worm is eating my snails

[birch]

I have had a 75 gallon reef tank going for just over two years now and have not been able to keep snails alive due to predatory flat worms. These worms have ranged in size from 1/4 inch to 2+ inches. They are flat and about half as wide as they are long. They are a grey to black color on top and white to light grey underneath. I have witnessed them eating the snails on multiple occasions and over the past two years I have removed two of the larger size from my filter sock and maybe 6 smaller ones from the aquarium glass. I have tried a bottle trap baited with snails, but have not caught anything.

Is there anything that will kill these guys? Are there any snails that they won't eat? I know they have eaten astrea, trochus, nassarius, turbo, and mexican turbo snails in my aquarium. I imagine my leopard wrasse eats some of the small guys, but what about the large worms? Thanks.

 

[olemiss reb]

I've read that yellow or christmas wrasse will eat them. Flatworm exit will not kill them but it should drive them out into the open and allow you to syphon them out.

Coral Revive will kill them, if you can dip the rock that they are in.

The problem with baiting them is that they only come out when they are hungry and they do not need to eat that often, every meal is a big one.

All snails and clams will be eaten.

 

[cudamaster13]

I have had a 75 gallon reef tank going for just over two years now and have not been able to keep snails alive due to predatory flat worms. These worms have ranged in size from 1/4 inch to 2+ inches. They are flat and about half as wide as they are long. They are a grey to black color on top and white to light grey underneath. I have witnessed them eating the snails on multiple occasions and over the past two years I have removed two of the larger size from my filter sock and maybe 6 smaller ones from the aquarium glass. I have tried a bottle trap baited with snails, but have not caught anything.

Is there anything that will kill these guys? Are there any snails that they won't eat? I know they have eaten astrea, trochus, nassarius, turbo, and mexican turbo snails in my aquarium. I imagine my leopard wrasse eats some of the small guys, but what about the large worms? Thanks.

humpback and tiger cowries are too big to be botherd by flatworms becuase they range inbetween 5-6 inches

 

[mndfreeze]

Blue Velvet Slug.

 

[smtank]

Are you referring to polyclad flatworms?

They get much larger than most flatworms you commonly find. I think you are going to have to go the manual removal method. By looking after hours with a flash light.

 

[birch]

Man, it's tough to manually remove them because they just squish apart when I try to grab them. They are rather quick as well. If I tried the dip with revive to draw them out, what detrimental effects would this have on my live rock?

 

[birch]

And, yes I looked at polyclad flatworms on google and those are the guys that are causing me problems.

 

[smtank]

Hopefully someone has a better method, but because of their size and the fact that they seem to be more active at night, probably going to be difficult to find a fish that eats them.

The only thing that might is an arrow crab, but they come with issues of their own. Another thought is Flatworm Exit, but I have no idea if it works with polyclads, and it's use comes with many of it's own issues.

Be alert to them eating corals and clams as well.

 

[mscarpena]

You will need to manually remove them. All other solutions are referring to small flatworms.