safe alert flatworm exit questions

[vr697getta]

i have one question that the instructions doesn't seem to cover. i want to do a water change later tonight. i dosed the tank at 45 mins ago and already see the flatworms dieing. i just put in the carbon as it said to wait 45 min but doing a water change later tonight like 4 hours or so will this be a waste of the flatworm exit. i think a water change is a good thing to do since i have to take out the dead ones any way.

 

[gavinthefish]

That should be fine and it won't waste the flat worm exit, don't the directions tell you to dose a second time? If not then getting out as much of the chemical out of your is good.

 

[vr697getta]

it says to dose a second time if they all don't die the first time

 

[Gold Stripe]

Trust me! Dose a 2nd time tomorrow and maybe a 3rd the next day. Those suckers are difficult to get rid of and if you dont dose at least 2 x if not 3 they will come right back.

Water change after each dose is essential as the toxins they let out as they die will wreck your tank. Run carbon 24/7 for a few days and do a hefty water change a few hours after each dose and suck as many out as you can as soon as you see them floating dead.

 

[vr697getta]

ok that sounds good
i will do a 25% change after every dose
i am surprised how good it did work with just the first dose
all the flatworms i could see on my corals are dead on the sand and none of my corals seem to be affected at all
i know there are more hiding

 

[Gold Stripe]

They are in every crack and crevice. The flat worm exit itself will not hurt anything but the toxins from dead flatworms will. Suck them out as well as you can. Then re-treat at least one more time and hopefully you will get them all. I treated just once and wound up having to do it again because it didnt get them all the first time. So the second time around I did it back to back to back and havent seen one in well over a year.

 

[mudskipper1]

yeah, I dosed 3 times about a week apart, and they are still coming back... they are tough

 

[snorvich]

Your dosage should be 150% of recommended. It also helps to blow water into cracks in your aquascape. It is best to do a water change as close as possible to dosage plus 1 hour because of the toxins of dieing flatworms.

 

[Gold Stripe]

Also, because of the large amount of water you are changing out. Be very careful to match your temp, salinity and ph of the new water to your old so that you dont shock the system.

 

[shag26272]

do you guys think its necessary to do such a large water change on the 2nd dose? I just did mine the other day and only saw 1 flatworm today. There shouldnt be many that are left.

 

[vr697getta]

i will dose a second time one other thing i did to help was all of the corals i could take out with no problem. i did a fresh water dip so i know that got a lot of them. so far i see none but i know they are still there.
i am amazed how just one day my corals look so much better the ones that were covered that i couldn't remove now they look free and so happy
one other thing i noticed is that the stuff in my skimmer looks 10X as nasty and way darked almost the color of oil, i guess its from all of the dead flatworms

 

[shag26272]

I dosed a 2nd time this morning and did not do a water change, I just added carbon again and no ill affects.

 

[vr697getta]

yeah i have the extra salt and the last thing i want is my rbta to die and all of the toxins that thing can and will put out, its over a foot wide. its not worth me risking it over 10 bucks of salt mix.