So, I have flatworms :(

[trido]

Im glad your treatment worked for you. I treated once last fall and they came back. Now I look at them as part of my (detritous eating) cleaner crew. They arent causing any harm.

If you doubled the dose it may not be necessary to treat again however I would keep a real close eye in the next month, just in case.

 

[Len]

My wrasses and anthias are pretty POed. The big male wrasse looked like it was going to die (panting heavily, head jerks, lying on its side) but has since rebounded. It came out, swam around normally, ate some food, and is now sleeping. The Anthias (Bimacs, Flavicuanda, and Odonthias) seem better, but are still really skittish and haven't eaten (very unlike them).

Only one Monti digitata does not look normal. There may be some tissue necrosis after all is said and done. The rest of the corals are fine (clam is fine too).

 

[Len]

I just did another water change and lowered my salinity to 1.025 (was 1.027). Fish are still not normal yet, but most are getting better. Universal symptoms include rapid darting and head-jerks, frayed pectoral and soft dorsal fins, scratching (although no outward irritant is visible), seeking of my cleaner gobies and shrimps, and hiding. I don't know what's causing this.

 

[Anonymous]

Len,

Are you running the carbon passive or active in a canister filter. Past reports of reactions like your fish are having have been posted when using passive carbon, but not with active carbon.

 

[Len]

I'm running both. My active carbon is in a media reactor, but it's fairly small. I have huge bags of carbon in a filter sock right below my overflow drain.

 

[Len]

FWIW, the water is crystal clear (zero yellowing ... actually the clearest it's been in ages). The water cleared up really fast with the way I'm running the carbon, so my hunch is the effectiveness of removing the yellow compounds (which the flatworms produce a lot of) translates to its effectiveness in removing toxins.

I'm going to swap out carbon bags tomorrow.

 

[Len]

24 hours later, everything looks better. Frayed fins and body gashes are healing. However, I did lose one female Bimac anthias. There was a point where I was afraid I was going to lose half my fish, but I think the rest will pull through just fine. They are all behaving more normally now and eating well too.

I changed the carbon. Hopefully, any remaining toxin is gone by tomorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

len could you get a pic.I am curious to see what the tank, I mean worms look like.

:lol: :lol:

+1345 active reefs.org members

 

[Anonymous]

Len, did you swing by my house recently? Because I just noticed in my softie tank the same thing.. I haven't really paid much attention to my tank in a good month, but I just noticed a bunch of red "ovals" on the sand, the rocks.. and at first thought it was some rusty colored coraline, but upon closer inspection (and the fact all the "coraline" looked the same size) I scooped some out with my hand and that coraline was moving!

But yeah.. it sucks... FWE for me next... and like you I haven't put anything in the tank in a long time (a good year at least!) so they must have hit their critical population number and are multiplying like crazy

 

[Len]

Add the FWE ASAP. And run LOTS of carbon. I wish I had caught them earlier. I siphoned out as many as I could, but the number of them in the rocks was amazing.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I understand FWE also nukes bristleworms? I have a nice little population in my pre-sump skimmer area that come out whenever I feed the tank that I'd like to capture first. And I think they are pretty much at near plague levels, granted not muich of the sand is covered, enough to tip me off, but a close look a lots of the rocks shows it to be so.. I'm, going to siphon as much as I can in a bit, need to find some air tubing! And then swing by the LFS later for some FWE, although one of those nudibranchs might be nice.. it'll be a temporary fix at best.

BTW what's the standard proceedure for FWE?

Siphon as many as can
Add FWE
Siphon dying ones getting in the water column

Where does carbon fit into this equation? How long until a water change is necessary?