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KathyC

Moderator
Location
Barnum Island
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Sure, plenty of folks have.
It is extremely important to follow the directions carefully and have a minimum of a 25% water change ready to go and a lot of new carbon to put in the tank as instructed.
 

ed51802

hvac-r tech
Location
holtsville
Rating - 100%
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thanks that info on melvesreef was very helpful. thanks mike maybe i will borrow that reactor ill let u know. yes kathy i will def follow these instuctions thanks everyone. ill let everyone know how it goes
 

James

Zen-Reefer
Location
Bay Ridge, BK
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I have some experience to share with you. I had red planaria in decent numbers. I would siphon them out with water changes weekly but the numbers kept stable. I decided to try FWE. I had 30 gallons of fresh saltwater made up (about 75 gallons of total tank volume). I put the FWE in and within minutes more flatworms than I ever thought I had were floating in the current. I put mesh over my MP20 to collect some of the dead and had 2 syphons going into nylon socks in my sump which I changed every couple of minutes to ease the toxins released by the dead flatworms. After an hour or so I started running carbon and did a WC. It felt like a success.... fast-forward to the next day, my jawfish and royal gramma both had some weird coloration going on but were otherwise eating and acting normally and some of my SPS lost color, not browned out completely, but lost color. About 5 or 6 days later both the jawfish and the royal gramma died. The worst part about this is that there are still flatworms that I am guessing burrowed in the sand. I hit them again with FWE and didnt see many dead ones at all, didn't even do a WC after that for 2 days to ensure proper death. Two days after that I came home to find one of my two blue/green chromis dying with the same weird color loss, I am not sure if they ate the flatworms that were dead or what happened.... I still see flatworms in my tank so I am just going to hope my melanarus wrasse goes to town on them or I will have to live with them. Not the worst thing in the world and I would rather live with them than kill anymore fish or mess up my corals. Can't tell you what to do but this was my experience.
 

Alex

Pretzel in Orange M&M
Location
staten island
Rating - 100%
44   0   0
I have some experience to share with you. I had red planaria in decent numbers. I would siphon them out with water changes weekly but the numbers kept stable. I decided to try FWE. I had 30 gallons of fresh saltwater made up (about 75 gallons of total tank volume). I put the FWE in and within minutes more flatworms than I ever thought I had were floating in the current. I put mesh over my MP20 to collect some of the dead and had 2 syphons going into nylon socks in my sump which I changed every couple of minutes to ease the toxins released by the dead flatworms. After an hour or so I started running carbon and did a WC. It felt like a success.... fast-forward to the next day, my jawfish and royal gramma both had some weird coloration going on but were otherwise eating and acting normally and some of my SPS lost color, not browned out completely, but lost color. About 5 or 6 days later both the jawfish and the royal gramma died. The worst part about this is that there are still flatworms that I am guessing burrowed in the sand. I hit them again with FWE and didnt see many dead ones at all, didn't even do a WC after that for 2 days to ensure proper death. Two days after that I came home to find one of my two blue/green chromis dying with the same weird color loss, I am not sure if they ate the flatworms that were dead or what happened.... I still see flatworms in my tank so I am just going to hope my melanarus wrasse goes to town on them or I will have to live with them. Not the worst thing in the world and I would rather live with them than kill anymore fish or mess up my corals. Can't tell you what to do but this was my experience.

Sorry to hear that james, that jaw fish was a beauty. I used it in the manner indicated by melev with success. and then I let a yellow coris do his job, this was on my old tank. just follow those instructions and all should be well.
 

KathyC

Moderator
Location
Barnum Island
Rating - 100%
200   0   0
I had FW's in my 50g tank last year and prepared to use FWE with a ton of new SW on hand and a few media bags with carbon (no way to place a reactor on this tank as it has no sump & is eurobraced).

I added 20% more than was called for on the packaging (as I know that too often if you don't get ALL of the FW's on the first try, it is said they can develop an immunity to the FWE).

I kept the foam on my vortech and used a turkey baster to blow whatever FW's I could out of the rocks.
I added the drops in a flow area and within 5 minutes they were dropping like flies.
I IMMEDIATELY added the carbon in the media bags - as it is the toxins released by the dead flatworms that can cause the issue with your livestock.

I continued using the turkey baster to dislodge any dead flatworms and the Vortech foam did a great job in 'catching' a lot of the bodies, I kept removing the foam from the vortech and rinising the dead flatworms from it.

After I saw no more living flatworms - it was fast - I finished siphoning as many as I could find. I then did a 30-35% water change.

The only thing I noticed was my micro brittle stars seemed to be in some distress but none seemed to have perished.

I haven't seen a flatworm since :)
Knock wood...
 

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