Flatworm eater for pico tank
 

My 2.5g tank has become over run with flatworms :sad: I had a barnacle blenny which I wonder if he was eating them because shortly after he died I noticed flatworms appearing. Thankfully they are just the plain ugly ones and haven't done any damage to the corals, they're just over taking the tank.

I tried adding a small scooter blenny to eat them, but he seemed depressed in such a small tank and wouldn't eat anything so I re-homed him in my big tank. Was thinking maybe I should add another barnacle blenny (however I can't seem to find one available) and see if it eats them or maybe try a geometric pygmy hawk. The only fish in the tank is a green clown goby and unfortunately he doesn't touch them.

The tank is to small to treat chemically (ie: flatworm exist) as that many flatworms dying all at once would crash the whole tank.

flatworm exit would work well in that tank cause your able to get in there and suck them all out you could try a head shield nutibranch but they don't usually do well in small tanks

Unfortunately there isn't much room to get in there to suck them out and I have around $2000 of high end corals in that tank that I'm not about to risk a tank crash with trying flatworm exit. I know people who have killed their 10-20g tanks because they couldn't siphon out all the dead flatworms quickly enough.

I did read that blue velvet nudibranch eat them, so hopefully I can find one of those. Might also try a geometric Pygmy hawk as I think one would eat them.

Yea sounds good try I get then naturally just very hard to ever get rid of them, I used flatworm exit in my skimmer less 29 and worked fine just ran carbon after and did a 40% WC and sucked them all out a few days before to reduce the numbers

Well sadly the Pygmy hawk won't work they need a min. 30g tank and are aggressive to gobies and I have a green clown goby in there.

Hopefully I can get a nudibranch as I've read they're very effective. I had a filefish eat flatworms before but the tank is to small for one.

Flatworm exit really is a great product.

I suggest you use it and do a 300-500% water change if you are that worried about crashing.

IE double dose 100% water change, wait a few minutes 100% water change, a few more minutes another 100% water change and repeat the process until you are satisfied you've gotten all the dead ones. Doing the water changes with a turkey baster and airline tube you should be able to get them all.

A tank that size I would just put everything into a 5-gal pail and do Flatworm Exit in the pail, then you can shake each piece of rock real good to get the worms off, and put back in the tank. If you get a Velvet Nudi and it dies, it could cause a lot of grief in 2.5 gallons.

Hummmmm good point about the nudi.

The flatworms are all over the glass and sand too but I guess while the rock and coral are in a bucket with flat worm exit I can clean out the whole tank then put in new clean sand and new saltwater.....hummmm not sure how good that would be either though.....

You could put the old saltwater through a 100 micron felt filter sock, and put it back in the tank when you're done. New sand isn't a bad idea.

Rats thought I had flatworm exit but I don't. Looked into flatworm solution (LFS had that but none have flatworm exit) but read that there was some bottles of it that killed the coral so don't want to risk using it.

Thought about dipping with reef dip but some of my corals are attached to the rock and while its only 2 small pieces that'd be dipped I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Plus the dip isn't always effective anyway.

Ended up finding flatworm exit on eBay, so I bought it and will treat the tank when I get it.

I'm actually going to treat the rock and corals in a separate bucket and take some rock from my big tank and set up my 5g tank. I'll put the fish and inverts in the new 5g tank and after the other rock and corals are treated I'll add them to the 5g.

I was just looking at your pico tank, looks great but I do have a suggestion. While you are doing this remove your sandbed. Sand beds are death to pico tanks! Your tank is what about 2 years old? This is around the time I removed mine. It was actually more detritus then just sand. Put some of your zoos or other corals on the bottom and soon you won't even be able to tell its bare bottom.

I generally dislike the look of bare bottoms but for picos I really think it's a must. My 2 gallon has been running for just under 4 years. Some of the corals have been in there the entire time.

http://andrewastro.smugmug.com/Other...icojan18-L.jpg

http://andrewastro.smugmug.com/Other...IMG_5511-L.jpg

Don't miss the sand one bit.

I tried the velvet nudis for flatworm control once, and my general opinion on something like that is that unless you can get the predator to breed in your tank (which I don't think velvet nudis will), they offer little hope of putting much of a dent in a pest population. If one velvet nudi eats even 200 flatworms a day, it's still not going to be enough to do much to an out of control population.

the same thing is true for berghia's as an aiptasia control method. Even if you buy 20, they only really start to work when the second and third generations mature and the population reaches critical mass, as you need hundreds of them working together to outpace the reproductive rate of their target pest.

I think you made the right choice with flatworm exit. It's extremely effective at doing what it does, and there's ways to mitigate the risk. If I were you, I'd do a second treatment a couple of weeks later as it's almost inevitable that you'll miss a couple if the starting population is really huge. A second dose soon after poses much less risk of flatworm poisoning and will mop up any surviving worms.

Yes I think the flatworm exit will be the best bet. When I move everything to the 5g tank from the 2.5g I will be using a new sandbed. I don't like BB tanks, so I had planned on using new sand, old sand does cause issues.

Corpusse your pico is nice, I believe mine will look nice again too when you can actually see into it :lol: right now there's to many flatworms to see much of anything!

I have some flatworm exit at home if you need it today. I live in South Common area. Summerside to be exact.

Thanks for the offer but I already ordered some, it should be here soon.