nanoguy
Premium Member
I found out last week I had flat worms in my system. It started with finding a couple crawling around the front of the tank and has been getting worse over the past week. I don't see any on my rocks or sand bed but I'm sure they are there. I decided to try to attack this issue before it becomes a real problem so I went out to my local LFS to pick up a bottle of Salifert's Flatworm exit yesterday.
Before running it my system (SPS dominated, some zoanthids, rics) I figure I give it a test run before dosing my tank with this stuff. I used a specimen container with about 1.5 cups of tank water and siphoned out about 20 flatworms from my glass (all I could find). Along with the flatworms, I also placed an acro frag and a zoa frag in the container which had some small snails and an assortment of pods on it.
I placed 1 drop of FLE into the specimen container. Keep in mind this is a super heavy dose compared to Saliferts recommended dose of 4 drops per 5 gallons...........this is one drop to 1.5 cups!!!! Immediately after dosing I can see that the flatworms started to craw around at a faster rate as if something was irritating them. After waiting 30 minutes, I inspected the container and saw no deaths....all flatworms were still alive but did not seem as active anymore. I waited another 15 minutes to see what would happen (following Saliferts protocol).
After a total treatment time of 45 minutes I did not notice any dead flatworms.....only dead pods and stunned mini snails. The acro and zoa frag was still doing well. The acro was still polyping and zoa completely opened. I proceeded to ad another drop to my 1.5 cups of water now totaling 2 drops and waited another half an hour.
30 minutes have gone by after the 2nd drop, and I have achieved at most a 20-30% flatworm death rate. I waited another 15 minutes and my death count have increased another 20% or so totaling a 50% death rate with 2 drops in 1.5 cups of water. The frags are still doing well, the mini snails have now rolled onto its side and appears to be dead.
Long story short, I added a "total of 5 drops in 1.5 cups of water," total treatment time of 6 hours, and only achieved a 90% flatworm kill ratio with a super duper heavy dose. Once again Salifert, recommends 4 drops per 5 gallons!!!! The only good news that came out of this test was that the 2 frags I placed in the container did not seem to have been affected at all......bad news = all pods and snails dead, some flatworms still alive.
I'm sure if I followed the recommended dose by Salifert the possibility of pods and snails surviving is highly probable but the increase in % of flatworms surviving will also go up. I'm holding out on dosing my system with this stuff. Salifert must have changed their formula or something because I have no idea how others have achieved complete system eradication of flatworms using FWE.
Before running it my system (SPS dominated, some zoanthids, rics) I figure I give it a test run before dosing my tank with this stuff. I used a specimen container with about 1.5 cups of tank water and siphoned out about 20 flatworms from my glass (all I could find). Along with the flatworms, I also placed an acro frag and a zoa frag in the container which had some small snails and an assortment of pods on it.
I placed 1 drop of FLE into the specimen container. Keep in mind this is a super heavy dose compared to Saliferts recommended dose of 4 drops per 5 gallons...........this is one drop to 1.5 cups!!!! Immediately after dosing I can see that the flatworms started to craw around at a faster rate as if something was irritating them. After waiting 30 minutes, I inspected the container and saw no deaths....all flatworms were still alive but did not seem as active anymore. I waited another 15 minutes to see what would happen (following Saliferts protocol).
After a total treatment time of 45 minutes I did not notice any dead flatworms.....only dead pods and stunned mini snails. The acro and zoa frag was still doing well. The acro was still polyping and zoa completely opened. I proceeded to ad another drop to my 1.5 cups of water now totaling 2 drops and waited another half an hour.
30 minutes have gone by after the 2nd drop, and I have achieved at most a 20-30% flatworm death rate. I waited another 15 minutes and my death count have increased another 20% or so totaling a 50% death rate with 2 drops in 1.5 cups of water. The frags are still doing well, the mini snails have now rolled onto its side and appears to be dead.
Long story short, I added a "total of 5 drops in 1.5 cups of water," total treatment time of 6 hours, and only achieved a 90% flatworm kill ratio with a super duper heavy dose. Once again Salifert, recommends 4 drops per 5 gallons!!!! The only good news that came out of this test was that the 2 frags I placed in the container did not seem to have been affected at all......bad news = all pods and snails dead, some flatworms still alive.
I'm sure if I followed the recommended dose by Salifert the possibility of pods and snails surviving is highly probable but the increase in % of flatworms surviving will also go up. I'm holding out on dosing my system with this stuff. Salifert must have changed their formula or something because I have no idea how others have achieved complete system eradication of flatworms using FWE.
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