first frag - first FLAT WORM story - PICS

tims28gnano

New member
so many of you know i got my first frag on saturday. i put a nice button colony in the tank and have been amazed at the beautiful colors! even the ROCK has nice colors!

until last night!!!! when i realized that the nice RED colors on the rocks were moving!!!!!

run to reef central, and find out i have a rock infested with flat worms! - - - - NOT GOOD

so today i am looking at how to treat. i must say that i have not moved from the tank in 2 days and can pretty much say that ALL of the worms stayed ON the frag.

so just now, i pull the frag out and put it in a white container.

i go to the store to get FLATWORM EXIT. - - they are out. the guy (and 2 customers - - who are RC regulars) tell me to dip the frag in pure RO/DI water for no longer than 10 minutes.

so, i put the frag into a pure RO/DI water container and out jumps the bristle worms and i start to scrape off the flatworms.
208145flatworms.JPG


then i make another container with pure RO/DI water and finsh the bath in cleaner RO/DI water.

the frag stayed in for almost 8 minutues. i was gently shaking the frag and scraping any visible flatworms off.

now i have the frag in another container of tank water
208145buttonrecovery.JPG

to see how it recovers.

so - - thats my story for today. - - - any thoughts or imput?

i think i got ALL of the stuff off!

oh yeah, store guy told me to just bring in the frag and get a new one but then i pointed out that the other ones have flatworms too!!! - - - i will say, i still like the store, the guys are nice and DO know their stuff.

we will see!
 
Sorry that you had learn the importance of quarantine, the hard way. You should qt everything that you put into your display.
How long do you plan on keeping the frag in the dish?
You may want to put the frag into qt and keep an eye on it for a couple of weeks, that way if any more flatworms pop-up you don't have to worry about it being in the display tank.
 
thanks lori! i put the frag into a dish of tank water for 20 minutes or so and then i went back into the DT.

i was fighting the QT thing because i only have a 28 gallon nano and am notputting any more fish in the tank, and i thought you did not have to QT corals! - - - -

i guess i have to think about going to wallmart and picking up that 10 gallon QT tank again!
 
That is what I did. I qt everything that I put in my tank especially corals. There are all kinds of bugs you can get from corals. Wetwebmedia has great articles on what to look for in your qt.
 
you are right lori - - - there were prob 3 diff types of worms that came jumping out and 2 things that i could not even id!

jkrentz - - - i feel pretty confident that they stayed on the frag!
 
Oh well treat with some FE when it comes in, easiest done before they take over. I wouldn't buy anything from that store again though, if they know their stuff why don't they stop spreading pests to their customers? Flatworms aren't that difficult to get rid of. You should always dip zoas at the very least, lots of nasties can come in on them.
 
Use FWE on your tank. Flatworms are tiny tiny tiny, and I'd be surprised if they all stayed on that rock.
 
i would not use it on your entire tank as i told you in the store . you will kill beneficial things as well. bad idea


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14143498#post14143498 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tylt33
Use FWE on your tank. Flatworms are tiny tiny tiny, and I'd be surprised if they all stayed on that rock.
 
Ok I need a visual I have some type of worm that has a reddish head kinda looks like a pipe cleaner 3 that i have seen they seem to go in and out of the holes in the rocks ( I am having the hardest time getting pics on here even with the photobucket thingy but have a friend that is coming over sat to help me out with that (god bless her lol)but if this is something that needs to come out then so be it !!!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14139551#post14139551 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GoingPostal
I wouldn't buy anything from that store again though, if they know their stuff why don't they stop spreading pests to their customers?

My LFS never bothers with flatworms or aiptasia. He considers their removal to be the customers responsibility. Given so few options in this area, it does kind of annoy me, but I can also understand how much harder it must be when dealing in volume.
 
Ok first thing:

The flatworms you pictured won't hurt anything in your tank, that's why a lot of fish store don't bother to remove them. They are just annoying to look at.

Flatworm Exit will not harm anything in your tank. The problem comes when you kill off a LARGE amount of flatworms, your tank does not have anywhere near a large amount of flatworms to worry about it. Dead flatworms ARE toxic to your tank in large quantities, that's when care needs to be taken.

It is not the Flatworm exit that is toxic though, it's the actual FW's.

I've assisted various friends and local club members on 7 separate occasions dosing systems ranging from 29 Gallon Displays to 220 Gallon Displays. Never had a single problem in any of them.
 
hey twelvejewelz, thanks for looking for me here, as you can see in the above pic i put the frag in a container with RO/DI water and lightly shook it. i watched the hitch hikers jump ship and the worms start to die. i left it in there for about 4 mins. i then made another container of RO/DI water and put it in there for closer examination (almost 8 mins total). i then made a container of tank water and put it in there for about 20 minutes to recover. i then put it back in the DT. all the buttons are tightly closed overnight. today before i went to work 1 or 2 were starting to open. i had noticed one worm on the rock the frag was leaning against and pulled it off yesterday and the mexican turbo that was on the frag for 24 hours had a few on its back. this morning i noticed 1 flatworm on the turbo snail and i siphoned it off his back! keeping a close eye for those little guys!

and my fingers crossed. mbell09, look at my gallery for my pics!
 
hey np always good to have a local reefer :). one day we can possibly trade frags you never know . like i said tim i personally wouldnt dose the tank with FE.i know people have their opinions but you dont want it to become toxic and ruin everything else i have a heard horror stories of peoples tanks crashing because of the toxic fw . what may work for 1 person might not work for anohter and this is just my opinion but i wouldnt do it. however if you do decide to do it do not leave the tank until you have syphoned out all of the dead flatworms and i cant stress that enough.your tank is small enough that you can possibly dip a few more frags to remove the bulk of them and then possibly buy a 6line wrasse to get the remaining ones.if you no longer want the fish tell the LFS your plan and mabe they will tank it back when your free of flatworms or atleast give you some kind of store credit .. just give the zoas a couple days to recover they should be fine prob just alittle stressed..just my .02cents
 
twelvejewelz - - - thanks for the reply. i found you in the zoanthid discussion, you have some nice colonies! i am pretty confiedent that my tank is flat worm free! i have been looking for them and have not seen 1!

my tank is only 2 months old so i have a lot of maturing to do - - - and a lot more suprises im sure!

i will just be more careful from now on - - - and im really considering a QT tank! - - looking on craigslist for a 10 gallon!
 
Back
Top