Mysteryious orange creatures ID?

[flyingpolarbear]

I have a population explosion of these in my tank and can't figure out what they are. They're tiny, around less than 0.5mm, orange or dark red colored, and like to cluster especially on top of red slime cyanobacteria. They don't seem to be doing any harm to the corals or inverts and don't cover any of them, just the rock, sand, and glass surfaces. hmmm ??

 

[bob1968]

flatworms

 

[flyingpolarbear]

Thanks Bob. Wow, I wasn't expecting it to be a pest because they don't seem to be doing any harm. Maybe this is an opportunity to get a Mandarin because from what I'm reading the flatworms are natural food for the Mandarins, which can be otherwise difficult to feed, and these are beautiful fish..

 

[Bud Reeferman]

I don't think Mandies eat flatworms. The copepods they eat are much, much smaller.

In fact, I don't think anything eats flatworms enough to clean them out of your tank before they infest enough to wreak havoc.

Look into "Flatworm Exit" and the need to vacuuming prior to treating and doing a large water change immediately after treatment.

I'd also comment that I've never seem them orange color before, only white.

 

[t11t5]

Wow thats alot of flatworms...

 

[Gamepro_inc]

I have seen them orange and yes get them out of the tank. Try to suck as many out before treatment, then during treatment use a turkey baster in crevices to blow them out, then do a water change and run charcoal. On a side note after they consume Cyano or other algea they will start to die off so even if not a pest they will eventually pollute your tank their insides are toxic so this die off is still a bad thing. My sixline wouldn't even eat them they must taste really bad b/c he eats bristle worms with long spikey spines

 

[sjmantis]

:eek2:

 

[Leviathan_XE]

Yep sad thing is my tank is worse. I was considering a mandain also, not just for the flatworms though, just always wanted one. But I've been doing a lot of research on that myself and am still getting conflicting reports. Some say it just depends on the individual fish, some say that ONLY the target/spotted mandarin eats them. Some say that they don't eat them at all.

 

[olemiss reb]

mandarins are not a realistic option. Some wrasses- 6 and 4 line are supposed too. Velvet nudi's will eat them but will starve once the flatworms are gone. Flatworm exit is the simplest solution. Nice pics btw, what kind of camera did you use?

 

[whorulz1147]

my spotted mandarin in my old tank ate them all up. When I sold him, he was about as big around as a hot dog....

 

[Elysia]

I don't know what these flatworms eat. They are photosynthetic, which is why you often see them on top of corals. When their population explodes they can adversely affect coral simply by limiting the amount of light that gets to the animal. I would manually remove as many as possible. Using thin diameter rigid tubing always works for me -- just add some air line to a length of tubing and create a suction. You can suck out the flat worms and do water removal for a water change at the same time, plus it works well to get that cyano out. Personally I wouldn't use Flatworm Exit, because I do not trust general biocides like that in my tank -- they work for some people, but others have problems. And most flatworm populations die out on their own.