flatworms

mr. cheezle

New Member
I have flatworms in my refugium. None in my main tank, but my refugium is becoming overrun with them. I have been trying to syphon off, but not having enough success. I have read horror stories about using Flatworm Exit. I have also heard that the six line wrasse and nudibranch are hit or miss. Has anyone had success with anything. I have a 55 gallon refugium and a 120 gallon main reef tank. Thanks.
 
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denniscoy420

Guest
go and get a trap it is green u put food in it and the crawl in and cant get out
works great also I have heard of people using tweezers to pull them from the rocks buy feeding some flake food they come out to get it and away u go lol I would go get the trap works great try it in ur main tank after u clean out ur sump abet u have some in there place it near the back of ur rocks at night on the sand bed
 

geoj

Active Member
Week two, So far so so

Velvet Sea Slug - Chelidonura varians
Yes they eat flatworms like a vacuum cleaner

Do I think one can get rid of all my flatworms no I don’t. I think what will happen is the nudibranch will lower the flatworms to a level that it takes to much energy to find its next meal and will then die leaving some flatworms to repopulate the tank, but we shall see soon enough…
Hard to find in LFS so it Costs me $60 with shipping, I would buy two per 25 gals. This will give a better chance at clearing all the flatworms. Pull all pluming that they don’t have access too, but the flatworms do…
To keep Chelidonura varians you have to turn off all power heads and intakes that make moderate – strong flow. This nudibranch doesn’t crawl or swim with any real effectiveness and will be blown around and then turned in to mush if you leave the power heads on. They will not be able to crawl from most intakes with small sponges on them, you will need very thick sponges to reduce the suction down for them. The hard part is that we still need some water flow and this took me some time to figure out, with by the way a $60 Nudi loss
booo!
I know that this sounds like a lot of cost and trouble for most reef tanks but they are very cool looking Nudis. So I leave it up to You too decide...
 

alex4286

Member
ive had several of these guys in my tank & noticed they only appear at night. so if ur serious about gettin rid of them, wait for them to come out at night then yank them out with your bare hands, Ive done this and they are harmless and easily climb on ur fingures if u lay ur hand out near them
 

ajroc31

Member
Whatever you do, please do not use any chemicals. It could kill your tank. They are toxic, so when they die, they release toxins. I had a velvet, they eat them, do a great job, but they do not live long, and eventually food becomes harder for them to find, and they die. Again, they can't swim, so there is a huge potential for an accident. At this point I pretty much gave up on the flat worms. ALl I do is suck them out. Take a 2 liter bottle, cut the bottom off. Attach it to a sump, put some microfiber pad in it, and start to syphon them out. It won't solve the problem, but you could control it. As annoying the flatworms are, they acutally are great at eating algea and waste from the rocks. They do not like high water flow areas.
 
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thomas712

Guest
Velvet Sea Slug - Chelidonura varians
I have used several of these slugs for my 90 gallon. I swear they have a death wish, I even had to develop a special setup so they no longer entered my overflow box. In the end they never took care of the flatworms I had. Flatworm exit and lots of carbon to clean up the toxins. If you have an overflow box in the tank I could try to look up the old post for you so you can get an idea what I did and post it here.
Thomas
 

geoj

Active Member
Week four,

Velvet Sea Slug - Chelidonura varians
Still going, my nudibranch has doubled in size and lowered the flatworms to a very small number. I am going to keep him till I don’t see any flatworms and I am convinced they are likely all gone. Right now with very few worms in the tank would be a good time to dose the tank with Flatworm Exit. Yet, I want to see if the nudibranch can clean out all the flatworms.
 

ajroc31

Member
Originally Posted by GeoJ
http:///forum/post/3268476
Right now with very few worms in the tank would be a good time to dose the tank with Flatworm Exit. Yet, I want to see if the nudibranch can clean out all the flatworms.
Don't do it. You have no idea where they moved. If they are in your fuge, they are in your tank. I hate high water flow, so they might be lurking in the places where you don't see them. Trust me, there are lot more of them than you think. Let the nudi do his job.
 

geoj

Active Member
Week nine,
As of week seven I gave the Velvet Sea Slug to a fellow reefer. The flatworms looked to be gone at that time. Yet as I had thought they were just hiding out deep in the cracks. Just now (Week nine) the little buggers stated to reappear...
So I would say they are neat, but not effective at ridding your tank of flatworms. They will reduce the flatworm numbers and that would help if you did use flatworm exit.
 

ajroc31

Member
Try to get the nudi back, make them eat as many as possible, and then use the flatworm out, or whatever it is called. That's my plan.Had them for years, and get rid of them. Nudi was working, but so was the powerhead. So the nudi stopped working. Its the only way I could think that it might work. They are just too tough to get rid off.
 
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