Chelidonura varians

[clowninaround74]

ok this is my first time posting on here but i thought i would ask if anybody has experience with these flatworm eating nudis?

heres my situation:
ok i already tried a FWE dosage and i even dosed the tank 3.5x what the recommended dosage was. I have sense gotten the FW back again just as strong as ever. I just dont want to go through the hastle of doing another treatment again. Plus i have just recently purchaced some expensive coals and dont want to risk it at all. Im looking for any information on them and if anybody has had success with them? I have heard they like to crawl into powerheads so thats not a good thing.

I still think im going to try a target mandarin if i cant find one, but with having a 24g with only 35lbs of rock i dont want to risk starving the fish in the long run.


Thanks for any information!

 

[greenbean36191]

Basically, they eat a bunch of the worms and then starve to death and then the worms rebound. With an obligate predator, you can't really strike a balance where they're eating the worms fast enough to reduce their population but leaving enough to keep themselves from starving.

If you don't want to use chemicals your best bets are strict nutrient control and manual siphoning.

 

[clowninaround74]

what is weird is that i have no fish or anything in the tank that they could be feeding off of so im stupped with that. I do siphon them off pretty regularly but that barely touches the population. i've been in contact with my lfs and he said that he would take it back after it has demolished the fw's. After that i should have my refugeium up and running with a good pod pupulation to maybe house a mandarin and keep them down for good.

 

[Speckled Grouper]

My last bout with flatworms was about a year ago.
I got one Chelidonura varians and it died within 12 hours. Brought it back to the LFS, they gave me another one and I bought a second. One died quickly, the other one lived. And a Flatworm eating machine it was.........just like a vacuum cleaner....suck, suck, suck...it was awesome. Until we did a water change and it decided to float right into the hose and go through the pump. It wasn't so pretty when it came out the other side.... No more Chelidonura varians....Got a green mandarin after that and while I never actually saw it eating them, I haven't had one since. This is in the 250g.
I succesfully kept a mandy in a 29g by building pod piles and supplementing with live pod, but it also ate live brine and blood worms until it decided to jump out...

 

[clowninaround74]

ok cool thanks for the info. I think i might pass on this thought and just go with a green target mandarin. thanks again!

 

[CadetMKultra]

I heard taht some stars are good at controling flat worms.

 

[romunov]

I would go with greenbean's post. Many ways to rid of it, FW turned out to be most successful, since biological control (may that be a mandarin or C. varians) turned out to be poor at best.