Nuisance algae

[AlexKilpatrick]

I'm hoping someone can help me with this nuisance algae. I have had it for about the past 6 months. I recently fixed some major issues with my skimmer and RO/DI, so I am hoping it will improve quickly, but I really want to get rid of it.

It is brown, flaky, and is easy to brush off. It grows on the glass, rocks, and even a few soft corals.

[Texreefer]

unfortunately that is not an algae bloom,, those are flatworms and darn near imposible to get rid of,, from the look of that pic you have got yourself a pretty good infestation, if you don't have a lot of expensive coral there is a treatment for them,, maybe someone on here knows what the name of it is.

[brewercm]

That looks like you have a case of red flatworms to me not algae. You can use flatworm exit to get rid of them, just make sure to follow the directions and siphon them all out once you have killed them.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Argh. That is what I was afraid of. I didn't think they were flatworms because I can't see them move.

I don't have anything expensive, luckily. I will be glad to get rid of them.

[AlexKilpatrick]

OK, I read up on the treatment and it looks pretty straightforward. Does anyone know if any of the local stores in Austin sell flatworm exit?

[matt]

If your picture is representative of your tank in terms of the density of flatworms, you need to spend ALOT of time siphoning them out before using flatworm exit. You really want to get your tank so that you can't see any before using the stuff, then once you use it, you'll see many more dead ones than you thought possible, and you have to siphon those out quickly as well.

Despite my best efforts (obviously not enough) I had an outbreak of these in my new corner tank. It wasn't that bad, I could hardly see them, and I just hit the tank with 3-4 times the recommended dose, then started carbon a half hour later. It seems to have worked, but it also killed a bunch of tiny serpent stars, some amphipods, and a few bristleworms. Alot of dead flatworms came off the rock and sand where I hadn;t seen them. I HATE putting stuff like this into my tank, but since it's a new system, I figured I might as well give it a shot now and hope for the best. I'm going to wait a couple of days, and re-treat, this time leaving it in for a few days. I really hope that does it. My tanks is too small for a leopard wrasse or any of the other wrasses that have been known to eat flatworms. There's a nudibranch, (velvet nudibranch) which is known to eat exclusively flatworms, and if you don't have anything in your tank that will eat it, it might be a good solution. They're expensive and notoriously hard to keep alive, though.

Good luck! Practically everyone who has a reef tank has dealt with flatworms at some point, welcome to the club.

[AlexKilpatrick]

I just treated the tank and so far everything looks well. I had flatworms covering probably 40% of my rock. I siphoned all of them that I could see this morning, and ended up with a huge bag of them. It was actually easier to siphon them in the places where they are dense because they would form big mats. After siphoning them, I used flatworm exit, at about 1.5X the strength. Within just a couple of minutes, they started dying and popping out of the liver rock everywhere. I siphoned all those out too. Now I am running carbon in a big cannister filter, and my skimmer. So far they are pretty much all gone. We'll see how long it lasts.

I did get a wrasse that might eat them, but my powder blue tang keeps chasing him off, so I am not sure how well that is going to work out.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Anyone know how long I need to run carbon to get rid of all the toxins? I wa thinking 6 hours, but that is just a guess.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Thought I would post some pics:

Before:

http://dev.binaryduck.com/pics/before.jpg

After treatement and two siphonings:

http://dev.binaryduck.com/pics/after.jpg

Bag o' worms

http://dev.binaryduck.com/pics/worms.jpg

[MattK]

Holy cow, you did have an outbreak!

[AlexKilpatrick]

Yeah, I would have treated it earlier if I had known what it was. I just thought it was some kind of algae, and it would go away on its own when I got my skimmer working again. My experience with nuisance algae has been that once you get the tank stable, it will go away on its own. Clearly, this is not the case with the flatworms.

I am majorly impressed with Flatworm exit. It was expensive for such a tiny bottle, but well worth it.

[MattK]

I am majorly impressed with Flatworm exit. It was expensive for such a tiny bottle, but well worth it.

I agree. I've had to use it once before and it worked like a charm.

[jroescher]

So what do flatworms eat? If left alone will they eventually follow the same course as algeas that cycle through the tank in stages? Form Alex's experience, it looks like they just keep getting worse and worse.

[AlexKilpatrick]

They are detrivores. I guess if I had starved my tank and did a really good job cleaning up detritus, then they would have starved. However, from what I have read with a large population, they can "crash" and die almost all at once. Then you have the same problem of the toxin release that I have with treatment, but in an uncontrolled way.

[Texreefer]

IMO,, once you have them you always have them,, you may be able to get them to controlable levels, but they never seem to go complelety away. i fought them i a tank for over a year and could never get rid of them... when i set up my new tank you cannot beleive the lengths that i have gone to in order to not accidentally introduce them into my tank

[JeremyGlen]

So, now that my tank has no fish in it I should be able to starve the flatworms out? I only have to add stuff for the starfish and one shrimp I have left.

Don't they have zooanthelle that make food for them in the light? All I ever see my FWs doing is clinging to the rocks and acrylic in the light.

[AlexKilpatrick]

They must be somewhat photosynthetic. I never saw any that weren't in the light. But I have heard they are detrivores. If that is true, you could never get the tank clean enough to starve them out, I expect.

It seems like the best bet is to find a predator.

[JeremyGlen]

I had a six-line that was eating them real well. It ended up in the sump sqiushed between a pump and a baffle and died. I got another one and it wouldn't eat them. It can be a hit or miss thing with six-lines, but that is the only FW predator that I can buy for my small tank.