Hydroids and flatworms, oh my!

[Coelli]

My tank (29g Biocube) will be a month old in a couple of days and all has been going very well. Little to no algae, livestock thriving, coralline starting up all over my rocks. I had my copepod bloom, which was great, but it's since been replaced with a hydroid bloom and now the flatworms are showing up and the copepods have taken a back seat to the hydroids. Nitrate is about 2.5 and phosphate is near 0 (.01 at last check last weekend at LFS - down from .14 at setup). My young royal gramma LOVES picking the hydroids off the glass but can't keep up and s/he ignores the flatworms. Please tell me these will go away?

I'm assuming/hoping the flatworms won't damage any of the LPS/SPS in the tank. Fingers crossed.

 

[Nina51]

many people say the flatworms will run their course and lessen over time. i had them pretty bad till i added a yellow coris wrasse. he is constantly picking at the rocks and i've seen a steady decline of the nasty buggars!

 

[BlindZide]

I had flatworms and although they may not hurt your corals they are not pretty to look at. I added a Sixline Wrasse to my tank for the flatworms and after about a week or 2 I haven't seen any and the Sixline adds awesome coloring to the tank.

 

[Mcgeezer]

My six line doesn't ever eat any of those dreaded red flatworms.

The best way to remove them is to buy 3/8" tubing from lowes by the foot and use it as a siphon to suck those things out. Place a filter sock in the sump so your not draining any water from the tank, but eliminating the worms.

Do this frequently for about a week to remove as many as you can, and then use flatworm exit to kill the remainder. Do about a 25% WC and remove as many dead worms as you can. Dying flatworms release toxins that can nuke your tank. This is why you need to manually remove them beforehand.

Flatworms can reach plague like proportions and smother corals which in turn kills them. Otherwise they are harmless...unless you kill a lot at one time with their toxin.

 

[Coelli]

I actually haven't seen a ton of the flatworms yet - but I'm seeing more as time goes on so I fear an outbreak. It's the hydroids that are out of control. I only have two fish, the royal gramma and a YWG who of course doesn't eat them. This morning I spot fed everyone and didn't feed the gramma - get to work, fish! It does like to eat them, but it's really outnumbered.

 

[BlindZide]

Getting fish to do our dirty work is sometimes like getting my 6 yr old daughter to clean her room. Its a 50/50 shot. Just glad mine did!

 

[tmz]

Wrasses are a good addition for number of reasons, imo, including picking on flatworms. Some mandarins do the job.

The hydroids usually wane or settle into a sessile life out of view for the most part. They are common in reef tanks and mostly harmless. The motile phase can be very harmful to small fry particulary seahorse fry. In rearing tanks fenbendazole is often used to control them. I kills off aiptaisa and polycahetes too.
However, It is not a reef safe medication and doesn't break down well so when used the rock etc in the tank will hold it for a long time rendering it unfit for use in a reef tank..