Tonight I was doing a water change and siphoning some of the algae I have been battling and I came across this huge snail like thing. it was stretched about 3x3" with a flat body that fully contoured and blended very well with the rock. It quickly hid as I lifted up the coral it was under. I have never seen these before until today when I was rinsing out a my filter sock there was a smaller one about 1/2-1" one in the sock looked like it had one piece of maybe white shell under it about 1/8" and completely took shape of anything it was on. I am trying to ID this thing and the closest I came to was this http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~bu6/flat0263.html
The color pattern matches but the shape does not at all. Mine had a odd shape to it but kinda round more then just long and skinny.
Anyone have any idea’s? I have never seen it before in my tank or anywhere else for that matter. Only new thing added to my tank in the past few months have been fish and the xenia frag from the meeting.
Even if you have a perfect memory you will likely never get a positive ID. There is a good chance it was a flatworm and not a desirable one.
It is always best to isolate and identify, especially if it is highly mobile. If you have never seen it before finding it again may prove difficult to impossible.
Take a look/read through this:
If you have the specimen or a really good photo or video I could refer you to some people who could give the best ID you can get however they likely won’t be able to say much more then I have here with out a photo or video.
I’ve found some large random flatworms in my tanks before. I’m thinking because of how great they can hide, they can be in your tank for awhile, un-noticed until they’re much larger. Identifying where/when you got them might be impossible.
If he had a bit of a shell on him, I’ve seen some stomatellas with grossly undersized shells and massive (relatively speaking) bodies. Any chance it was one of them?
I tried to take a picture and video but by the time I was able to get the phone on with wet hands the exposure was to high and the picture did not come out well at all. It was like a large blob.
it is not a stomatella. the piece of shell I found on the one was on the bottom of it or at least that’s what it seemed. It was much smaller and fit on a toothbrush. It reminded me of a olive snail with the pattern and size but no shell was visible. I will keep looking for a id.
On some sites the flat slug looking guys were in the flat worm or sea slug categories. I am totally baffled.
Jeff there is a large flat worm that looks like that called
A polyclad flatworm. Google that and see if it looks the same , if that’s it I’d get it out . They will eat any mollusk
[quote=“billrob71, post:6, topic:5811”]
Jeff there is a large flat worm that looks like that called
A polyclad flatworm. Google that and see if it looks the same , if that’s it I’d get it out . They will eat any mollusk[/quote]
I would love to know how I got it in the first place though. This hobby is starting to really bug me today as I have just lost my new foxface due to a leap of faith and sticking him in the qt is not bringing him back at all… Ever since I got back from my honeymoon it has been nothing but problems. Think it might be the time to cut some losses.
They are nasty creatures and was told my a marine biologist that there rare to find and to find more then one is strange I had a mass wave on 12 or more from my old tank and nuked all the rock to get rid of them
I will try and find it again tonight when lights go out. I am seriously thinking of my next step in the hobby what route I want to go. I kinda like the idea of breaking all the tanks down and starting from scratch and maybe even sell my huge shelfrock I paid out the $$ for. I almost want to give up at this point. verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in
Many years ago I had red flatworms in my tank. I was told by a biologist (who wrote a paper for reefkeeping magazine and called himself a flatworm expert) that, “If you ever want to sell corals you’re going to have to tell them you have these guys and when you do they won’t buy from you. Best advice I could give you is to pour bleach in your tank, let everything get bone dry, and start over from scratch.” Years later I am flatworm free for many years, have sold hundreds of corals, and love my display tank.
“Fish stories” about how bad and evil things can be will get you more views on YouTube and more comments on a forum. Really there isn’t much you can’t do if you put your mind and back into it.
Big question, have you noticed massive die off in your tank before finding this guy? Or were things going well? Notice chunks out of coral or find that animals were disappearing with no reason?
I have not noticed any die off that was not related to my honeymoon issue with the tank sitter and the algae problems I am still facing.
I did lose 1 clam out of nowhere that was fully open then next thing I knew snails were eating at it and I could not get all of them out. Other then that my other clams were un affected. When I found it last night it was under a digitata colony and then disappeared under the Anthalia to not be seen again.
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:7, topic:5811”]
Ever since I got back from my honeymoon it has been nothing but problems. Think it might be the time to cut some losses.[/quote]
i couldn’t NOT quote this one… I’ve been sayin that for 10+ years ::
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:9, topic:5811”]
I will try and find it again tonight when lights go out. I am seriously thinking of my next step in the hobby what route I want to go. I kinda like the idea of breaking all the tanks down and starting from scratch and maybe even sell my huge shelfrock I paid out the $$ for. I almost want to give up at this point. verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in[/quote]
but seriously, i hear ya about being discouraged with the hobby. But i don’t want to give it up, i just want to keep learning to make it easier and just keep the cool animals that “always” do well. if anything, i’d just downgrade to a nice easy clownfish based setup. All my animals are doing great,all the fish/inverts , toadstool, gsp, xenia, a bubble coral, anthelia and a few other random softy polyps… oh yeah, my hippo clam too.
I haven’t done a w/c in 3 months, been topping off with straight tap water half the time, and have been running mostly only 2 of my 6 bars of t5’s…and, my skimmer hasn’t been run in 2 months verdict_in
i’ve still had 0 nitrates though. anyway, i’m at the point that i love anything that has survived, no matter how “ugly” or “same old same old” that it is…
then again, the thought of african cichlids has crossed my mind ::
:: but…I’ll never give up all my saltwater
what were you thinking of Jeff, a complete towel toss, or a change-up?
Hey Jeff, Are you using a Bio-pellet reactor? they seem to work at slowly starving out the hair algae. just use a larger pump like 350-450 gph for the TLF 150 Reactor. that keeps the pellets bouncing around, and the throttle valve that comes with the reactor lets you fine tune the flow. then your protein skimmer finishes the job sucking out the bacteria and scum. but it should take a couple months.
Yes, Hair Algea is great at keeping your nitrates and phosphates near zero. Hungry little buggers.
I am running a tlf 150 reactor with bio pellets and a mag 5 when I had the rio on it there was not enough pressure since the valve restricts it some which I removed it so now they tumble like crazy.
I have never had 0 nitrates in my main tank. I still have the snot algae the hair algae is dying off though.
And as for the throwing in the towel it has been crossing my mind. I have put to much money in and had to much money just waste away. I could have used the money for more important things and yet I keep dumping money in the tank. Today I decided to pull every piece of rock out of my small tank and scrub it in my qt tank so I would not have a die off issue. I might do the same with my main tank. I also threw the other mandarin and red lip blenny in the main tank so I shall see when the lights come on if my lawnmower blenny is alive along with the ora mandarin. I am at the point I dont care anymore if crap dies it dies it gets me one step closer to just saying I am done.
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