Flatworms

[sabiking]

My 125 gal. reef tank has become infested with brownish colored flatworms. I added a six line wrasse and a psychedellic mandarin in hopes that they would eat them, but I haven't had any luck. I can't find a blue velvet nudibranch anywhere and am trying to avoid using flatworm exit. Any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[tizzo]

Turkey baster... and a lot of dedicated time.

 

[sabiking]

I was worried someone would say that. I siphoned out all of them (or what I thought was all of them) multiple times. It seems the faster I get them out, the faster they appear :needhelp:

 

[tizzo]

When I had to get mine out, I kept the turkey baster within reach. Every time I looked into the tank, I'd hafta suck some out. You already have a mandarin so adding another would not be a wise choice, but maybe if you could catch him and change him out for a spotted mandarin, they are brown flatworm eaters.
I know you said you don't wanna add flatworm exit, but if you can't get them out the flatworms will do more damage than the exit will. I've dipped every single coral I own in FE and have had no negative effects. It doesn't even kill the pods!! But good luck with this and let us know what you do and what works for you!

 

[sabiking]

The mandarin I have is spotted and he has done nothing. I guess it's back to sucking them out. To use FE, I'd have to treat my tank. The worms are so thick that my lr looks like it's dark brown / purple. I don't think dipping is an option at this point.

 

[tizzo]

A psychedelic and a spotted are two different mandarins. Which one do you have??
After you suck out all you can FE CAN go into the main tank without harming any corals, inverts pods or anything!! That stuff is awesome!! (I should be their spokesperson, LOL)
But it is totally safe to use in the display tank. You'd wanna get out as many as possible though because while the FE is safe, the actual flatworms themselves aren't so safe when they die. They recomend 1 LB of carbon for every 50 gallons of water after treatment.
Flatworms SUCK!

 

[sabiking]

That's the mandarin I have. I'm going to continue sucking them out till the end of this week then use FE. Seems like I don't have much of a choice

 

[gypsybrat]

Sabiking - The most important thing you can do is turkey baste out as many of the flat worms as you can. I had a serious outbreak of flat worms, and literally syphoned them out 30 minutes a day for about 3 weeks before I used the flat worm exit medication, and I was truly amazed at how many worms started floating around dead after I used the medication. Lots of flat worms were in crevices that I couldnt syphon, let alone see.

 

[cathy joe]

a friend of mine just used something on his tank to kill the flat worms and it killed every ricordia mushroom in the tank. probly about 50 of them, but did not harm anything else