Bad or Good Flatworm?

[NowSnow]

Is this a good or bad flatworm, or is it not even a flatworm?

I have a whole bunch of smaller ones of them, this is the largest I've seen so far.

 

 

[trekbear]

looks like a red flatworm to me. They are not wanted, considered a pest. Best way to remove them is to siphon them out w/ waterchange if you have a large population, you may have to use Flatworm Exit and dip all of your corals.

 

If you do use Flatworm Exit, a little goes a long way. You will probably want to remove your corals into a holding tank, use the flatworm exit and waterchange start carbon then put your corals back in after you dip them again before you put them back in your display.

 

They can be irradicated, but it takes patience. (Don't you just love that word???) LOL

 

HTH,

TrekBear

[NowSnow]

Little confused, so I remove the corals to a holding tank, then use flatworm exit on my display tank, then do a waterchange for the display, then dip the corals in some flatworm exit and then put them back into the tank? Why not just add flat worm exit to the tank with out removing the corals?

[trekbear]

The reason you don't want to leave your corals in the tank when you use the flatworm exit is because they excrete Toxic Poisons in the water when they die. The concentration of these toxins in such a small environment will be very VERY BAD for the corals to be exposed to / be in for any length of time. Thats why the holding tank is a MUST..

 

and I also suggest you dip in Flatworm exit BEFORE you put in the holding tank and then again before you put in the display tank. This way you get any critters that might have made it thru the 1st dip.

 

HTH,

TrekBear

[NowSnow]

Thank you for the clarification.

[lgreen]

Honestly,

 

I wouldn't worry to much unless their population is getting out of control. Sometimes you will see a few here and there, but as long as they are not massivley covering or taking over parts of your tank, it should be fine.

 

Flatworms hate water flow, so if you see an accumulation of flatworms, increasing water flow to that area may help. Also protein skimming to remove excess nutrients.

 

I would aviod flatworm exit or any chemical unless absolutley necessary.

 

For the most part, if you are worried, just suck them out with airline tubing.

 

I have had them a few times in a few tanks, and just left them, and they never got out of control or caused any problems.

[NowSnow]

No, I dont care what they look like but I just dont want them to all die at once and kill anything else (from what i've read this is what happens). There seems to be a good amount of them, ranging in size from smaller than pin heads to 5mm. I think I might do the dip though since there seems to be so many of them.

 

heres a pic of part of my back wall probably half of those dots are pods and half are the flatworms i'd say

 

 

and heres a close up of the smaller ones.

 

[Caesar777]

Cute pods. Try siphoning out all the flatworms you can over a couple of days before trying harsh chemicals.

[reefin300]

you really wont realize how many are in your tank as they are hiding in the crevices and by the looks of it there may be quite a bit, depending on the size of your tank salifert use as a last resort.