Flatworms in a dwarf tank....

[Pea-brain]

Hi.

I seem to have flatworms in my dwarf tank. The dwarfs will be here on tuesday, and today I hatched a small batch of bbs in preparation and dumped them in. Now i look in and see these clear flatworms on the glass. I don't know much about flatworms, but I always assumed they were safe as long as there are no coral, and I've never seen a flatworm in any tank of mine but this one. The thing that bothers me is-they have orange lumps in the middle. like where I would think their stomach would be middle. Suspiciously bbs colored orange.....and less bbs than there should be floating around.....So will these flatworms be a problem?

A little about the tank-2.5 gallon with caulerpa, a thin sand layer and LR. Lighted by a lamp and some indirect sunlight from a nearby window. No supplemental heating. An airline for water movement. No cleanup crew yet. I don't plan to panacur the tank unless absolutely necessary (hydroid infestation)

So what do ya think? Thanks.

Dan

 

[sixfins]

No the flatworms are not a problem other than being alittle unsightly to look at. They probably came in on the caulerpa or possibly on the rock. They are hearty little buggers though you can use a product called exit to get rid of them if you want.

 

[Pea-brain]

Nah, I don't wanna get rid of them if I don't need to. I was just afraid they'd cause problems. You can hardly see'em unless you look real close and even then they seem to like to stick to the sides and not the front. They came in on a rock from my main aquarium I'm guessing (every grain of sand, rock and algae is from my main tank). Kinda wierd i never saw one in my main tanks though.

Dan

 

[puckbs]

velvet nudibranchs vacuum them up pretty quickly...so if it gets to that point, that's a better option than the panacur....but when he's done polishing them off you might want to pass him around to fellow reefers....HTH