Red Dots On Glass, Please HELP!!!!

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lbaier

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jun 19, 2003
Messages
93
Location
Albany, NY
Hey guys,

Our 125 gallon tank has had an outbreak of these red dots on our glass and liverock, does anyone know what these are and how to get rid of them?!?!?!

We use RI/DO water, and do water changes about every 2 weeks. Our numbers are really good.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0
PH - 8.2
Salinity - 1.023
Phosphates - 0

Please Help!!!!
 

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Kinda out of focus, but it looks like a mighty fine infestation of flatworms. Did you recently add a new coral? They normally hitchhike in on something if it isn't a new tank.

Do they look like the photo on the top of this page?...

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fltwmid.htm

If so, there's a lot of good reading there for ya.

I had a few a while back, but managed to rid myself of them by just sucking as many out as I could during water changes. I've also heard of others putting a filter sock on the end of their siphon hose, and sucking buckets of water out, catching the flatworms in the filter sock. Then they put the bucket of water back into the tank. Salifert also makes a product called "Flatworm Exit". While the product itself is reef safe, when flatworms die they produce a toxin. From what I've heard, if you use the product and let the flatworms die in your tank without sucking them out immediately, things can go wrong really quick.
 
I agree with Kurt those are Red planiria I agree with siphion as many out as possible . With increased water changes they should deplete thier food sourse and die . With FWE it can cause a spike in toxins as Kurt mentioned but with extra water changes and carbon you should be ok ...
 
I don't know what it is about flatworms, but whenever I see these pictures of infestations, my skin just crawls. When I had them in my tank, I took great joy in hunting them down and sucking them out. Made water changes LOTS of fun!
 
I don't know what it is about flatworms, but whenever I see these pictures of infestations, my skin just crawls. When I had them in my tank, I took great joy in hunting them down and sucking them out. Made water changes LOTS of fun!
I agree they look like maggots :)
I only had a few of the pink ones but I did some dips and I havent seen one in a long time knock on wood
:uzi:
 
That link is a better pic

That matches exactly what it looks like. The tank is over about 8 months old so it's semi-new. But it was fine until we got Thanks for the help, i'm increasing water changes. Is every other day too much? i have the buckets ready. I was also looking at the 6 line wrasse previously so i'm going to get that, hopefully it helps with the stranglers. The last purchase we made was with liveaquaria.com some polyps and some kelp. The purchase before that was about 4 months ago at the LFS, so one of them.
 
My guess was your LFS. Or on your rocks to start with, and they just finally reached plague proportions.

I wouldn't buy a fish, just to deal with them. If you were going to buy the six-line anyway, that's great... but I wouldn't alter my stocking plans for a temporary problem.
 
I was leaning towards the 6 line wrasse anyway, so it works out win win. I was wondering if a water change every 2 days is too much and may cause a spike?
 
Sucking them out is not easy.but it's working. How should I measure if the infestation is small enough to use Flatworm Exit. What I've read so far it should appear there are no more flat worms, turn off the pumps and do an immediate water change and suck out what you can find of them.

Is this what you think? I've been reading and it seems like you'll never totally get rid of them unless you train something to eat them. I was going to get the 6 line wrasse but then i read somewhere it has canine teeth and can be aggressive.
 
A sixline's behavior is similar to that of a damsel fish in my experience. I had one, small little guy was a bit of a bully to my 3 lined damsel, but would leave the gobies alone.
 
I'd really give manual removal a chance to work. It hasn't been that long. You may never be "totally" rid of them, but you can get their numbers down to where you don't see them anymore. I didn't have as many as you, but it wouldn't take me long to find one if I wanted to. After a couple months (not days!) of methodical removal during water changes, I couldn't find them anymore. Still can't find any. I don't doubt there's some in my tank, but if I can't find them, then that's good enough for me!

? - Why is sucking them out not easy? I just used a small diameter piece of tubing and siphoned them out. They don't really "stick" well to anything, so it was kind of like a leaf blower in reverse!
 
The reason I've been having trouble siphoning them out is not in getting them out of the tank, but getting water back in.

Maybe I'm doing something much harder then I have to.

So far, i have the 1/2 tubing going into a net draining into a bucket, this is catching all the flatworms. The problem is after about a half hour, the third bucket.. the water becomes yellow. I tossed this water and fortunately with all the water changes have buckets ready to replace the water. It makes me nervous that by putting the water back in the tank I may be putting the toxins back in, since the flat worms are dying in the net and the water that was supposed to go right back in the tank was running through the net and the dying flat worms.

I was trying to keep with water changes every other day, but still siphoning them out daily and putting that water back into the tank.
 
Oh... a 1/2 hour... I was more thinking siphoning out 2 or 3 gallons which should only take a few minutes. And even if you threw out 2 or 3 gallons and replaced it with new fresh salt water, it shouldn't be that big of a water change to cause issues with your water parameters.

Don't try to get them all at once. It'll take a while. I'd just do a couple gallons every other day or so and after several weeks you should see a big drop in the population. It won't be an overnight thing, but you know what they say about saltwater aquariums... "nothing good ever happens quick in this hobby!"
 
Thank you so much for your help, That will be much easier. We decided to hold off on picking out a fish and just do 2-3 gallons every other day. Since we pretty much tried to get them all out at once; it already looks a ton better.

We're also not going to risk any chemicals to kill them, Thanks again everyone is always so helpful.

Laura
 
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