I am fairly new to the Mb and have already learned a great deal about many issues, I am also the new fish manager at a local pet store, in the past we have had problems with cyanobacteria,aptasia,mujano,and ich,which have all been solved for the most part thanks to this Mb.

 A new issue has been brought to my attention and that is Flatworm, this worm does not seem to be actually harming any of the corals, fish or inverts but it is very unsightly with 200 gallons of reef tanks severely infested and another 200 gallons  beginning to grow a population. I have heard that A 6-line wrasse will eat flatworm but have seen little improvement since adding one to one of the reef tanks. i have also heard that fresh water dips work but at the scale of infestation and the scale of the system i cannot see this as an effective means of solving the problem. malachite green with formalin was suggested to me and would be feasible but i am concerned with the well being of my other inverts.

any suggestions would be welcomed and most appreciated.

For what it's worth, I started having a problem with them about 9 months ago and I got a manderin dragonette.  I still have a few in the tank, but it's far from the almost infestation that I originally had. 

My advice:  add a couple manderins.

Use Flatworm Exit. One dose got rid of all the flatworms in my tank and I haven't seen any in over 6 months.

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=SF5111 - http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=SF5111

ZephyrFish wrote: I am also the new fish manager at a local pet store,

It is awesome to see lfs employees here!  I commend you for coming here.  Not for advise, but just to be a part of this community.  Please get a store account (PM Jake Pehrson for that info) and feel free to post store specials.

Welcome!

Adam

Thank you for the great insight, at this point i think flatworm exit will be the best solution. I do like the idea of using slw but it is kind of a pain to catch them when they get sold. I will definitely look into a store account.

oh yeah, the color of mine are an orange brown color. so far i have not had any in my personal tank at home...nock on wood.

Flatworms release toxins when they die. If the tanks have very large populations of flatworms, keep this in mind when using Flatwork Exit.

http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2831&PN=2 - http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2831& PN=2

I would use it again if needed.  Make sure you follow the directions!!  and have a way to actively run carbon.  I used some DIY canister type filters so the water would be pushed directly through the carbon.

I would stay away from flatworm exit (although as you can see people have used it with success).

I would try natural methods.

Increase water flow in high concentrations areas (daily).  A couple of mobile powerheads work great.

Buy some fish that will eat them.  This is easy in a pet store.  You can buy the fish (a lot of them) and then just sell them, replenishing your population until the flat worms are gone.

Does the powerhead (more flow) actually kill the flatworm or just cause them to move to an area of low flow?

jfinch wrote: Does the powerhead (more flow) actually kill the flatworm or just cause them to move to an area of low flow?

It doesn't immediately kill them, but by constantly disrupting the high concentration areas they are not able to reproduce fast enough to replenish their population.  Also by kicking them up into the water column many fish will eat them as they are floating around and many will get sucked into pumps and overflows.  I have used this method on many, many tanks and I have always been able to eradicate the flatworm population.  The only problem with this method is it takes a long time (months).

I've only met probably 6 people that used Flatworm Exit, but it seemed about 50/50 success.  The ones who didn't have success seemed to end up with problems in their tank, plus left over flatworms that repopulated.  I wish you luck, and let us know how everything worked out, okay?

Update the combination of a Slw and a mandarin seem to be working the flatworm numbers have noticeably decreased so for now i will hold off on flatworm exit and just add more natural predators

Someone told me today that a green coris wrasse would be one of the best fishes to deal with the Flatworms, I don't know much about that fish but i have heard that it eats shrimp. does any body think that a green coris wrasse would be a bad idea?

I say good idea.  May not help, but a good idea.

Adam

 Here is an idea from Randy Holmes-Farley from RC had.

"Thumbs up to Salifert's Flatworm Exit

I used Flatworm Exit in my aquarium last weekend. I didn't have an especially bad problem, with nearly all flatworms confined to a single refugium. Nevertheless, the'd been there for a few years, and manual removal was never completely successful.

So I waited for the refugium to fill up with Caluerpa racemosa. At that time, most of the flatworms would climb onto on the Caulerpa during the light cycle. Then I pulled out much of the Caulerpa to get rid of most of them (I'd done this many times before) and then blasted the remainder with the Flatworm Exit.

I added the entire tank dose into this refugium, so for a period of time the dose was well above the overall tank dose (maybe 20X). Nothing was harmed that I noticed (of course, I did not quantitatively monitor anything except flatworms).

So far, I've not seen one since Saturday (5 days) and I've not noticed any harm."

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=194706&highlight=flatworm - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=194706&highlight=flatworm

A couple other threads about success and failure.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=418097&highlight=flatworm+exit - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=418097&highlight=flatworm+exit

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=350883&highlight=flatworm+exit - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=350883&highlight=flatworm+exit

ZephyrFish wrote: I did not see the post about the yellowtailed blue damsel,

Speaking of which, mine spawned this morning.

Adam

Mark- I'll get pics of the eggs later tonight  They laid them in their new house, which is a huge snail/hermit crab shell.  I collected it off of San Clemente and it is about 3 inches in diameter and 3 inches tall.  They swim right inside it.

Adam

I've been trying Mark's suggestion on getting rid of the flatworms I've encountered in my tank.  I've decreased the lighting in my tank and have managed to get most of the worms on one side of my tank.  I'm going to try to siphon a large patch that has formed on the side, but I doubt I will be able to get all of them.  I'm looking at getting a fish to help me out, but don't want one that depends on flatworms for survival.  Can 6 line wrass survive afterwards?

I have a little giant pump (2-mdq-sc) that I believe pumps 510gph, I have a 120gal tank.  I don't feel the pump is circulation h2o fast enough and is causing me said problems.  Any suggestions on what pump I should be looking for?

My 6 line wrasse is very fat and healthy without any flatworms in the tank.  They will eat any meaty foods.  I love my wrasse... he spends all day hunting on the reef.

Jfinch, I remember one of you older postings that you mentioned that you had little giant 4, mak6, and some other pump for your tanks.  How did they work out for you and which pump would you recommend for a 120g tank?

External pumps that I've used are Iwaki, Mak, Little Giant and Velocity (Custom Sealife).  I've also used RIO, Beckett and Danner Magdrive internal pumps.

Little Giant 4:  good flow but very noisy.  So noisy that I actually returned this pump.

Iwaki 40 and Mak 4:  Similar noise level and flow.  I would recommend either of these pumps.

Velocity T4:  Awesome pump.  Great flow and absolutely quiet.  Highly recommended... but Custom Sealife has gone out of bussiness.

For internal pumps, I would only buy Danner Magdrives.  The bigger ones can be noisey (I have a Magdrive 24, it's to noisy for me... I'm keeping for use in a pond).

Shane;

I did talk to Ryan from AD and he did explain to me exactly what you told me.  For a BlueLine he said I was lookin at approx $300, I went to Marine Depot and found a Japanese Iwaki for $260 or an american one for $150.  I don't know if Ryan quoted me for the wrong pump for my tank.  I'll ask him again!

I did take out the rock and I've been trying to suck up the worms with the turkey baster, I managed to get rid of some, but they keep coming like the plague!  I'm waiting to see if AD gets a 6 line wrasse like you suggested and I'll see if that helps and I've been keeping the lights off the tank to see if that does anything.  So far all the worms have come off the rocks and gone on the glass where they can get some light.  By the way I've still got the reef tour sign.  I'll just bring it to the meeting next week if I don't see you before then.  Again, thanks for your suggestions!

Suzy- they haven't spawned since.  If they do, and this becomes regular, I'll let you know.

Adam

Time for an update, I have decided not to treat with any chemicals yet because with a combo of a six line wrasse, a yellow coris, a spotted mandarin, and a green mandarin in one tank the flat worms have declined to about 10% of there original numbers. I have also drastically reduced the amount of food i am giving them so that they have no other choice but to eat what is already available

in the tanks that have just one or two of the flat worm eating fish the numbers have fallen to 25% of there original numbers, at this rate the problem should be solved fairly quickly.

another thing that i think is helping is just getting the worms up into the water by either blasting them with a power head or just fanning them up with my hand

That's really great, Brady.  I think it's fantastic that you haven't treated with chemicals.  Balance is an interesting aspect of this hobby.   I have to admit that I wouldn't mind seeing a flatworm again.  Then I would know certain fish could have a sneaky snack besides their regular food.

Well...  the worm problem keeps growing worse...  I've tried fish, a new pump added a power head and the worms are just being stubborn...  I'm hesitant about chemical treatment so I'm going to try human intervention!  I'm thinking on doing a freshwater rinse.  I've been taking out some of my utah rock that is covered in worms and rinsing them with tap water and it seems to zap the worms in seconds.  Figured I'd try to do the same for the rest of the tank.

Anyone have any experiences doing fresh water rinse?

The amount of worms in the tank are just way too many.  I'd have to get like 1/2 a dozen or something.  The worms reproduce faster than they get consumed.  I agree with you that it will kill some of the good stuff on my rocks and sand, but with the volume of worms I just don't see the nutabroch solving my prob.  I'm planing on getting a six line wrasse and maybe a mandarin after I clean the tank to take care of some of the stray worms that survived, but with the significant decrease in worms, it should be more manageable for the fish to consume the worms and not have the worms spread like they have been.

I did the freshwater rinse over the weekend.  It went better than what I expected.  I didn't lose any of my Corals or fish, but I did manage to get rid of most of the worms.  I did still have some stray worms that got mixed up in the sand, but I recently inherited 3 damsels from a friend and they seems to like to snack on the worms.  My tank looks great now.  Very clean.

Of course I expect that I had other not so obvious casualties so I'm monitoring my water see if it's going to go through another nitrogen cycle.

Thanks for the offer Mark.  I did go pick up a couple of wrasse like you mentioned, but they all ended up dead.  I expected something else was going on with my tank so that's why I decided to 'almost' start from scratch again.  The tank got a good cleaning and I placed 3 new power heads to increase the flow in my tank.  I'm hoping with all these changes I'll be able to keep the worms away and keep some fish this time!  Thank you for your help.