Who's dealt with red planaria flatworms?

H

hoover86

Member
I've never dealt with these guys but can't seem to find much info on them either. I have an 8 gallon biocube at work and noticed a few of these guys on the glass yesterday. After further observation I of course found plenty more on the rocks etc. The little I've read doesn't shine much light on these fellas...

All my corals are doing well but it sounds like these guys multiply FAST and will soon probably be covering everything. I've read flatworm exit can be successful but can also cause issues from such a big die-off of them releasing toxins in the water.

SO - I'm mainly interested in hearing others experiences with them. If you've had them how long? What harm have they done? etc...
 
Siphon off as many as you can once you use a flatworm killer like Red Sea Exit. I did a water change day after I treated my tank.
 
How long did you have them?

Did you see any issues other then them being eye sores?

Those are really my main questions. I've looked into eradication but wondering if it's even worth all the hassle if they cause no issues.
 
Just look a little bit... there are hundreds of threads on them just on this board. For a small tank, flatworm exit will be fine. You need to get out as many as you can. Siphon them every day for a week. Flatworm exit is quite safe, but the toxins are not. Have a lot of carbon and fresh saltwater on hand to change water. Do the same treatment for four more weeks to get any stragglers.
 
Just treated my tank with flatworm exit, fish were fine, ate while treatment was at full force.
Ran lots of carbon a few hours after dosing and did a water change.
Take care of it before it becomes worse.
 
If you are asking what happens if you do nothing, then they keep growing until the suffocate your corals, get harder to kill and release more toxins when you do. They are harmless at small levels, but nasty when there are a lot of them.
 
For an 8 gal tank I'd take all the rock out and swish it around in a bucket to get as many off as possible then drain the tank and try to get most of them. Then put everything back and treat.
 
I just did a levamisole treatment on my 860g DT/1100g system. It was easy. No losses except for planaria
 
Agree that they are harmless at small levels. Years ago I had flatworms and I mostly left them untreated. For some reason they were kept in check. I did have a Leopard and a Tamarin wrasse at the time. On another occasion, I got an infestation and they did start to take over. In the latter case, I successfully treat with flatworm exit. So, depending on your livestock and corals, I suppose you could just keep your eye on them?


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d-man said:
I just did a levamisole treatment on my 860g DT/1100g system. It was easy. No losses except for planaria
Click to expand...

Any reason you did this as opposed to Flatworm Exit? I guess all in all it's medication either way. Just curious why you went that route specifically.
 
Levamisole is the same stuff that is in Flatworm exit... only a packet of it can do thousands and thousands of gallons where it would take many bottles of Flatworm Exit.
 
Yes. Plus I've heard that many people have had them come back using FWE.
Levamisole worked great. I was definitely happy I was convinced to use it.

Thanks to jda for making me feel comfortable using it
 
Some of them can hide out enough to repopulate and make it through one treatment. If you do it over three or four weeks, that seems to get them all. Plus, since only the flatworm toxins are harmful, the next treatments are really easy since there are too few worms (hopefully) to do any damage.
 
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