What has invaded my mushrooms?

[sdheath]

Yesterday I noticed something odd on a mushroom rock. I've had this rock for a year and it's always been healthy. In fact, it still is. This particular mushroom doesn't look as good as the others, but that's just because it is a recently regrown stump from where I cut one off for fragging a month ago.

Are these flatworms? I'm a bit preplexed because this is a "spare" tank and I haven't added anything to it in months yet these seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Obviously they've been there for a while but why am I just seeing them now. What made them appear? Any suggestions for getting rid of them?

Tank Specs:
125 gal.
Aragonite SSB
125lb. live rock
40g sump/fuge w/DSB
Flow Koralia 4 X2
SG 1.025
Calcium 400
Alkalinity 7DKH
Ammonia, nitrate,nitrite 0
established 12/07

Tank is sparsely stocked with 1 big toadstool, a few zoas and polyps, a rock with 20 or so rhodactis (the "infected" rock) and a few other mushrooms. Fish are a flame angel, small yellow tang, lunar wrasse, and a yellowtail damsel. CUC is 100 astreas, 100 blue legs and a brittle star.

 

[chillman]

wow. if those are flatworms you have a lot of them. when I had them once they looked a bit different. try and suck them off with a turkey baster and see if they come off. if they do then remove as many as you can manually, then treat the tank with FWE - flatworm exit. They (flatworms) are often a result of excessive feeding. hth

 

[Azurel]

those are deff...Flat worms, to hard to know if it is something that might prey on your shroom or not but most if not all flatworms are no good....

 

[frenchie]

had some six line wrasse and cori wrasse cleaned them out.

 

[sdheath]

Well, tonight I pulled off about 50 of them with a turkey baster. Just for fun I put some FW in the container and they all died almost instantly. There are still a few left now, so depending on what the population looks like through the end of the week, I'll decide to continue manual removal, or to go for a FW dip.

They sure seem to like the mushrooms, though. I inspected rocks all over the tank, and found no sign of them anywhere else.

 

[frenchie]

i've read someone used a hose and siphoned water through a net to catch them all cause if you use something that kills flatworms they die off and leave some toxic crap in water. I got a good deal on coral from a flatworm infested tank cause no one would buy them but i like wrasse and they clean of the worms.