Flatworm Infestation

The first treatment killed about 50% of the population. I am dosing the tank again tonight. This time I took my canister filter out (it has carbon in it... maybe why it didn't work fully!). I am just running the powerhead now.

As a result of the first treatment my ricordia mushroom is not too happy ... he closed tighter than I ever seem him. I also a flowerpot coral ... not sure of the name, it looks like a snowball. Most of the little flowers are inside it which I haven't seem it do that yet. I have another flower pot that's green with long tentacles... that's the one that was mostly suffering from the infestation, he was covered with the worms.

This second treatment I turned off the light. The instructions said something about UV and wasn't sure what the was about. I figured in a 4-5 hours I would do a water change.

What is a fresh water dip???

 

i just got done removing thousands of flatworms today. one thing that i noticed is that they accumulate in areas that have the least circulation. creating better water circulation will help. Oh and i will be buying a six line and a leopard wrasse from my work tommorow.

 

We went through it all when we had flat worms.
1st the 6-line wrasse - ours did not eat the flat worms
then we tried the nudis - but they got sucked through the turbojets - in 48 hours they were gone (I feel really bad about that - poor guys).

The only thing that worked was siphoning out as many as we could and then using the Exit. I think we did that 2x and finally got rid of them. It has been over a year and no sign of them.

Here is a link to a person's web site that had a great idea for the siphoning mechanism Melevsreef.com - Flatworms | How to eliminate them!.

Be sure to have salt water ready in case your flat worm population is soo large that you have to do some water changes. However - we never had to do more than 1 water change, but we had done a lot of siphoning. Also better to err on the light side of the recommend dose. That way you find the minimum dose to kill them.

We did not have any negative impacts on coral, or fish.

Good Luck!

 

+1 I have a Sixline that has been eating the flatworms, but the best bet is just siphoning them out. I also noticed that their numbers tend to increase faster if you feed the tank phyto. However, they seem to be relatively harmless, but are not pretty to look at.

 

They're harmless until they completely cover a coral and then you'll get real mad. Like everyone has said, "Sixline". I picked one up when I first realized that they were starting to grow heavily. Flatworms are kept in check in all area's that the sixline can get to(just about everywhere) but now the Sixline is the bully of the tank so be aware of that possibility.

 

A Melanurus is a good alternative. Sixline's can be very aggressive.

 

I hope anyone buying a 6 line to control FW's knows that 6lines are hit or miss (usually miss) on eating FW's.

Any of the halichoeres wrasses are fw eating machines.

Radiant wrasse, melanurus(hoeven's) wrasse, neon green halichoeres, yellow coris (actually a halichoeres), christmas wrasse, neon wrasse (yellow w/ a thin blue stripe) are your main options.

In a small tank, you might need to find chemical or other non fish ways of controlling FW's.

 

....

 

levimsole HCl is a cheap substitute that works. I found it at tractor supply. Its a pig dewormer.

 

But a dewormer kills many critters in your tank.