all flatworms bad?

[Enyo]

I just noticed today that I have flatworms all along the bottom of the glass near the sand, next to all my copepods. They are oval with a lyre-tail, brownish red color and I see about 1 every 3 inches or so along the pane.

Strange thing is, I haven't had corals in this tank for almost a year, only anemones.

Should I be freaking out? Wouldnt they be dead without a food source? Are they good?

Hmm....

 

[SushiGirl]

We have those as well. None on the corals, only on the glass. We recently bought a yellow coris wrasse and he's taking care of lots of things like that.

 

[jbonez]

are the yellow coris wrasse 100% reef safe

 

[SushiGirl]

Very small inverts are not safe, such as small feather dusters, pods, flatworms, tiny shrimp, pyramid or other tiny snails, small bristleworms, etc. We still have baby strombus snails in the tank, though, so I don't know if he just doesn't like them or there's been so many we can't tell he's eating them LOL. We got him to get rid of the tiny flatworms and the pyramid snails. He's just about gotten rid of the pyramid snails (I've seen one in the last 2 weeks) and he's working on the flatworms. He's made quick work of masses of isopods and our one tiny rock feather duster, as well.

 

[AHDOnline]

Most of the time if I find one or two in my tank I dont worry, try to suck them out and change my flow a little and make sure my skimmer is running efficiently. There are a few items you can get to help keep them down as mentioned there are a few wrasses.

I wouldnt freak out. People that have a problem with the flatworms usually have so many you cant look in the tank without finding a few hundred.

http://www.melevsreef.com/flatworms.html

You can read that a little also for general information.

 

[SushiGirl]

I agree on the not freaking out unless they're covering your corals. We have quite a few, but like I said just on the glass. It was the pyramid snails that we got the coris wrasse for. I was tired of picking them off the snails and they were getting to be an issue.

 

[Enyo]

Well thanks for the help. I dont have any corals, just planning on zoanthids in the future. They arent very big but i looked real hard during my water change today and found quite a few all over the glass.

I might lighten up on my feedings to see if my mystery wrasse will bite a few He's so fat and lazy I doubt it.

I've been battling some dino/cyano and I hear that it's correlated to flatworms. We'll see I guess. I started with BRS dead rock to avoid pests, so far I've contracted bubble algae, flatworms, vermetids, cotton candy algae, and monti nudis. Love this hobby.