Control of Flatworms

[GobyMan]

So I have been reading everything I can about people's experience w/ controling flatworms and am trying to decide what to do.

 

We have:

 

Some nudis - don't live long and can foul tank when they die (still not sure which species)

 

Some fish - (six line, mandarin) don't think this is an option in my 5.5.

 

Siphon, Siphon, Siphon - looks more and more like what I will do...

 

anything I am missing....I think they are reproducing at a very rapid rate...I'm getting a bad feeling that this is the tip of the iceberg.

 

HELP!!!

[gobies]

I have seen some very small mandarins available.... Perhaps you could "rent" one, along with a small skimmer to deal with the, erm, nutrients from the mandarin?

[GobyMan]

That is one thing I will check on. I have a pretty good relationship with some of the LFS here. I actually just siphoned a bunch out. I used air tubing and the worms got sucked right off the glass/rocks....there are still some in there obviously, but at least it is harder for me to find them.

 

I guess I just have to add another item to my daily maintenance schedule!

[Paul G]

A nudibranch that eats the red acoel flatworm is Chelidonura Varians.

 

Also a turkey baster works quite well.

 

There was also a post recently where a shrimp - IIRC - ate them.

[printerdown01]

I too have the same problem... I have siphoned them out using a 1 ml pipette (which is surprisingly effective). I have also used a fresh water dip for the "easy to remove" rocks. The only problem is that I cant get all of them!! It seems as if I miss one or two in the tank and with in a week, I have a tank full again, lol. Fortunately I havn't had a problem with them reaching plague proportions yet (managing to keep them under control with the above methods), but I too am growing tired of having to constantly manage these little buggers! Good luck! I'm tempted to try the spotted mandarin... but these guys apparently are far from reliable, when it comes to a flatworm diet... Thus, I have been back and forth on this decision. -I'll keep checking back to see other peoples tips.

[gobies]

> I'm tempted to try the spotted mandarin... but these guys apparently are far from reliable, when it comes to a flatworm diet...

 

Bring a bunch of your flatworms to the LFS you want to "rent" the mandarin from. Have them get the mandarin into a sufficiently large temporary holding container (kritter keepers are good) and add your flatworms to it. Leave the mandarin alone for a while. If the flatworms are gone when you get back, you found a good one. If all the flatworms are still there, the mandarin goes back into his tank and you haven't fouled the LFS tank with flatworms.

[Sahin]

I am having the same problem.

They reached plague status about 6 weeks back, and i took the tank down and cleaned every rock. For a few days it all seemed fine. then they were back.

 

But not in plague proportions.

I siphone them out almost every day using an airline tubing so as not to loose too much water. It works rather well.

 

I am getting to the point where I see less and less every day. I have to look really hard now to find them. I just did a check right now, I cant see any, but perhaps I will find a few later on, I will siphone them out.Even if it take me months. I will beat them.

 

I have toyed with the idea of getting various mentioned predators to control them, but nothing seems concrete.

 

So I use this method and its working so far.

 

Good luck.

[GobyMan]

I'm with you Sahin. I got a bunch out yesterday siphoning w/ the air tubing. I think if I do his every couple days I should see some good results.

 

Thanks for all the help everyone!!!

[tinyreef]

gobyman,

 

i've been thinking (you caught me on a good year ) on this problem. when you siphon some of the worms out, experiment with the salinity to see what they can tolerate (hypo or hyper salinity). the salinity level to burst their little osmotic cell walls MAY be in a range tolerable to the rest of the tank.

 

i'd test it (if you have the time) in a separate dish or cup. it's a bit in-depth of a experiment but it's better than starving a mandarin or wrasse (if they'll even pick at them) or tearing down your setup. i'd bet on the mandarin though out of the two.

[Metznreef]

can someone post apic of a flatworm? i wanna make sure i don't have them:(

[GobyMan]

Tiny-

 

That is a very good idea. I will do that tomorrow. I will set up cups w/ different salinity and use my syringe to take flatworm samples and place them in the different cups...

 

Good idea!

[Satchmo]

I saw my first flatworm about 2 months ago. It was one of the little brown guys with the red dot on its butt (or head, however you wanna look at it ). I have taken no measures to remove them or keep them in check, and so far, I haven't had a problem. I see one every once in a while, but I really have to hunt. I've taken to the policy of not removing any living thing I find in my tank unless I actually see it harming something or growing toward plague proportions (I'm a big fan of diversity). I even have an aiptasia happily living amoung some yellow polyps. He's been in the same spot for months, and hasn't split or harmed anything. Everything's innocent until proven guilty in my tank. I'm not knocking anyone, flatworms can certainly be a legitimate problem that has to be dealt with (Sahin, I remember the pics of them all over the glass in your tank a while back ), I'm just playing devil's advocate. Maybe I just got lucky with the species of worm I have. Good luck with the exterminations to all those who have them overrunning their tanks.

[Sahin]

Heres a pic of these buggers in my tank just before they hit the big time and plagued my tank.

 

I never see them on the glass anymore, nor near the front, just a few isolated ones near the back of the tank. I siphon them out whever I see them.

 

Things generally under control now.

[RedSkaNite]

I think they look sorta cool. Whats so bad about them?

[Sahin]

I agree, they do sorta look cool.

When I first saw these living in my tank, I was pretty happy and thought I had these things that would eat and behave like other critters etc.

 

But within two weeks thier population grew so much. They were everywhere, glass, rocks, even some corals.

 

Its at the stage where they reached pest status IMO, did I have a problem with them.

 

I have all kinds of snails in my tank, and I love all of them being there. food and other resources keeps thier population in check, but these flatworms in an artificial setup like ours, without a natural predator to keep thier numbers in check, they reach pest status.

 

Well, just my thoughts. Enough rambling from me for now.

[Dave ESPI]

Im with Satchmo on the biodiversity..... BUT

Plagues are no fun.

THANK GOD I havent had to deal with large poppulations of Eccolids. Get a 6 line... See If U can "borrow" rent one from a LFS its the best way becides a pippette sucking them I have a customer with a 150 gall... she had some, and they were scattered in the tank.... HARD to get them all. We aded 3 6 lines.. they will fight, but they were so hungry that in 6 days they had eaten their fill and not fought once. we took 2 out and she hasnt had any in 3 months. GOOD LUCK !

[printerdown01]

Excelent point Dave!! Six-lines seem to be great at eating the little buggers!! I forgot to mention it, since it isn't an option for me -I have a territorial clown he doesn't bother bottom swimmers. However, he doesn't like anything in his water column! As for what flatworms can tolarate, unfortuanately they are surprisingly resiliant... It would be like trying to alter your tanks chemical properties to kill a damsel, from what I have read... Lower temperatures will keep them from multiplying as quickly, but they get to the same population size eventually... -And I'm not sure by how much it retards the population...

**hey gobies thanks for the LFS suggestion!!! I have no idea why, but I have never thought of doing this!!! Perhaps it would also be VERY useful for determining whether a peppermint would eat aptasia! Great Idea!!

[joh]

I have those guys too, but not in my main tank yet (they are in ref' tank), and hopefully they won't be in my maintank any time soon.

 

Well, what I usually do is when I change water, I just suck them out of the tank with the water and forget about them, usually they are not multiply as much everytime I change water though, so I do it like every other time or less. As long as they are not in my main tank, I am quite ok with them stick around and I'll control their population with water change. Feel bad have to do that to anything in my tank, but can't help much with number of them in there.

 

oh well...

[gobies]

Originally posted by printerdown01

[on bringing flatworms to the LFS to see if the mandarin will eat them] Perhaps it would also be VERY useful for determining whether a peppermint would eat aptasia! Great Idea!!

 

Thanks -- I came up with that exact idea when I was trying to figure out how to get the right peppermint shrimp. I later read that some mandarins will eat flatworms, so I figured a similar tactic might work in your case. It's really just an extension of the "make sure you see the fish eat before you buy it" advise.