@#$%$ Flatworms!

[Chaloupa]

NOT something I would keep around as part of a clean up crew...no really, one becomes one MILLION soooooo fast and they smother corals. Not a good part of a reef...I feel for ya dealing with them again....I have them in one of my biocubes, and it is a royal pain in the butt. I am trying to get the Velvet Nudi's but haven't seen any in anywhere for months and months....they seem ideal for dealing with flatworms

[TeknoPunk]

hmmm I just looked flatworms up.... I've never seen them in any of my tanks how are you guys getting them? piggy backing on live rock?

[Reefer Rob]

If you do use Flatworm Exit make sure you get rid of as many as you can before you treat. Multiplying the number you can see by about 500 will give you the approximate number in your tank. When I treated I thought it was going to be the end of my tank, I couldn't believe how many came out of the rock work. 2 1/2 months later and my tank has almost recovered.

I recently read an article that recommended shining a light on the side of your tank overnight, the flatworms will be attracted to the light and can be siphoned out in the morning. I'm not sure if this will work but I wish I'd tried it before I used Flatworm Exit. If you can reduce their numbers before your treat it should be safe.

Rob

[untamed]

Originally Posted by TeknoPunk

hmmm I just looked flatworms up.... I've never seen them in any of my tanks how are you guys getting them? piggy backing on live rock?

In my case, I inherited from from a frag trade. I didn't pay them any attention until it was too late and I realized that I had millions of them. At one point, my LR was literally red colour. Flatworms must have been hiding in the rock that the frag was attached to.

Immediate, first response should be to siphon as many as possible. They are easy to siphon because they don't really grip on very tightly. Start a siphon using airline tubing. I found it helpful to put a short piece of rigid tubing on the end so that I could work it like a pencil.

Since the airline tubing is so small, you can siphon for quite a while before you remove any volume of water. I used a 2 gallon bucket. The flatworms sink to the bottom of the bucket, so when the bucket is full you can put 98% of the water back in to the tank and siphon again.

Repeat until you can't find a single flatworm. Do it again tomorrow, and again, and again....then treat with flatworm exit. I think a relentless combination of these strategies could actually work. In my case, each time I saw big improvement, I backed off...so I never got the job done.

[Doug]

Hve to agree with the others who said to treat in some form or another. They can & will get out of control. It nearly wiped me out a few years ago and I have seen many tanks that became plague like because of letting things go "naturally"