ID and Solution, please.

[auntkaren]

There are thousands of these creatures in our 180 gallon reef tank. They appeared about a month ago and have become an eyesore nuisance. What are these creatures and what will eat them?
They are not a bacteria because they move under their own power. They are about 1/8" long and move if something touches them. The parameters in the tank are all good. The fish inhabiting are: a chromis, 3 pj cardinalfishes, a longnose butterfly, 2 percula clowns, a dwarf angel. None of these seem the least interested in munching on the creatures. There are 2 serpent starfishes and numerous brittle stars, a porcelain crab and of course hermit crabs and snails. Again, none of these guys are interested in the creatures.
These things go into the sand when the lights go out and a few of them crawl up the sides of the tank during the day.
What are these creatures and how do we get rid of them?

 

[mushroomss]

Flatworms,A VERY bad parasite.Not sure how to get rid of them though

 

[btb9000]

Start reading up on "Flat Worm Exit" or "FWE"

 

[jonthefishguy]

water change,syphon as much as possible, starve the tank from nutrients, and light for a bit, if you attempt to use a flat worm med, they release poison when they die and will wipe out a tank fast. Yellow corris wrasse's are good for removing flatworms but it takes a while. Sometimes you can kill them by lowering the salinity to 1.020 and continue to syphon them. if you can, take rock out (if it doesnt have coral on it) and give them a 10 second dip in fresh water and swish the rock around in the water shake off all that are in the crevices.

 

[auntkaren]

What kind of flatworms? All the searching I've done on flatworms have shown elongated worms. I have read that mandarin fish will eat flatworms would that be an option? LOL it definately wouldn't starve in the tank.

 

[btb9000]

Originally Posted by jonthefishguy
water change,syphon as much as possible, starve the tank from nutrients, and light for a bit, if you attempt to use a flat worm med, they release poison when they die and will wipe out a tank fast.
Completely untrue that it will wipe out a tank. Many people with horror stories do not do water changes properly.

 

[btb9000]

Originally Posted by AuntKaren
What kind of flatworms? All the searching I've done on flatworms have shown elongated worms. I have read that mandarin fish will eat flatworms would that be an option? LOL it definately wouldn't starve in the tank.
Its a coin flip whether or not a Mandarin will eat the FWs.

 

[coraljunky]

Originally Posted by BTB9000
Its a coin flip whether or not a Mandarin will eat the FWs.
The same with a sixline wrasse. mine ate them.

 

[jonthefishguy]

Originally Posted by BTB9000
Completely untrue that it will wipe out a tank. Many people with horror stories do not do water changes properly.
Dont tell me COMPLETLY UNTRUE....They release a toxin and if too much is released and a water change is not done to help reduce the amount of toxins in the water, IT WILL wipe out a tank....
"Small reddish-rust colored creatures may already be in your tank. Or you may buy a coral and they'll appear as hitchhikers later. They may appear on the glass/acrylic, on the substrate, or on live rock. Due to their extremely thin bodies, they are called flatworms correctly. They appear almost two-dimensional, barely a flap of skin or perhaps a 'dangling chad'. They can move through the tank, elongating the front part of their body like a sail filling with wind, latch on to the nearby surface and pull the rest of it's body forward.
Red Planaria feed on small foods like rotifers, phytoplankton and such, and will grow out of control unchecked. Creating a mat with their bodies, they can smother corals or parts of the substrate. If they get to the point of overpopulating the tank, there is the possibility that they may die suddenly all at once, and the toxin they release at death can cause further deaths and even wipe out a tank entirely. Some predators exist, but results vary. Six Line Wrasses, Leopard Wrasses, Target Mandarins and even Blue Damsels reportedly eat these flatworms, as does one Nudibranch (Chelidonura varians), but some have opted for a different approach when these methods prove ineffective.
Salifert came out with a product over a year ago called Flatworm eXit, a poison that only affects flatworms and is reef-safe. Let me add the qualifier that if your tank is heavily infested, Flatworm eXit will not be the cause if you lose livestock. The issue is that if many flatworms die at once, their toxins reach lethal levels quickly and this, not the product, can lead to deaths in your tank."

 

[btb9000]

Originally Posted by jonthefishguy
Dont tell me COMPLETLY UNTRUE....They release a toxin and if too much is released and a water change is not done to help reduce the amount of toxins in the water, IT WILL wipe out a tank....
"Salifert came out with a product over a year ago called Flatworm eXit, a poison that only affects flatworms and is reef-safe. Let me add the qualifier that if your tank is heavily infested, Flatworm eXit will not be the cause if you lose livestock. The issue is that if many flatworms die at once, their toxins reach lethal levels quickly and this, not the product, can lead to deaths in your tank."
Like I said, the horror stories come from people who do not do proper water changes while using the product. If you think all the FWs will die with the flip of a switch, they won't.
You must siphon out the dead/dying FWs. Siphoning them out at first chance will reduce the amount of toxins released into the DT. As you siphon, you want to be adding new water which you premixed.

 

[puffer32]

Originally Posted by BTB9000
Like I said, the horror stories come from people who do not do proper water changes while using the product. If you think all the FWs will die with the flip of a switch, they won't.
You must siphon out the dead/dying FWs. Siphoning them out at first chance will reduce the amount of toxins released into the DT. As you siphon, you want to be adding new water which you premixed.
I agree. I had a real problem with them in one of my tanks for awhile. As did one of the tanks at my husbands store (LFS). If you do as BTB9000 ssaid, it will work fine. Also, run carbon. I did note a decrease in pods for awhile, but the meds did not effect anything else, in my tank and hubbys nano DT in the store, even my tiny sexy shrimp both survived 3 treatments in 6 months.

 

[tizzo]

You have a 180 so it may be harder for you than the rest of us, but your best bet to eliminate them is to syphon out as many as possible with a turkey baster. And I don't mean to stand over your tank and suck them out one day... I mean stand over your tank and suck them out every day for as long as it takes to get the numbers down. It may take a week!
Then when you think you got most of them, then you wanna treat with saliferts exit. as mentioned, the water change and carbon are necessary. But I would not reccomend treating a tank as heavily infested as yours.
I had them once and I syphoned them out for about 30 minutes each day, til I couldn't see them anymore, then I treated the tank with no ill effects.
THEN I started dipping every single coral or piece of rock that I bought into a little bowl of saliferts to prevent another introduction.

 

[jester]

Stir them all up, net as many as you can (or suck them up with) , and use Flatworm Exit. Stuff is great. I had the problem for a year or 2, and tried every natural option (six lines, nudibranch's and a few others I can't remember). The only soultion that worked was the Flatworm Exit. Mine took 2 treatments, about an hour each, on 2 different days. I way over dosed to make sure, half the bottle on one night, half the next night.
I wanted to make sure they were all gone.
(90g corner tank)

 

[donald]

I vote NAPALM

, nasty little critters

 

[auntkaren]

Thanks to each one of you for responding. We paid close attention to each response and checked with several of our local LFS's. I'm not kidding there must have been 10,000 flatworms in our tank.
We removed all 8 fish and all the crabs and snails, brittle and serpent stars and put them in the hospital tank, swished the corals in a quick freshwater dip and put them into the HT too. We removed every single piece of live rock and swished them in fresh water. With each rock there must have been hundreds of flatworms jumping off.
We then siphoned out the tank, deeply. After the dust settled (so to speak) we siphoned again and were still getting thousands of flatworms! Our skimmer was turned up to maximum and within 15 minutes we had to empty the cannister which was full of those (#$&% flatworms.
We put the rocks back into the tank and then we dosed the tank with the worm exit stuff from Salifert. Those worms remaining died within minutes it was amazing. We stirred the sand lightly to get the flatworms beneath the surface. We waited 24 hours and siphoned again. There were very few flatworm bodies in the siphon and the skimmer had none. So we put the livestock back into the tank. We lost one fish and the brittle stars but there has been no sign of problems with anything else. We haven't seen any sign at all of those flatworms either.
So thanks again for identifying our problem and advice on what needed to be done. It's nice to have someplace to run and scream HELP and have caring advise. I posted these results because rarely do I see the outcome of someone's panic. Now ya know........... Y'all are teriffic peoples!