flatworm help

[Gator]

i just found flatworms in one of my fuges. I have looked for 30 min and i cant seem to find them anywhere else. I shut that refugium off and through out all of the calurpa, i have some rock in there if i take the rock out and put it in boiling water will it kill those flatworms.

thank you for any advise you can give me, i know it only takes one in my main system to get them there, i just hope mabey they did not make it yet

thank again gator

[BA]

GATOR!!! i would ahve taken the caulerpa, and dealed w/ the worms....ohhh well

[BA]

instead of boiling, would just a fresh water dip do any good???don't really know much about the worms

[Gator]

does anyone have any advice please

[BA]

might do a search on RC???if you dare...lol

[JimD]

What kind of flatworms are they?

[BA]

wormy ones...

[JimD]

uhh, ok...... That makes it much easier to help.

[Gator]

they are very small and flat with reddish marroon in color and the mouth seems to be a bright red

[JimD]

Uh oh, sounds like Planaria. First, >closely< inspect the rest of your system to see if theyre anywhere besides the fuge. Good chance they are. Then we'll go from there,.

[Gator]

they dont seem to be on the rock i just put it in there saturday, it seems like i had it before that because nothing else has them on it jsut one of my chambers. if i leave the rock out in fresh water over night and fill my chamber with fresh water will this kill them or just throw everythig away it is only about 15 lbs off sand i will be losing

[Gator]

the way i have mysetup the fuge drops into a big sump and it is probally about4 feet away from my pumps and i cant find anything downthere i have looked, the rest of my fuges seem fine, but i know it only takes one of these guys to start multiplying. I am going to loo again i am hopping if they are not in the big sump then they are not anywhere else. JimD waht about freshwater dipping

[JimD]

I wouldnt risk a fresh water dip, chances are you wont get them all. Either FW exit or Quinsulex, siphoning might work, however, if it were me, Id toss the whole mess. Im not one to gamble on if this, if that, maybe, maybe not....

[Gator]

i am going to toss it all and start over i think i lucked out and they havent spread, in the 4 feet i havent foun one or in any other fuge

[JimD]

How do you think they got there in the first place?

[Gator]

it must have been when i placed the calurpa, there were quite a few so they have had to been in there for a while

[RobertG]

Gator that sucks, good luck. I dont know enough about them to help. Will Tag along to learn though.

[Gator]

exam everything you put in your tank, i must have missed one and there are tons in that one fuge, i just hope that i dont have them or i will.........

[GaryP]

Gator,

I wouldn't freak out over one flatworm. They were probably present to some degree in a lot of the stuff you traded for. They are usually only a problem when and if they explode in numbers which can happen. Flatworms are detritivores and usually only grow to huge numbers if there is a buildup in detritus in your tank. I have found that good scavengers like hermits and good circulation will prevent high numbers.

A 10 second fresh water dip, or even lowering your salinity will kill them. I have found that adding Lugols to the dip water also helps.

If you are going to do something to control them, then I would do it before their numbers grow. They are only really harmful when they die because of the toxic body juices they release when they die. The fewer flatworms, the less body juice that is released. I've treated my SPS tank with Flatworm Exit and got about a 99% kill rate. Everything said about them indicates that their numbers "wax and wane" on their own. I have noticed that simply adding more circulation has cut their numbers tremendously in my softie tank. I think this has as much to do with limiting the amount of detritus buildup in the tank as it does anything else. The few remaining worms in my SPS tank have just about disappeared in my SPS tank after adding more circulation. Of course that doesn't mean that I still don't have a lot of them back in the rock work.

I've tried several critters that are supposedly predators of the flatworms with no real success. Some of the "gurus" will tell you that unless their numbers grow out of control, which is probably an indication of other problems like detritus buildup, that flatworms are just part of the biodiversity of a healthy aquarium. It sort of reminds me of the sort of things that were said about bristle worms just a few years ago. The only good bristle worm was a dead one.

Let me now if I can be of any further help.

Gary

[RobertG]

I know what you are going through Gator, I thought I might of had them & I was just ah man I cant begin to tell you the thoughts I had. You'll overcome this, I acttually lost sleep over it. Woke up & took what I thought were FW to the pet store. What is this! Cheer up you'll figure it out. ;-)

[BA]

also aren't there nudibranchs that eat ONLY flatworms...the name escapes me right now..

[GaryP]

They are Velvet Nudibranchs. They are very hard to find and don't travel well. They die as soon as the flatworms are eaten. Its all they eat.

Gary

[BA]

yea, but if you could contain the caulerpa, or whatvr in a small tank, or bucket or something, then put the nudi. in it, wouldn't it be worth it??i call texas earlier, when i was thinking about taking the caulerpa to see if i could get rid of the flatworms, and they said they could order me one if i wanted......just a thought

[Gator]

thanks everyone, i am jsut going to start that fuge over and hopefully i wont see thease anymore. Thanks gary i was going to call but i was babysiting and couldnt call, thanks again everyone

[BA]

good luck gator