Flatworms

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b-towndoc

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Messages
23
Location
Burlington, NC
I recently purchased a Frogspawn frag and have noticed some very tiny flatworms on its base over the last few days. All of my fish look to be doing fine, but I am wondering if I need to do something about these?

My parameters are all fine with stable temp/ph. I currently have a Coral Beauty, Maroon Clown, Yellow watchman goby, coral banded shrimp and cleaner shrimp along with my CUC. The only odd thing I have seen is the cleaner shrimp cleaning the inside of the goby's mouth a bit more over the last day or two.

The worms are so tiny there is no way I could take a picture and I only see them around the base of the frogspawn/live rock that it is sitting.

Any ideas? Will my fish/inverts eat them? I don't want to go dosing chemicals if I do not need to. These could of been there the entire time and I am just now seeing them...

thanks!
 
Yes they are red. :sorry: Will go get some flatworm exit! Thanks.

On a side note, I have been thinking of getting a Sixline Wrasse. Would one wrasse be enough to take care of stuff like this in the future?

Just trying to decide if I need to nix buying anything from that LFS. I inspected the Frogspawn, but wasn't sure if it would be safe to dip it in freshwater before putting it in.

Thanks for your help!
 
I think I picked some up on one of my coral frags too... Mine are more of a greenish color. They population started to multiply so I began to siphon them out. I am hoping to avoid using any chemical cleaner. Siphoning is actually really easy - I do it similarly as is described on melevsreef.com. I am also thinking about trying a six line wrasse. I have heard that they will usually take care of the small ones.
 
...Siphoning is actually really easy - I do it similarly as is described on melevsreef.com....

Agree. When I went through my flatworm stage of the normal "aquarium plagues newcomers will experience", I eventually won the battle by siphoning. Didn't have to resort to chemicals. You just need to be persistent and patient.

I think just about everyone goes through a flatworm stage because until you go through it, you don't know what to look for on corals. Flatworms are like nudibranches - they come in various colors that can blend in to corals so well. Luckily, they're dumb as a stump so they're pretty easy to siphon away.
 
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