flatworm

[LovenBama]

found this tonight .......

usually I like to take the filter sock off and see what has found it's way in there, boy you'd be surprised at the things you find, anyhow, tonight it wasn't something I really wanted to find. At fist when I turned the sock inside-outwards to wash it, I saw what looked like a ball of snot and was just gonna throw it into the washer but the more I looked at it the more I thought,you'll never know if ya don't remove it, so I scooped it off and put it into a bowl and to my amazement at the time.... it unballed and began to swim and was very cool looking

 

[scapes]

i found one on a zoa frag that i received at a lfs. except mine was MUCH bigger. pretty cool looking but it kinda freaked me out. what is the exact name of it do you know?? is it good or bad??

 

[gflat65]

Yikes. Had any mysterious coral deaths or changes?

 

[LovenBama]

well over the last month U've lost a whole colony of Duncans (30+ heads) that I thought was due to falling over onto another coral, thought that my Filefish ate my Tubbs and Carribian Zoo but thinking different now. I really don't know if it's good or bad, only thing I found was on something similar and it said that it eats algae and snails, it is believed to be "not reef safe" however I watched a few vids on YouTube and some people keep them in their tank......that being said, I don't want it in the tank yet it's so cool to watch it swim.

 

[LovenBama]

here are some better pics

 

[doorlady]

that thing is cool! put it in the 29 and see what happens

 

[LovenBama]

it eats "CLAMS"

 

[LovenBama]

thinking you might even have some seeing how you lost all your healthy clams with no warning

 

[LovenBama]

is a cool pic I got though. Waiting to see what they think in the invert forum before I do something with it. It's been in a bowl since lastnight but appears to still be alive

 

[doorlady]

wonder how long you have had it.

 

[LovenBama]

there is no telling. I remember seeing something like the ball of snot in the filter sock a few times but who knows. I'm almost sure I've had it awhile tho....ya gotta think....the only frags I've added lately were from trusted sources. no new LR in 7 months and some of the rock in the DT came from the 75g when I had the clam

 

[wpecoul]

I would be immensely surprised if you only had the one. Especially if the flatworms had something to do with that many colony and clam deaths.

 

[LovenBama]

actually Will, the Filefish must have been the one that was munching on the two different Zoa cause they are coming back now that he's back in the 75.....but ya never know. trust me from now on.....dip,dip,dip,dip,dip and Dip again. Nothing else will get a smooth ride into the tank. I did put him/her into the 29g just to see what happens cause it is really neat looking when it swims. Wished I'd video taped it while it was in the dish. Hopefully I'll beable to capture some footage of it moving about in the 29g.

 

[wpecoul]

Cool. How big is it - hard to tell from pictures.

 

[gflat65]

That is a monster flatworm. I know they get a lot bigger, but for ones found in a tank... What was it on when you found it?

 

[LovenBama]

LOL....Gary you didn't read the first post now did ya? I found it in the filtersock....it really isn't that big...maybe 1 1/4 inch long ....I had to crop the pic to show the details of it. not sure yet the true ID of it..only know that it's a polyclad flatworm and there are hundreds different species

 

[gflat65]

Ahhh. Filtered snot. I'm only used to hearing about 'planaria' and Acro eating flatworms. They're a lot smaller, generally.