flatworm infestation

[blueboy]

am i out of my mind, or does Darby's have an incredibly bad flatworm infestation? i was in there a couple of weeks ago and there were literally thousands of little redish flatworms clearly visible in the coral tanks. are these the ones many of you were cursing some months back? Darby acted as if all was fine, and they were selling from the tanks! if these are the devil spawn flatworms i find this very irresponsible of a shop that i always thought had a pretty good reputation. having never seen these worms before i cannot say with absolute certainty that they were the evil ones, but they were definatly flatworms of some sort. just thought i'd give you guys a heads up.

[blueboy]

sorry guys, didn't realize i was in the for sale/trade forum. could someone a bit more puter savvy move this to general? much appreciated.

[Shark_Bait]

Are all flatworms bad? If they are why would IPSF sell them? I know bristleworms are bad but all worms? Oh s**t I just put some in from IPSF in their combo pack.

[GaryP]

Those are probably bristleworms or some other beneficial worms.

I'm sure they are not selling the Aoecel flatworms that blueboy was talking about.

Aoecel flatworms are not necessarily bad, they just have a tendency to bloom and reproduce in large numbers. To bad you missed the last meeting. Wanna guess what the topic was?

Gary

[Tim Marvin]

Actually bristle worms are good for your tank, they are very good at cleaning up waste. I have never heard of flatworms being a good thing, no matter what type, they can reach plague populations and be un sightly. You can buy sharks, crown of thorns, mantis shrimp, pistol shrimp and snapper also, but that doesn't work out well in a reef tank either. We can buy anything in the ocean, but it is our job to know something about these things before we add them. The clear flat worms aren't very threatening and will help clean up detritous , but the red ones can cover corals and block out the light. I wouldn't suggest adding either.

[blueboy]

these were certainly not bristle worms, i've ordered them from ipsf too. they were some sort of flat worms, i could actualy see the little arrow shaped heads. i suspect that they were the ones that tim was talking about, as they were red, and they were definatly at plague population. also several of the corals in those tanks were not opening well, and appeared to be aggitated.

[matt]

IPSF would not sell the red planaria flatworms that plague reef tanks, believe me that would pretty well deep six their business. Why don't you go to this article:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020614014036/www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1998/sep/wb/default.asp

or if the link doesn't work, just try ronshimek.com and follow links to articles on flatworms. While you're at it read up a bit about bristleworms. Shimek is a real authority on marine invertebrates; especially the non-ornamental ones that live in sand and on the rocks. Since most successful reef tanks have a few thousand of these type of creatures, you might want to learn about them.

[Tim Marvin]

Good article Matt, but I don't think those are the flat worms BlueBoy was referring to. I still stand my ground though, if they have the forked tail like the ones we don't want, I wouldn't put them in. Yes, if it is just a flat looking worm and it is from IPSF I'd probably add with no problem. I would think they would post a warning to buyers if it was going to be a problem. People do buy pests for a reason though. Look at instar, he will take all the aptasia you can find to feed his nudi's and CBB.