Flatwormssssssssssssssssssss
- Thread starter jaa1456
- Start date
cathym1078
Experienced Reefer
- Location
- Staten Island
always always treat the corals you buy from anyone. It doesn't matter if you think that their tank is clean.
Here's what I suggest you should do.
1. Prepare water for water change (make about 1/2 the amount of your tank)
2. Buy a trash bin that can hold at least 1/2 the amount of water of your tank from Home Depot
3. Empty out 1/2 of you tank water in the the bin. Catch your fishes and transfer them also into the bin. Try not to transfer water that may contain flat worm.
4. After doing this, treat the main tank with salifert. Use higher dose than recommended (maybe 4x the amount recommended) to ensure that it kills all the flat worm.
5. Wait a good hour or 2 to ensure all are killed. The water in your tank will change color.
6. Then dispose 1/2 of that water form the main tank which should leave you with 1/4 of water.
7. Replace the water you disposed of with new water that you've made.
8. Check the salinity and transfers back your fishes.
This sounds like a lot of work but will ensure that you kill every single one of the flat worm.
Good luck!!!
Here's what I suggest you should do.
1. Prepare water for water change (make about 1/2 the amount of your tank)
2. Buy a trash bin that can hold at least 1/2 the amount of water of your tank from Home Depot
3. Empty out 1/2 of you tank water in the the bin. Catch your fishes and transfer them also into the bin. Try not to transfer water that may contain flat worm.
4. After doing this, treat the main tank with salifert. Use higher dose than recommended (maybe 4x the amount recommended) to ensure that it kills all the flat worm.
5. Wait a good hour or 2 to ensure all are killed. The water in your tank will change color.
6. Then dispose 1/2 of that water form the main tank which should leave you with 1/4 of water.
7. Replace the water you disposed of with new water that you've made.
8. Check the salinity and transfers back your fishes.
This sounds like a lot of work but will ensure that you kill every single one of the flat worm.
Good luck!!!
- Location
- The Big City
Well you've either keep the wrong ones or just didn't see them eating them. You'll find many people here, and on RC, that have seen their wrasse hunting down flatworms and eating. People have also have Mandarins do the same.
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
That may be true for your system, but clearly is not for most hobbyists and certainly flatworm issues are VERY common, far more common than systems that can support mandarins.
Well I can't QT all of my corals into smaller tanks. I don't have enough extra lights to support the tanks needed or I would need to buy a larger tank and if that were the case I would just start a new tank. And Cathy that is way to much work and you are getting into doing more damage than good in my opinion. Catching the fish and all the inverts and moving them would be reallt stressful on them. And the corals would likely get some damage from a move back and forth. I usually dip all my corals but ran out. I'm pretty sure I know the coral and the store it came from. Unless the dip didn't do its job on a previous coral. Either way a 6 line went in today and the LFS was out of SFE. Also first time I didn't QT a fish so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.
jaa when u mix the pro cure how dark did u go? i will do it till it look like tea and then dip them for 30min or so and put them in another bucket with your tank water with a powerhead for another 10 min b4 putting it back in the tank
- Location
- NY
The following directions might be long, but they worked impeccably for me.
GETTING RID OF FLATWORMS:
- Prepare enough RO/DI water to make enough saltwater for three 25% water changes within one week.
- Have a method for running carbon aggressively in your system. Running carbon passively in a filter bag in your sump is NOT considered aggressive. I am using an MRC Fluidized Media Chamber for carbon. A Phosban Reactor 150 will work fine also.
- The Flat Worm Exit is not toxic to your tanks inhabitants. However, the toxins released from the dead/dying FW's are toxic. With this in mind, it is better to add an overdose of FWE to your tank than to add too little.
- I have a 75 gallon tank, 15 fuge and about 10 gallons in my sump, for a total of ~ 100 gallons. I used five full bottles of FWE during the treatment on my system. I didn't use them all at once, but I did use them all during the one week of treatment.
Ok, time to get down to the nitty gritty of eliminating the dreaded FW.
- Three days before you are ready to treat your tank with the FWE, you must begin siphoning out as many FW's as possible manually. They do not grab hold of anything in your tank. They will release whatever slight grip they do have VERY easily. Take a siphon tube (vinyl tubing) and siphon one of two ways. Either attach a lady's nylons to the end of the tubing and put the nylons into your sump (to avoid discharging a lot of SW) or just siphon out the FW's into a drain or bucket. Just make sure you have even more than 3 days worth of 25% fresh SW to replace the siphoned out water.
The above step is extremely important. After you've siphoned out as many FW's as possible, take a powerhead and blow behind your aquascaping where you can't reach with the siphon tube. This will get the 'invisible' FW's out into the open for you to siphon them as well.
- The above step is now repeated for the next two days as well. So in total, you will have siphoned out FW's for three consecutive days.
- Day 4 is the moment of truth. You must turn OFF any carbon during the treatment. Have your 25% water change ready. Get a bottle of FWE.
- With your carbon off, squirt one full bottle of FWE into your tank, fuge and sump (most of it into your tank of course), remember, this is for a 100 gallon system.
- Within about 10-15 seconds you will begin to see a massive die off of FW's. Begin siphoning these dead/dying FW's out of the tank immediately.
- About 20 - 30 minutes after the first dose of FWE add another full bottle of FWE. Use a powerhead to blow into all the dead spots you possibly can. The FW's will be blowing all over your tank now. Keep siphoning them out.
- About 10 - 15 minutes after the second dose of FWE begin running your carbon.
- By now you will probably have siphoned out about 25% of your tanks water. Hopefully you will have siphoned out as many of the visible dead FW's as possible. You can now replace the siphoned out water with fresh SW.
- This treatment is to be repeated three days after you did the FWE the first time. The amount of FW die off on the second treatment will be almost zero if the first treatment was done following the directions explicitly.
- One week after the first treatment you should do the treatment one more time (only one dose should be necessary on the last day, not the two full bottles). Remember to turn off your carbon each time. Also remember to do 25% water changes on the third day and one week treatment even though you probably won't see any dead FW's. This is just to remove any possible dead FW's and to be totally sure all toxins are removed from the tank.
By this time your water should be FW free and crystal clear with all those water changes and carbon running.
Good luck and welcome to a FW free tank.
Russ
GETTING RID OF FLATWORMS:
- Prepare enough RO/DI water to make enough saltwater for three 25% water changes within one week.
- Have a method for running carbon aggressively in your system. Running carbon passively in a filter bag in your sump is NOT considered aggressive. I am using an MRC Fluidized Media Chamber for carbon. A Phosban Reactor 150 will work fine also.
- The Flat Worm Exit is not toxic to your tanks inhabitants. However, the toxins released from the dead/dying FW's are toxic. With this in mind, it is better to add an overdose of FWE to your tank than to add too little.
- I have a 75 gallon tank, 15 fuge and about 10 gallons in my sump, for a total of ~ 100 gallons. I used five full bottles of FWE during the treatment on my system. I didn't use them all at once, but I did use them all during the one week of treatment.
Ok, time to get down to the nitty gritty of eliminating the dreaded FW.
- Three days before you are ready to treat your tank with the FWE, you must begin siphoning out as many FW's as possible manually. They do not grab hold of anything in your tank. They will release whatever slight grip they do have VERY easily. Take a siphon tube (vinyl tubing) and siphon one of two ways. Either attach a lady's nylons to the end of the tubing and put the nylons into your sump (to avoid discharging a lot of SW) or just siphon out the FW's into a drain or bucket. Just make sure you have even more than 3 days worth of 25% fresh SW to replace the siphoned out water.
The above step is extremely important. After you've siphoned out as many FW's as possible, take a powerhead and blow behind your aquascaping where you can't reach with the siphon tube. This will get the 'invisible' FW's out into the open for you to siphon them as well.
- The above step is now repeated for the next two days as well. So in total, you will have siphoned out FW's for three consecutive days.
- Day 4 is the moment of truth. You must turn OFF any carbon during the treatment. Have your 25% water change ready. Get a bottle of FWE.
- With your carbon off, squirt one full bottle of FWE into your tank, fuge and sump (most of it into your tank of course), remember, this is for a 100 gallon system.
- Within about 10-15 seconds you will begin to see a massive die off of FW's. Begin siphoning these dead/dying FW's out of the tank immediately.
- About 20 - 30 minutes after the first dose of FWE add another full bottle of FWE. Use a powerhead to blow into all the dead spots you possibly can. The FW's will be blowing all over your tank now. Keep siphoning them out.
- About 10 - 15 minutes after the second dose of FWE begin running your carbon.
- By now you will probably have siphoned out about 25% of your tanks water. Hopefully you will have siphoned out as many of the visible dead FW's as possible. You can now replace the siphoned out water with fresh SW.
- This treatment is to be repeated three days after you did the FWE the first time. The amount of FW die off on the second treatment will be almost zero if the first treatment was done following the directions explicitly.
- One week after the first treatment you should do the treatment one more time (only one dose should be necessary on the last day, not the two full bottles). Remember to turn off your carbon each time. Also remember to do 25% water changes on the third day and one week treatment even though you probably won't see any dead FW's. This is just to remove any possible dead FW's and to be totally sure all toxins are removed from the tank.
By this time your water should be FW free and crystal clear with all those water changes and carbon running.
Good luck and welcome to a FW free tank.
Russ
i don't think a mandarin has a large enough mouth to consume a flatworm.
meanwhile, if it were true that it was the giant population of flatworms that starved themselves out, i don't see how they would do so to extinction.
in 2 years after my infestation, i never saw another one.
oh, and i went out of my way trying to catch one of the wrasses eating one.
these were a pair of whipfin fairy wrasses FYI.
- Location
- The Big City
There are different type and sizes of flatworms. Some which are small enough for Mandarin to eat others too large. When you see them in the tank they're usually laying out flat, which makes them large. If you where to touch one, or blow water on one, you would see them shrink or close up which greatly reduces their size, making it a lot easier to eat. As for them starving themselves into extinction, well you see this all the time in your tank. Just take snails, you go from a couple to the tank being over run with them, then all of a sudden there are none to be found. As I posted before, you most likely had the wrong type of wrasses as wrasses do eat them.
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
Cirrhilabrus wrasses which include the Whipfin Fairy Wrasse are not known to eat flatworms as they are primarily mid-water planktivores. It is members of Halichoeres, Pseudocheilinus and Coris that are most effective, with H. melanuras the most commonly touted.
Nice reference to Shannon's academic work BTW.
Nice reference to Shannon's academic work BTW.
- Location
- Ridgewood NY
I Have 24G JBL nano cube and when I got flatworms, FWE worked pretty well. I siphoned out all the worms that I could from the sand and glass and corals that didn't have many worms attached. I siphoned it out to a bucket. I put twice the dose on the bucket and I was removing the most contaminated rocks from the tank and putting them in the bucket. Then I kill the filtration and carbon and put the recommended dose on the main tank and literally I saw the first worms dying in seconds. I caught as many as I could with a net, which as a lot but not as much as on the bucket. After some minutes I put on a filter pad, carbon, refilled the tank with new water, start the filtration again. Rinsed the rocks with fresh water, scrub them a little bit and back into the tank.
I also added a six line wrasse just in case and I've never seen another flatworm on my tank.
I also added a six line wrasse just in case and I've never seen another flatworm on my tank.
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