Flatworms - should I be concerned

[SkinnyPete]

So, while cleaning the glass today, I spotted an area with a few flatworms. They are tiny, tiny, tiny. Long and square, not really round and copper like pictures I've seen. I hardly noticed them. Just out of curiousity, I took out a small netfull of sand and put it in a container to see if there are any in my sand. There were a few in there, worming around. Again, very small, probably wouldn't even notice if they hadn't been moving. I can't really tell because they are so small, but I want to see they are greenish. I could be wrong though.

I do have a mandarin in there, but a green mandarin - I guess not anything that would be interested in eating flatworms. I don't have many coral - only mushrooms and they don't appear to be affected by them yet. i haven't added anything new to the tank in probably a year, so I'm not sure where this outbreak is coming from but is this cause for concern? I read that some species feed on copepods, which would be bad for my mandarin.

Should I consider that flatworm exit now or wait to see if it really becomes a problem?

Thanks.

- Skins

 

[melosu58]

I think I Read somewhere that a sixline wrasse will take care of flat worms.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Yeah I know but, I don't want to add a sixline with a mandarin.

Also, I was certain these little guys were green but I'm a little brown green color-blind. My wife is certain they are orange-ish. So, I'm assuming that might change things.

Does anyone have a link that explains the difference between flatworms. Which ones are less desirable?

Thanks.

Could have sworn they were green.

 

[roka64]

Any chance you can get a pic?

 

[ntswift]

I just got done getting rid of all my flatworms. There were only a few in my tank and I thought that they were just dead pieces of macro in my tank. After a while there were a ton of them. Then one of my friends came over and said that they were flatworms. So I went down and got flatworm eXit and took care of them. It took about 3 or 4 doses to get rid of all of them but it seemed to work okay. I still see one every now and then and I just suck it up with a turkey baster. IMO get rid of them now no matter what color they are. They will be a plague before too long.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Any chance you can get a pic?

Kind of blurry because they are so small, but here goes...

 

[SeeDemTails]

Yep, flatworms....

Nothing to serious, they dont really do anything to your tank unless you let them get out of control.....

I would vacuum them up using a 1 gal water jug, a peice of rigid air hose as deep as your tank and soft air hose abouth the same length. Start a syphon and vacuum them up, the small hose gets them really easily.....then after a couple weeks when you dont see them you can use the flatworm exit, but they are toxic and you dont want a bunch of dead ones in your tank.

Remeber, flat worm exit is a posion....do you want to put a posion in your tank?

I dont so I just vaccum during water changes to control them.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Anyone know if they feast on pods? I've got a mandarin. Would rather not have them kill my pod population.

 

[angelscrx]

I don't think so but I do know that my Mandarin ate flat worms like they were candy. I never even had to treat the tank or siphon them out. She cleaned them out for me.

 

[seaham358]

If left alone they will multiply to plague proportions.
They live on the light and are not pod eaters. My buddy had them so bad in his 180 it looked like he had a brown sand bed. He gave me some turtle grass (before I knew he had them)and now I got them in my 55 and fuge. If your worried about pods then DO NOT use the FW exit, it will kill off all the worms and pods in your tank. Keep them in check when doing water changes by vacing them out. after a year or two you may have to nuke them, they just reproduce so fast its hard to keep up with them if you tank is packed with LR.

Good luck..

 

[SkinnyPete]

If your worried about pods then DO NOT use the FW exit, it will kill off all the worms and pods in your tank.
Good luck..

Wait a minute, I thought eXit did NOT kill pods. I thought the whole point was that it kills nothing but the worms? I hate to drive this thread into the ground, but does anyone know if that's the case? With a mandarin, I can't afford to kill pods.

 

[ntswift]

I treated my tank just recently and I still have pods. I treated it like 3 or 4 times in about a week. I wanted to make sure they were gone. I still see one or two occationally on my candy cane coral but I just suck them up with a turkey baster. However I did notice a decrease in my pod population. I do have a leopard wrasse though. He could have just been chowing down on my pods too. I didn't really notice how the population was before I did the eXit. I just remember from before I put my wrasse in. Is it possible that it kills some of them? Sure, but from my recent experience, it doesnt kill them all. HTH

 

[abnmojo]

velvet nudibranch eats these things - and ONLY these things, so if you don't have them, you can't keep one. They also only live for about six months best case, so I would go this route before I put poison in my tank, but that is just me.

I have been looking for one of these for a few months- it seems you can find them mail order but not arround here in my LFS. I have the SAME things in my nano and they are a pain in the A%^. It seems I can't ever get all of them out of there no matter how many times I siphon and pull live rock chunks out and rinse.

Also, mandrins and six line wrasse will eat them, but not ALL the time, it is a hit-or-miss thing I have been told. velvet nudibranch are the only thing out there that will ONLY eat them and leave your tank alone.

Good luck