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marrone

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solbby said:
But since his/her tank is almost completely empty from the pic taken why worry.

Siphoning would be such a pain in the ass on such an infestation. Talk about a 24/7 job!!!!!!! and to protect what, zoos, which I am sure could survive almost anything.

Yes NWA isn't the only place, many members have flatworms here on MR! :help: :headache:

I'm not sure what he has, outside of what's in the picture, he could have other corals and such.

Siphoning out isn't that hard, you do some each day, when the lights are fully on, as the flatworms like to move towards the light. Over a #'s of days you'll have most of them out. It's not hard to get them under control, it just takes doing it for 15-20 min a day.

I was actually talking about another LFS having flatworms. I've seen some large tanks that have had them for quite some time.
 

marrone

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gil716 said:
I think you should use this method that a reefer on RC used for his infestation.
http://www.melevsreef.com/flatworms.html

You can stand there all day siphoning till your fingers turn into prunes.

You don't need to siphon all day. Actually if you wait until the light are fully on and then siphon out the ones you can see. You only need to do it for about 15-20 min each day. If you keep doing this for a # of days you can get them under control and eventually out of the tank.
 

arozz7

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Well Now that I have seen some pictures or what these flatworms look like, I do believe that to be what they are. I am going to use the siphoning technique.

solbby said:
But since his/her tank is almost completely empty from the pic taken why worry.

Siphoning would be such a pain in the ass on such an infestation. Talk about a 24/7 job!!!!!!! and to protect what, zoos, which I am sure could survive almost anything.

Yes NWA isn't the only place, many members have flatworms here on MR! :help: :headache:

Solbby, I have about 14 small SPS frags, a few zoo's, xenia, mushrooms, kenya tree....This is a 60g cube. I do not want to do a freahwater dip of all my rocks. That would reset my tank to ground zero I believe. Plus these guys have been in here for some time and they have not bothered my corals as of yet, so I do not think this as an emergency. Maybe I am wrong?

Thanks for all the help!!!! :)

Jesus
 

jenniebutterfly

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if you are going to do flatworm exit i recommend taking out any corals you can and dosing them separately. have some freshly mixed water ready for them and transfer them. then let those suckers die and start syphoning them out. once done, add all of your corals back. that is a major infestation.
i have only once seen them in my tank, i saw maybe 10 of them. then i watched as the while ones started eating them. that was cool. then i never saw the white ones, and in a year i have not seen any flatworms.
 
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With the magnitude of the infestation, I also discourage you to do FWE as of right now.

Since you said it's not brothering your SPS yet then, siphoning is a safer way. There is almost no way for siphoning to mess up.

However, using FWE, you could easily over kill the worms and they cloud your tank before you even know it. Your canister, filter active carbon, fresh water change may not be fast enough for the fast die off which will off set your eco balance in your tank. Therefore, whenever there is less dangerous method exist, use that method first. In this case siphoning.


Just like the dilenma of using copper or hypo in killing ick. Each case is not the same. With that much animals(flatworms) in your tank, if they all die at the same time, it will be a mess. there will be tons of them in the cracks and holes of your rocks too. They don't float up for you to remove. If you try to blow and suck the rocks, there will still be a dust storm. SIPHON THEM first, if it does not work, then taht stronger measures.
 

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