TeenyReef's 4g PicoParadise

[teenyreef]

I've had the same looking flatworm show up in my tank recently. And it was after I got my first frag of zoas

 

I'm putting my melanurus wrasse back in my 40b in another week, so I'm counting on him munching them up. Looking forward to seeing how flatworm exit works for you.

Let me know how the wrasse does with them - good luck!

 

I haven't picked up the flatworm exit yet. I'm going to give it to the end of the week to see if they keep multiplying, and to see if they grow or start to get onto the corals. So far everything looks healthy and unbothered.

Beautiful pictures! Those zoas!! It's crazy how nice something like whamming watermelons and eagle eyes are but people overlook them for being "common". I'm trying to get some but have a hard time finding them because people don't want to keep the common stuff!

 

I have a Nikon D5500 too and a macro lens... and I haven't been using it... these pretty pictures bring me shame for being so lazy

I agree! Radioactive Dragon Eye zoas are some of my favorites, and I've always had trouble getting them to grow for various reasons. But I have one frag in this tank with three polyps that are left over from my very first coral order ever. I'm hoping they will pull through!

 

I hardly ever use my macro lens. I find I can just use the kit lens handheld and take advantage of the built in vibration reduction. Then I use the "shake reduction" sharpening filter in Photoshop, and crop the picture really tight. The results are usually almost as good if not better than the macro lens, and I don't have to mess with a tripod and remote trigger

 

I have those in my zoa frag tank. They do not eat the zoas, but they crawl on them thus keeping them closed.

 

Put a wrasse in there and problem solved.

 

I should also mention that I think a wrasse is needed in any zoa tank to take care of pods and flatworms. Both of which are no good for zoa's.

definitely pickup a some kind of wrasse. i went with a leopard wrasse because of my flatworm problem but also for the looks. i believe 6-line wrasses are good for flatworms too.

Unfortunately this is a 4g tank, so it's a little small for a wrasse

But I have thought about giving Fitzgerald, my Pink Streaked Wrasse that lives in the 10g tank, a little "staycation" in this tank, just to see what he can do

Yea they are flatworms, I had them in my tank for about 9 months before I found out what they were. They never caused anything in my tank any harm. I did however treat my tank with flatworm rx and they all died and I've never seen them since.

Good to know, I'm going to just keep an eye on them for now, but I'll get more aggressive if I see any signs of problems with the corals.

Those look similar to the flatworms I have, mine just had a slightly more tan color. They used to be all over the glass and sand, but now the most I ever see is one or two small ones that are barely noticeable. I never saw them on any coral. I never really did anything about them apart from vacuuming the sandbed a little more, and they seemed to run their course over a period of about 6 weeks.

 

Also, I agree with Elizabeth that they are more likely algae eaters (and possibly detrivores since I saw them on the sand, but there's algae there, too), but not coral eaters (at least I never saw one climb on coral). I did once try feeding one to the red war coral. Coral wasn't interested... Flatworm wasn't interested and went its merry way.

 

And I believe FWE might not work with this kind, but interested to hear how it goes if you try it.

 

 

What are those dotted lines on the glass? Tiny segmented worms of some sort?

That's great experience, thanks! I think I'll follow the same course unless I start to see problems.

 

The dotted lines on the glass are scratches on the acrylic

[holy carp]

Oh, scratches.... Sorry for noticing.

[teenyreef]

Oh, scratches.... Sorry for noticing.

There aren't many, and you can only see them in shots like that where it's really magnified and focused on the glass itself.

[teenyreef]

I had a busy night tonight. I got sick of all the questionable flatworms and giant pods and huge bristleworms, and things have been just generally not doing so well over the last couple weeks, so I did a Bayer dip on every frag and all the rubble rock. It was an exhaustive process because I pulled everything out of the tank for the dip. And I pulled out all the snails and hermits and about half a dozen cute littlle brittle stars, along with the green mollusc looking thingy to keep them separate and safe from the dip.

 

After the dip, I rinsed everything for fifteen minutes in clean saltwater with a powerhead running in one bucket, and then moved everything into another bucket and did another powerhead rinse, before putting anything back in the tank. And I sucked up all kinds of pods and worms and detritus off the bottom while I was at it.

 

I'm hoping to save the inverts but I know that even with a double rinse the rocks may bring in enough Bayer to kill them anyway. But at least I tried, and hopefully the tank will be pest free now.

 

I'll do this twice more over the next two weeks to get anything that hatches between now and then.

 

Here's the bottom of the tank after I sucked out all the crap and put the inverts back in.

 

Cadlights 4g Frag Tank Top Down by TeenyReef, on Flickr

[Bowen1022]

That looks soooo clean!!

[teenyreef]

Hopefully everything will still be alive tomorrow

 

The zoas were opening back up already after I put them back in, so that's a good sign.

[Bowen1022]

Definitely! You've been through the ringer with this tank unfortunately so fingers crossed for the morning

[thilankasp]

Hope the tank will be pest free after the treatment.. it's really a headache when things like this happen..

[teenyreef]

Definitely! You've been through the ringer with this tank unfortunately so fingers crossed for the morning

Thanks!

Hope the tank will be pest free after the treatment.. it's really a headache when things like this happen..

The lights are just coming on now (I run a late evening light cycle) but things already look better. Everything is opening up, and my gorgonian frag is already putting out polyps, which is a great sign since it's been closed up for the last three days.

[teenyreef]

The lights are on now, and things look pretty good. There are at least a few snails hanging around, so that's a good sign. The gorg closed back up, though, so I'm not sure what's going on with him.

 

Cadlights 4g Frag Tank Top Down by TeenyReef, on Flickr

[thilankasp]

Everything looks pretty good.. hopefully Gorg will open up again.. may be it needs a bit more time to settle..

[dropped]

The lights are on now, and things look pretty good. There are at least a few snails hanging around, so that's a good sign. The gorg closed back up, though, so I'm not sure what's going on with him.

 

Cadlights 4g Frag Tank Top Down by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

 

wow thats clean... too clean?

[DaveFason]

So fresh and so clean, clean.

 

With the rubble at the bottom I bet a few rock flowers would be super cool!

[teenyreef]

Everything looks pretty good.. hopefully Gorg will open up again.. may be it needs a bit more time to settle..

It seems to come and go. A few polyps come out a little bit, and then they go away an hour or two later.

 

I tried a second bayer dip just for the gorg yesterday, and today I noticed a dead or mostly dead bristleworm hanging off of it. I don't know where it came from but it almost looked like it was coming out of the gorg itself. I don't think that's actually what happened, but that's what it looked like. So I did a third bayer dip tonight. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

 

Everything else in the tank is doing great, and the snails are still crawling around, so it looks like I did an OK job of rinsing everything off after the dip.

 

 

wow thats clean... too clean?

Yes, definitely. One of the problems I was having was the nitrates and phosphates were both at zero. I'll recheck parameters at the end of the week, but I think between getting rid of all the critters and doing daily coral feeding, things seem to be much better now.

So fresh and so clean, clean.

 

With the rubble at the bottom I bet a few rock flowers would be super cool!

Oh wow, that's a really cool idea

 

I'm waiting to make sure acros are growing well in the 40g tank, and then I'm going to place an ASD live sale order. I may throw in a few RFA's at the same time!

[Tuffryu]

The lights are on now, and things look pretty good. There are at least a few snails hanging around, so that's a good sign. The gorg closed back up, though, so I'm not sure what's going on with him.

 

Cadlights 4g Frag Tank Top Down by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

Looking good as always Teeny!!!

[teenyreef]

 

Looking good as always Teeny!!!

Thanks!

[teenyreef]

It's been three days since the massive bayer dip, and everything looks great. Even the gorg started putting out some short little polyps today. And I still have snails crawling around and the blue leg hermit is still alive, so it looks like the thorough rinsing process I used really worked.

 

I'm still going to repeat the dip process on a weekly basis for a couple more weeks. Next time I do it I'll take some pictures and do a more detailed write up on exactly how I did it in case it's helpful to others.

[jack1978]

Wow.......those look great! Nice pieces you got in there!

[teenyreef]

Wow.......those look great! Nice pieces you got in there!

Thanks, Jack. Lots of them are pieces I saved from the crash, so I'm really happy to see them recovering. I'll probably put some of them in the 10g and 40g tanks, and then trade/sell the rest.

 

I hope to keep this tank running and keep my frags here instead of making the other tanks look like a garage sale

[teenyreef]

There were more flatworms on the glass last night. I was hoping they wouldn't come back after the first round of dippping, but I pretty much expected this would happen. I'll be doing another Bayer dip tomorrow, which will be #2 of what expect to be at least three weekly dips.

 

But aside from that, I'm very please with how everything is doing. It made a big difference doing the first dip.

[dropped]

I used flatworm RX and that stuff works well and is coral safe/invert safe.

[teenyreef]

I used flatworm RX and that stuff works well and is coral safe/invert safe.

Thanks - I thought hard about using it, but I also wanted to cut back on the other nuisance critters like bristleworms and big amphipods. I don't mind those so much in my regular tanks, but I'm trying to keep them out of the frag tank so I don't share them with my frags

[teenyreef]

I picked up some flatworm exit and treated the tank last night.

 

I stirred everything up really well, then siphoned off a gallon of water for a 25% water change. I pulled out the carbon and added three drops. Thirty minutes later I added carbon, repeated the stirring up 25% water change, and put in fresh floss.

 

Tonight I did another 25% water change and put in new filter floss.

 

So far so good - the water's nice and clear and all the corals are happy. The snails and hermits are still doing their thing too.

 

I'm hoping that between the bayer dip last week and the flatworm exit this week, that they are gone. If I see them again I'll just repeat the flatworm exit.

[dropped]

Was that the Salifert product? did you see many die?

[teenyreef]

Was that the Salifert product? did you see many die?

Yes, the salifert one.

 

Honestly, I'm still not sure if they were the bad kind of flatworms. They were very tiny and it wasn't possible to really tell if they were alive or dead without a magnifying glass. I'm really just doing this more as an insurance kind of thing.