Treating with Flatworm Exit Tonight

[mungus]

I am going to treat my tank with flatworm exit tonight and thought I would post what I have done, what I am doing, and my results.

A little background: I have had flatworms for about 9 months now. In the beginning they were not that bad and I had them in check with naturally predation, siphoning and water flow. About 2 months ago my sixline wrasse (who gobbled the things up) jumped to his death. It is about this time that they got out of hand. I went on vacation and returned to a huge infestation. I have been fighting a losing battle ever since. My new sixline won't touch the things.

10/1/05 Siphoned the top layer of sand of all the visable worms. I believe that they extend down into the sandbed slightly so I also siphoned out a thin layer of sand. (found numerous worms there). I also siphoned as many off the rocks as possible. Change 30 gallons of water on a 85 gallon system.

10/2/05 I had a lot of worms visible on the sand again today. Siphoned all the sand once again. I noticed a lot of worms on a few particular rocks. I drained about 5 gallons of water from the tank into a 7 gallon bucket. I took out the rocks and swished them vigorously in the water. I would wait a few minutes in between rocks to let the worms settle to the bottom. I also installed a filter sock and basted all rocks with a turkey baster. I waited about an hour and removed the filter sock full of flatworms.

IMO it is necessary to siphon the worms over a few day, in a large infestation, before treatment. It asures you that you are getting all of the worms possible out of the tank before treating with FW exit. I think a lot of them are hiding in my sand bed and come out when the lights go on.

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully this will be of use to someone. Updates coming soon.

 

[qwiksilver]

I really hope the best for you. I did the same thing, but all my sps rtn'd afterward. My zoo's and clams and softies and one blue favia are ok, but all my acro colonies and such are dead. Good luck.

 

[bmtpfgh]

I have treated several times(different tanks)with no losses.I use a double dose,and then a double dose the following week.Blast your rocks with a turkey baster or a powerhead before you begin,and use plenty of carbon after.Be sure to siphon off the dead ones after treatment.

 

[Krish]

I hope you get rid of them mungus. I've been fortunate enough to never get anything like that in my tank, but I've seen what some bad worms can do. A friend of mine (who can lie pretty good when he gets well and ready) once told me that he use to loose fish like crazy and couldn't understand why when his waters parameters were perfect. So he decided to go look into his tank at night with a flashlight about an hour after the lights went off. What he said he found was a bunch of worms coming out of the sand and going into the fish! I don't know how true it is, but he says he must have gotten the worms when he added some sand he had gotten from the beach. The story doesn't really relate to your problem, but I thought I would share it anyway(LOL). How did you get the worms in your tank? Was it from LR you bought?

 

[mungus]

Krish I got the flatworms from a LFS on a piece of live rock. I had never even heard of flatworms before that. My wife thought I was crazy at first when I told her the few worms we had could be a problem in the future. Then she saw how they had taken over the tanks at the LFS. I told the manager of the store about the flatworms in his tanks and how mad I was about them selling stuff to people without letting them know about the potential danger. He obviously doesn't give a crap b/c they are all over his tanks. I quick ro dip before I put the rock in the tank would have saved me a ton of head aches.

 

[mungus]

Ok for the update.

10/04/05 Siphoned all visible flatworms on the rocks and sand. I used a turkey baster to blow worms I could not see off the rocks to be siphoned out. I had 20 gallons of water ready and a few bags of carbon. (broke my magnum 350 just before treatment) I removed the carbon from my sump and added twice the recommended dosage of FW Exit. The flatworms started dying right away. WOW what a lot of flatworms I didn't know I had. I siphoned off the dying worms right away and used the turkey baster again to blow the dying worms out of areas I could not get to. 35 mins into the procedure I added the bags of carbon to the sump. After about and 1 1/2 hours of siphoning I added the 20 gallons of saltwater to the tank.

10/05/05 I removed the carbon from the sump after 12 hour and replaced it will a much smaller amount of fresh carbon. As of today I have observed no death in the tank other than flatworms. All inverts and corals look good. The only thing I did notice is the asteria snails stopped moving for about 2 hours after treatment but they all look good this morning. It also appeared to have absolutely no effect on the pod population.

***cries a tear of joy and hands spongebob lover remainder of bottle*** :lol:

 

[spongebob lover]

lol !! woouu dood, good job .
well, i'll tell you how mine started krish, i wanted a puppy , but the husband was like no, we don't have space for that, so he went and bought me a fish tank, my reaction was like i can't believe people can keep this huge tanks (37 gals ), after months, he used to take care of the tank, but then he kept telling me that it was my tank and so he stopped changing the water and we let it go for about 3 weeks i believe, he didn't change the lights, etc. in a few words the tank looked pretty much like #$%& and that's how i got my flatworms , the end lol !!

mungus, where did you put your carbon, in the sump or did you just dump it in the tank?

 

[mungus]

I put the carbon in the highest flow area in my sump in 2 large mesh bags. It recommends that you use a canister filter to put the carbon in but I broke the latch on my mag 350 when trying to set it up. I bought a 4 litter bucket of carbon on clearance from premium aquatics I think it was only like $8.

 

[bmtpfgh]

mungus-don't forget to repeat the treatment in a week.I never had complete irradication without a follow-up treatment.

 

[Krish]

Glad to see things are getting better for your worm situation mungus. Good luck with getting rid of the rest of them and keeping everything else healthy and alive.

 

[spongebob lover]

that's a nice deal on carbon .
About the follow up treatment, do you do the same thing or do you lower the dose?

 

[mungus]

mungus-don't forget to repeat the treatment in a week.I never had complete irradication without a follow-up treatment.

Thanks for the help I was thinking about treating the tank again but I wasn't sure. I will definitely do it now.

I just love to see them trying to get away

 

[bmtpfgh]

I do a second double dose one week later.I have tried to get by with one double dose,but they came back.I didn't notice them right away,and I had moved some corals to another tank,and infested it,too.

 

[Krish]

Mungus...I think I may have worms because i'm always hungry. Do you think you can help me? (LOL)

 

[mungus]

I figured I would update this tread with the info from my second treatment with FW Exit. Sorry it tooks so long.

After I treated with FW the first time I still had a few remaining FW's. A week after the first treatment I did the second dose.

I used a turkey baster to blow the FW's out of hiding and siphoned most of the FW's out. I kept a few in an area that I could see clearly. I used these few flatworms as my indicator as to when to add the carbon. I added the FW exit double the dose. It took alot longer for the flatworms to die this time and there were very few left. I siphoned a few that came crawling leaving the original few in plain view. It took a little more than an hour for the ones in open view to stop moving. I believe they built up a tolerance from the first dose. I siponed those out and added the carbon. I changed 25% of water three hours later.

I have been FW free for 2 months now!

I did not have any visible losses in the tank. Tank stocking includes yellow tang, maroon clown, sixline wrasse, a few sps and softies, misc: shrimp, crabs, and snails.

IMO removing all the flatwoms you can before hand is the key to minimizing losses. I would not hesitate to use it again.

Thanks to marc, ed hahn and steve-s for indirectly convincing me to treat my tank.

 

[spongebob lover]

wwouu dood, that's awesome !!!
i'm flatworm free too now, yuuhhuu !!!

 

[mungus]

Thats great to here Gabby! It's an awsome feeling when they are gone. I know my stress level went way down.:lol:

 

[spongebob lover]

lol yeah my stress level went down too

 

[nasher8860]

That's cool guys, I recently got rid of mine to in my 10 gallon.. did alot of siphoning with a 70% change afterward w/ ro/di and poof they were history no treatment needed..

 

[spongebob lover]

way to go nasher, i guess we should all get together and celebrate because i tell you, they are a headache