Slimy 1/8"red things on my live rock.....

[Mike02]

I have these slimy red creatures all over my live rock and some are on the glass. About 1/8" in length and the slide around on the rock and glass like a snail would. However, most of them on the rock look stationary. I thought it was some kind of algae for awhile until i saw one moving.
What are these things? are they bad or good? well, i suppose that answer wouldnt matter. Even if they were bad, they'd be impossible to get rid of. They're all over the place. thanks in advance

 

[micagreenmachine]

Uh oh. Sounds like a flatworm plague. I've go them too. They aren't hurting anything (except for my pride) but they are nearly impossible to get rid of and they are EVERYWHERE. Do a search on "flatworm" and you'll get lots of info. They do have one weakness, they almost explode when they hit fresh water. I'm hoping I can eradicate them when I move to a larger tank. I'm going to shake as many of those devils off as I can when I'm taking everything out of my current tank, then give it a quick freshwater dip (5 seconds or so) as it goes in the new tank and rinse all of my equipment down with fresh water.

Supposedly, someone was testing a medicinal cure, but I believe that it was put on hold. You'll see the posts if you do a search.

~Todd

 

[Anonymous]

I think they are flatworms as well. But as far as a cure goes(one that doesn't harm reef creatures),I wouldn't hold my breath. It seems most of us have them and have no ill effects(most of the cases). Usually they over multiply and crash due to a lack of food. Give it a few weeks and their populations should crash.

GL

Dan

 

[suckair]

once you get flat worms you will alwayse have them. No way around it..

sure their populations will crash but they will always be present in small numbers. Interesting that in my refugium I have them but in the main system I don't

I also hear that some wrasses will eat them. Pepermints won't. I already tried them. I hate them big time!

Randall

 

[SnoopDog]

I have them by thousands in my sump, none in my tank. I think my Mandarin Dragonet keeps them trimmed down.

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: SnoopDog ]</p>

 

[Dargason]

Suckair,

I have to disagree with your first statement that you'll always have them, because I did get rid of mine.

However, my case was probably not the same as all of yours. I got a rock from the LFS that had maybe 1 or 2 dozen flatworms on it. I put it in my tank (didn't see them at first, and didn't know what they were anyway) and they never really multiplied. A few weeks later they were gone.

I don't know for sure what happened to them... whether the water conditions weren't right or if there was no food for them or what, but I think it might have been that my four-spot wrasse (aka banana wrasse or yellow-coris wrasse) ate them.