Playapixie
Well-known member
OK, puzzled! I have two clowns that are at week 7.5 in an isolation/quarantine tank. They were treated with Cupramine for Marine Ich for the first 3 weeks, and have been the picture of health/spot-free for the past month. They were just there waiting for the display tank to go fish-less for 8 weeks before returning home.
Today, out of nowhere, this explosion of tiny white-ish moving speck-things appears on the front glass of the quarantine tank, directly opposite the return flow nozzle. They look like they could be some kind of flat worm. But where in the heck could they have come from, and what are they? I did have an outbreak of flatworms in my main tank a couple weeks back, which was treated with flatworm exit. The new specks on the QT tank wall seem much smaller and whiter, not brown like the ones from the DT. They also don't seem to have the split tails like the ones in the DT. But maybe I never noticed the DT flatworms when they were this small?
I can't for the life of me figure out how they got there, as there has been NOTHING introduced to the QT tank for 7.5 weeks since the clowns went in, and I can't think of any obvious cross-contamination between the tanks (although I suppose it's possible...) Hmm...in retrospect I used the same siphon to clean both tanks, although I washed it between tanks, but there is some possible cross-contamination there, I guess. (The more I think about it, the more likely this seems, as a lot of flatworms sure did go through that siphon, and I did use it on the DT first...doh! Yet another reef-keeping lesson learned the hard way!)
Very frustrating, since these fish were just days away from getting back into my main tank.
Not much I can do until tomorrow anyhow, as I need to run to the store for some RO water before I can do a water change anyhow, but wondering if I should be worried? Or do you think I'm on the right track that I probably introduced flatworms two weeks ago...? Maybe by tomorrow they'll be big enough to confirm if they are indeed the same nasty visitors that plagued my DT...
Here's a (bad) pic:
Today, out of nowhere, this explosion of tiny white-ish moving speck-things appears on the front glass of the quarantine tank, directly opposite the return flow nozzle. They look like they could be some kind of flat worm. But where in the heck could they have come from, and what are they? I did have an outbreak of flatworms in my main tank a couple weeks back, which was treated with flatworm exit. The new specks on the QT tank wall seem much smaller and whiter, not brown like the ones from the DT. They also don't seem to have the split tails like the ones in the DT. But maybe I never noticed the DT flatworms when they were this small?
I can't for the life of me figure out how they got there, as there has been NOTHING introduced to the QT tank for 7.5 weeks since the clowns went in, and I can't think of any obvious cross-contamination between the tanks (although I suppose it's possible...) Hmm...in retrospect I used the same siphon to clean both tanks, although I washed it between tanks, but there is some possible cross-contamination there, I guess. (The more I think about it, the more likely this seems, as a lot of flatworms sure did go through that siphon, and I did use it on the DT first...doh! Yet another reef-keeping lesson learned the hard way!)
Very frustrating, since these fish were just days away from getting back into my main tank.
Not much I can do until tomorrow anyhow, as I need to run to the store for some RO water before I can do a water change anyhow, but wondering if I should be worried? Or do you think I'm on the right track that I probably introduced flatworms two weeks ago...? Maybe by tomorrow they'll be big enough to confirm if they are indeed the same nasty visitors that plagued my DT...
Here's a (bad) pic:
