By the look of the picture, those are flatworms. It can be very aggressive and quickly over populate in your tank if you leave it alone. I’m not sure how long you will be gone, but hopefully it will not over take your tank while you’re gone. I’m not sure how it get rid of it naturally, but I know there’s meds for it.
no problem too big that can’t be put of till after vacation. it can all be fixed later. Have a good trip.
Thanks to all for advice. Who has used Salifert’s flatworm eXit and what was your experience? I don’t have time to do it now but when I return I think this is what i will do. How do I prepare to do this and what should I be careful not to do? oh lost copper test and dont have MG, or iodide test kits. anyones guess.
DO NOT USE FLAT WORM EXIT BEFORE YOU LEAVE!
I have seen corals survive with that type of flat worm for years.(Just so no one gets any ideas my systems have 0 flat worms in them) That being said I have heard of hundreds of people crashing their tanks by using flat worm exit with out reading the directions. Large numbers of flat worms dying off at once can cause pretty much your entire tank to crash.
You don’t have an Mg test kit or Mg to add? You should never does one of the three, Ca, Alk, and Mg, with out know what the others are. The processes that typically deplete one of these items also deplete the others. If you continuously try to treat one and ignore the others you are going to have issues in the long run.
This is all for once you get back. It is best not to make any more changes or adjustments to your tank until you get back. Leave specific feeding and top off directions and wait for the rest until you return home.
I found a local internet connection and couldnt leave this alone. The Carib Sea stuff I used also doses magnesium as well as calcium. I think it also doses something else, probably iodide. I will need to check when I get back as well as get a Mg test kit. On another note there are all kinds of fish swimming all over here. (La Paz, Baja California Sur) I was able to catch some with a plastic coke bottle with the top cut off. Sooooo many fish! If only I could get through customs… Anyway, I have not yet used flatworm eXit and understand a mass die off of flatworms releases A LOT of toxins. Thus the reason I have asked who has used it before. Need a bunch of carbon and water changes I am guessing after you treat the system. OK well Adios! le-frog
I agree with jon i had flat worms…treated and lost my 2 tangs a few years ago. fortreatment of flatworms i would set up another tank and put all fish and corals in and treat main tank TWICE about a week or two apart to kill all flatworms and eggs. after this is done then do a fresh water dip on all corals before the renentry. fish will be ok with just reentry.
It would be best to do the second treatment close to 14 days later due to the average life cycle of these animals.
I know some people in the club have done freshwater dips on animals as a means to rid his tanks of flat worms, but then again they’ve returned on them a number of times.(have someone in mind, but not calling them out by name)
I would treat everything, but eliminate 99% of the flat worms before doing the treatment.
Flat worms hate high flow and fall off a rock quickly when you shake it. If the tank is small enough an easy way to do this is to set up a second tank and 4-5 buckets of salt water. Position the buckets in a row outside of the tank and dip each rock and coral in the first bucket and shake vigorously. Then dip into the next bucket and the next. You’ll notice a lot more of the flat worms in the first bucket then you do in the last. The fish you can just move over.
Then treat the second tank with flat worm exit according to the directions and clean and rinse the original tank with fresh water.
Every animal that makes it to my display tank has had two treatments 14 days apart using Saliferts flat worm exit.(The only product I use from this brand) 99% of LFS and 99% of wholesale facilities have flat worms in them that you don’t want in your display tank.(There are some good flat worms out there, but your tank can survive with out them)
I’ve had these flatworms, they were bad a year and a half ago when i lost power for two days in the summer. I never treated them, just siphoned out what i could see. I look for them from time to time and never see them anymore. They never seemed to hurt anything when i did have them…, I’m glad i didn’t waste money on chemicals, or put the tank at risk from a treatment…
not to disagree or argue methods, just offering a diff perspective
John you have probably mostly been alright because your tank has remained healthy for a good period of time now. Most hobbyist maintenance lacks at times and they have significant algae outbreaks. Unfortunately few hobbyist stay truly devoted for long periods of time. We’re all humans and our interest change or times get rough and salt gets expensive and the tanks health dips for a while.
You may also have been lucky with the animals in your tank. You may have come across a particular animal that loves to eat these worms and keeps them at bay. It is possible that if that animal were to be moved to another tank you would see them rebound.
If the flatworms are present at a time in which the nutrients are high they can become plague. I believe it to worse to have thousands of toxic worms moving about your aquarium then a bit of hair algae. Not to mention trying to explain to your wife or significant other that the mass of brown in the corner is a couple hundred worms, but if you had a power outage at the time you had tons of these worms and they start to die off… BTW if this happens I would recommend vacating the house the second you start to smell the toxins.
So I telephoned home to see how the family was (the reef tank really) and apparently things are a little better than when I left but still waaaayyy out of whack. Can the toxins released by these creatures be causing some corals not to open up? Does carbon help neutralize it? There is no chance I can get any one there to do a water change nor do I trust their ability to do so but tossing in fresh carbon in the sump, maybe. I do have a second tank set up at home I can use while treating the main tank. It was supposed to be a quarantine tank, obviously I haven’t done a good job of using it since there are no worms there. verdict_in Any way, so I should do a multiple bucket fresh water dip while removing corals and rocks? Should the fresh water be treated with coral dip additive? Obviously I havent used that either. verdict_in verdict_in I don’t think all my rock will fit in the quarantine tank though. Can I just leave the rock in the display that does not have coral attached? I am just a little lost on the suggestion by Gordonious. It says to use salt water in the buckets but others have told me fresh water. What is the advantage to either? abcd for all the help. Hope to go scuba diving or snorkeling tomorrow. le-frog tonight… :BEER BoNg :BEER :ZZZ)
Saltwater rinse/shaking(think washing machine motion) and 99% of the flat worms will fall off. Freshwater dip rinse shake and 99.00001% of the flat worms will come off and you’ll also kill and harm many other animals. Flatworms in general hate high flow, so shaking will knock off most of them.(though keep in mind so do Euphyllia(hammer, frogspawn, torch).
The flat worms you have do not seem to be plague yet from the images, but I am saying that with out seeing your tank up close. If there were a lot I would say it would be best to shake the rocks in buckets even if you had to put them right back in the tank.
BTW, some who suggest using freshwater to help fight flat worms… have flat worms in their systems…
I was thinking about this and just wanted to make something clear. I really can not see anything clearly in the images you posted. Also there are several very different species of flat worms in aquariums.(well several that become pests and many that aren’t so bad)
If the flat worms only show up on the coral and the coral appears to be doing alright I would just dip that individual coral. If the flat worms are never on the corals, but always in low flow areas of the aquarium are darker in color, and present in larger numbers then larger action may need to be taken.
If they are just on your corals dipping those corals separate and then treating the tanks may be enough, but really hard to know exactly what is going on from the limited information we have to go on.
Sorry about the limited info, all this happened while I was super busy trying to get ready to leave to Mexico. I should be back tuesday night and if not too jet lagged I will see what has transpired while away. Thanks for the clarification on using salt water. I have had a great time here, and if I found out how to get permits there is SO MUCH stuff I would ship back to the states. Even in just the tidal pools there are thousands of urchins, hermits, turbo snails and what appears to be some kind of scooter blenny. Chunks of live rock 2-3 feet long wash up on shore constantly. So although I missed the frag swap (boo-hoo) I had a great experience. I will update this post with new info in a few days. :GOLD)