Good Flatworm??

[squidward1320]

Well i have been haveing a hard time controlling this micro alage in my tank.. and it was getting to the point where iam about to tear down my wholesetup and scrape every last bit of it off the rock. But now i notice some little red flatworms on the leafs of the plants. I checked all of my corals and i dont see them on any of them corals. And it looks like they are eating some of the leafs.

They seem to just be on that micro alage i have and they are bright red soo they are pretty easy to pick out. So what you guys think is it possible to have a good type of flat worm? Ill keep a close eye on all of my corals anyway.

 

[CorbetJackson50]

these red flat worms are the most undesireable falt worms they multiply very quickly and even though they dont eat corals they do smother them enough to bother them not to open full or at all in some cases

 

[squidward1320]

What do they eat by the way? And if they are really that bad then i will get that nudi that eats them. and when it has done the job ill see if i can find another home for it with flat worms ..

 

[CorbetJackson50]

the only thing that i know flatworms eat is pods but i think they eat detritus and other organics also.

 

[GARFVolunteer]

Some flat worms can be beneficial in some ways. When I was in Austin last month, my wife decided to add a fairly sarchophyton to her new tank (polite way to say she stole it from mine). When I got home, the coral was not doing well at all. It had what appeared to be bad/rotting sections on it. To try saving it, I placed it back in my tank that has red flatworms. The next morning, the bad sections of the coral were covered in the flat worms. A couple of days later, the flat worms were off of the coral and all the bad sections were gone leaving nice fresh coral flesh which is healing nicely.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[CorbetJackson50]

what causes you to beleive the flatworms had any influence on your corals recovery?

 

[GARFVolunteer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6946835#post6946835 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CorbetJackson50
what causes you to beleive the flatworms had any influence on your corals recovery?

Because they only swarmed over the areas of that coral that were bad. It appears they consumed the bad portions leaving the good tissue.

Kind of like the days when maggots were used to remove ear cysts. Put maggots in the ear, cover it up for a few days, remove the maggots, and the cyst is gone leaving good tissue...

Leroy at GARF confirmed that they have seen the same thing when new sarchophyton frags are placed into tanks with red flat worms.

Thanks,

Scott