good price on live rock = flat worms

[jesserettele]

So I have been making extremely slow progress with my build and only have a small tank that I have been propagating copepods and all the biological stuff we like with some live sand and live rock with some macro. I have been free of aiptasia, cyano, and have managed to prevent most any other pests from being introduced so far. I recently picked up some well priced unique pieces of live rock from a LFS to add to my collection and now I have an infestation of flat worms. So, I fudged up and didn't treat the rock before throwing it into the tank, so shame on me. I should have practiced safer reefing. Now, do I trash the whole biological system in order to prevent contaminating my actual, in the near future, tank build or is there a fail safe way to get rid of these guys without harming my budies the copepods?

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad302/Jesserettele/temp%20fuge%20sump/IMG_0574.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad302/Jesserettele/temp%20fuge%20sump/IMG_0560.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad302/Jesserettele/temp%20fuge%20sump/IMG_0562.jpg
see the copepod next to the flat worm? above?

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad302/Jesserettele/temp%20fuge%20sump/IMG_0566.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad302/Jesserettele/temp%20fuge%20sump/IMG_0559.jpg

[Europhyllia]

I have used only dry rock for that reason. such a pain to deal with all the freebies that come with liverock.
I'd probably ditch it and start over. Copepods come back so very quickly.

[jc]

I have used only dry rock for that reason. such a pain to deal with all the freebies that come with liverock.
I'd probably ditch it and start over. Copepods come back so very quickly.

If I started a new tank today I would go with dry rock.

[allan]

Flatworms exit. I don't believe that it will injure the pods.

[bullstedman]

i found out just by accedent that i had those flat worms and those like two colored ugly spiney woms in my substrate.But one night i found my coral banded shrimp tearing them apart and eating themm, but it took awhile for him to catch up and now i dont have that perticuler problem anymore. Jus an idea.

[Europhyllia]

oh and when I said ditch it I of course didn't mean to dump the rock -just dry it and reuse. That way you still have your unusual shapes etc

[Big_Pun]

just nuke the flat worms with medication, pods should be fine. you can always buy more pods and re seed, I'm assuming your tank has no livestock, if so this is the best time to get rid of the worms. how long after you added the rock did you notice the worms.

[jesserettele]

i found out just by accedent that i had those flat worms and those like two colored ugly spiney woms in my substrate.But one night i found my coral banded shrimp tearing them apart and eating themm, but it took awhile for him to catch up and now i dont have that perticuler problem anymore. Jus an idea.
I had one in my last tank and since you mentioned it, yes he was one of the good guys, thanks for the reminder. I also had an erie looking arrow crab that helped with the pests.


oh and when I said ditch it I of course didn't mean to dump the rock -just dry it and reuse. That way you still have your unusual shapes etc
RIGHT, I am going to be drilling it and piecing it together with acrylic rod and foam, so I might as well dry it out. I just have the nice purple coraline started already and didn't want to bleach it out too much during the build.


Flatworms exit. I don't believe that it will injure the pods.
Thanks, I think I will use that stuff, about $20 right?


just nuke the flat worms with medication, pods should be fine. you can always buy more pods and re seed, I'm assuming your tank has no livestock, if so this is the best time to get rid of the worms. how long after you added the rock did you notice the worms.
Yeah all I have at this point is biological stuff, macro algae, live sand, and live rock. Much of this will probably go away anyways since I am probably going to try bio pellets.

[ErikH]

Jesse, get yourself two bottles...

Since you have no fish the toxins they release won't kill anything. I would use the entire bottle on your 75. The entire bottle treats 300g, but this should help to nuke them all. After you dose, stir up the sandbed to make sure they all get treated as they hide in the sand. I believe this is where I failed in my first attempt. When they start to die, turn off your powerheads. That will make it easier to siphon them out rather than have a snow globe of death like I had.

Two weeks later, do it again.

It may sound like a PITA, but its better than having RP. I recently removed all but 1/2" of my sandbed and am gearing up for another treatment. THIS time, I am removing my fish as I had a horrible experience the first go round.

If you read under the General Reefkeeping > Reef Pests section, you should find my thread regarding my treatment. I overdid the precautions the instructions called for, and still lost fish :(

Good luck, it's a hard battle.

[Mr Cob]

that stinks! BUT, what better time to discover it than before you have a full blown reef with tons of corals and fish. I wouldn't worry about the pods, I'll hook you up with a nice large bag of macro loaded with pods if you PM me when you are ready.

Fortunately for you, Erik went through this recently and has filtered the path...I'd follow his recommendations above.

[txmaverickmh]

+1 on the Flatworm exit, works like a champ and it didnt hurt any corals in my case

[stoneroller]

So if you go with FW exit then there's no need to dry the rock...

[cbianco]

On a side note...

I think that all of us have dealt with these types of flatworms at one time or another. As long as they are not AEFW, they shouldn't do damage to the tank's livestock. They act as part of the cleanup crew. On the other hand, they're ugly to look at.

Christopher :)