Flatworm eater for pico tank

fishoholic · #1 04-26-2014, 09:25 PM

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.

corpusse · #2 04-26-2014, 10:19 PM

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.

Myka · #3 04-26-2014, 10:53 PM

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.

fishoholic · #4 04-26-2014, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myka

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.....

Myka · #5 04-26-2014, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishoholic

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.

fishoholic · #6 04-27-2014, 07:01 PM

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.

corpusse · #7 04-27-2014, 07:31 PM

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.

Don't miss the sand one bit.