Well I bought a couple of corals over the past few weeks. I forgot to buy flatworm dip for the corals and figured I would be ok. Well today I woke up and saw flatworms. Now the battle begins, I'm gonna use Seifert Flatworm Exit and try to siphon most of them out. Ahh the joys of this new tank. First it has Byropsis algae and know flatworms. I had my main tank run for over 12 years witout one problem and now this.
Flatwormssssssssssssssssssss
- Thread starter jaa1456
- Start date
+1 sixline will eat it but will not kill everything, this fish is appx. 1", cant do too much, if you feed your fish on a regular basis, the sixline won't even bother with it, keep siphoning, it'll take awhile before you elimanate every one, it can be done, patients is the key.
I have always heard of the wrasses or a sea slug. But I also read a lot as were they didn't even touch the flatworms at all. I wish I could move the light but the tank is a JBJ nano. Maybe I could just use an extra light I have and try that. +1 on no chemiclas but that seems to be the best solution for this problem.
+1 on the coris a mandarin will also do but your tank is kinda small for keeping these fish long term I guess on a small tank you should just use fwe make sure you have enough water made up for a change and repeat again with the fwe after a week
good luck eradicating them. WWM basically says they're in every system and you can never fully get rid of them. Heavy skimming to remove organics before they break down (which they feed on) and high flow can help keep their population in check. I have them in my little 26g system and have tried everything (FWE, sixline, everything) and I've never fully gotten rid of them. And fwiw, FWE will kill micro brittle stars and, as mentioned, dwarf and full-sized ceriths (I watched it happen).
also, figure out if they are red planaria (rust-brown to red colored). If they aren't, FWE won't affect them. If they are red planaria, it should be pointed out that unless there are so many that they are covering your corals and starving them of light, they won't harm anything. Only the dirtiest of systems can even house populations that large. The population will crash long before then. But they are serious ugly little buggers for sure.
They are the little red ones and the tank is only 3 months old. I'm waiting for them to crash in population, but today there are hundreds of them. None on my corals just the rocks and sand. I'm goona go get the FWE now actually and hope for the best. Won't start it until tonight I have a wedding to attend.
the articles in this link explain these creatures a little better.
http://sites.google.com/site/macropyga/
they are nothing to worry about, and they do not eat detrius. they are ambush predators that eat pods. something that competes with them for their primary food is quite effective IME.
that's why folks say mandarins and wrasses. those fish do not eat flatworms. they eat the flatworms' food. then the flatworms starve off, slowly, and safely.
in my old system i had a population explosion at one point. i would say their numbers were in the hundreds of thousands. i added a pair of wrasses (which i never witnessed eating a single flatworm) and within 2 months they completely disappeared, and were never seen again.
this guy tom shannon is the true authority on these creatures.
http://sites.google.com/site/macropyga/
they are nothing to worry about, and they do not eat detrius. they are ambush predators that eat pods. something that competes with them for their primary food is quite effective IME.
that's why folks say mandarins and wrasses. those fish do not eat flatworms. they eat the flatworms' food. then the flatworms starve off, slowly, and safely.
in my old system i had a population explosion at one point. i would say their numbers were in the hundreds of thousands. i added a pair of wrasses (which i never witnessed eating a single flatworm) and within 2 months they completely disappeared, and were never seen again.
this guy tom shannon is the true authority on these creatures.
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
The notion that a typical reef aquarium that barely can produce enough Copepods to support a single mandarin is capable of producing enough to support a large infestation of tens of thousands of flatworms seems like a stretch at best. The worms eat really tiny things-- like newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii kind of tiny-- that most of the wrasses we use for eradication would ignore. And I have seen Halichoeres sp. wrasses melanuras in particular actively hunt and eat them. Another thing to note is that Aceol flatworms also have photosynthetic symbionts that serve as the their primary means of nutrition. I highly doubt the fish are outcompeteing them for anything. If anything, they are out-competing themselves by their rapid reproduction and this may explain why over time the populations do seem to crash and disappear.
- Location
- The Big City
Who is saying that wrasse don't eat flatworms, Tom shannon or you? Either way you are wrong and if it's Tom Shannon, well it doesn't say much for him being the "true authority" on these creatures.
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