Flatworms

[SteveC56]

My Zoas have not been doing well lately and I just noticed I have a bunch of red flatworms, which I plan to get rid of.

Would the flatworms be effecting the zoas? Everything else in the tank is doing fine

If not the flatworms, what else could it be?

I know I just posted a lighting question and that could be part of it but all the other stuff is still doing well.

 

[Twisted]

I have not seen basic flat worms eat actual corals, but they will crawl on it making it close up, and while closed up the coral can't feed, and in this way eventually killing the coral.
We just went through a flat worm episode in an SPS display tank at a local store.
We took everything out of the tank freshwater dipping everything you can. This shocks or kills the majority of them, even ones that are hiding in the pours of the rocks and stuff.
Then once the tank is clear of livestock and rock and sand, wash the tank out really good with cold freshwater.
Once you have done all this and got the tank back together you will have reduced the flatworms to a small population if not wiped them out.
And you can follow up with flat worm exit from salifert. Just to make sure they are all goners.

If you go straight to the flat worm exit you will kill all the flat worms, but the thousands of little corpses will release toxins into your water instantly, which can kill everything in your tank.

My method is probablly one of the most dramatic methods, and does put some risk of loseing a few corals from the freshwater dip, but I have done this on three diffrent tanks to date with very little to no loss on each one. But it is a lot of work