past because of the brown flatworms and just dosed a couple of weeks ago due to one of my tanks having the red flat worms (Red Planaria) as ReturnofSid mentioned. Just be sure to run a good quality carbon and get a large WC ready.
 
Like Sid mentioned, bump up the flow if at all possible, but they will probably congregate to another low flow area. I tried the blue velvet nudi, but they don't hold on very well in high flow and can get sucked into powerheads easily. I lost a couple that way.

Flatworm exit is ok, but you have to siphon them out as they die so they don't poison your tank.

IMO, the best solution is more water changes in order to keep the nutrients down and manual removal (siphoning). This was the way I eventually got rid of them.
 

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