Red Flatworm/planaria

[LinkinPark]

Hi

I have lots of red flatworm in my 3 ft tank: on the rock, glass, sand, coral skeleton. I have 2 return pump and a tunze and I believe the water circulation is good.

How to get rid of these? I do not want to use chemical (salifert flatworm exit)

[Morgan]

Hi LinkinPark

Just to let you know..there is no easy way you can remove them without add chemical.

They are just too diffcuilt to kill. Battle this problem before.

No point trying out mandarin and wrasse...they just don't work......beside these flatworms are really toxic. The juice from dead worms can wipe out your corals and fishes.

You can try complete black out your tank for a week.....maybe that will work but then the corals will suffer......

Guess you just have to live with it.

Good Luck

[LinkinPark]

Hi Morgan

<<Guess you just have to live with it.>>

Do you mean that it is ok to have these flatworms? No danger? But I do have a LOT of these worms, will there be any problem?

I don't mind if they are eye-sore, as long as they don't crash my tank.

Thanks for the great info. Appreciate it.

[Morgan]

Hi LP

I do not think it is OK to have flatworms.

Reason:

They release toxin when they die which in turn affect coral growth.

They stain your fingers yellow if you try to kill them.

You can't trade coral frags.........nobody want to bring home unwanted hitch hiker

And they are an eye sore......you want colours from the corals but a reddish brown backdrop does not look good at all. They cover everything and also produce mucus mat.

If you have zillion and zillion of them and they crash...if over night all them die then the toxin they release might kill off some of the delicate specimens or worse still crash the tank (possible but not likely to happen)

[LinkinPark]

Dear Morgan

If I change H2O weekly (instead of fortnightly) using the siphon to remove as much flatworms as possible, do you think this works?

I believe I should change the carbon regularly to negate the toxin.

[Tanzy]

You will have to use chemicals. The alternative is to freshwater soak everything! I mean everything that comes in contact with the tank and that will most probably kill most of your corals and stuff living in the rocks. Chemicals aren't that bad if you know what you are doing and follow instructions.

Morgan,

Time for another nuke? It is going to be coming to one year I think since the last treatment.

[Morgan]

Tanzy

Thinking of doing 1 this weekend ..........but not so drastic as the last time.

Don't have too much of those little fellas. So should be much easier.

Just nuke the 4 and 6 last weekend.

LP

Changing water will not solve your problem. Those things multiply very fast especially with good lighting. All you need is 1 and the rest is history.

Best thing to do is to remove them before they become a plague.