Ridding Tank of Brown Flatworms

[Puff]

i just got home from a trip, only to discover an explosion of brown flatworms. they're everywhere!!

ive read that there is a certain type of nudibranch that will eat them, but i have probably 0-1% chance of finding one around me.

are there any other fish that would work?

it's only a 24 gallon aquapod, so i dont want to try a psychedelic mandarinfish (even though i have a ridiculous pod population). what about a sixline wrasse or something?

ive started syphoning them out, but ive barely made a dent in the population :(

any input would be awesome! id prefer to deal with the problem "au naturel" instead of with drugs.

[Reef_kid]

i had a huge outbreak.... and added a whipfin fairy wrasse
not knowing it ate them... and it cleaned the tank of them compleatly
never seen one since.

[Chaloupa]

It's Velvet Nudibranchs that eat them..I've been trying for quite some time with no success to find them....I have tried fish with no luck in one of my Biocubes....
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c212/Chaloupa/194544.jpg

[mseepman]

I just treated my main display recently with FWE (Ocean Aquatics still sells it) and it was really a breeze. Of course you have to siphon out as many as you can first and then be ready to do that for quite a while once you put in the FWE. You also have to have a water change ready. I ran a lot of charcoal for about 5 days afterwards. No ill effects other than to get rid of FW's.

Meleev has a good article about getting rid of Flatworms on his site that you might want to read.

[CLINT]

I also used FWE and tried to avoid it but couldn't so went the chemical route.Only thing I lost besides the FW's was my little brittle stars.Too bad cause i kinda liked them but hated the FW's so sacrafices had to be made.Clint

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

A yellow wrasse or leopard wrasse is a natural flatworm predator.

[TNTCanada]

I used the FWE as well... worked great... didn't see anything that was bothered except the FW...

[Puff]

i got a baby wrasse today. he seems keen.

also got a bunch more hermits to get more feet on the rocks so the flatworms dont have the run of the liverock!

some gorilla crab i found before i left (and removed) had taken out all of my hermits...except maybe 1 or 2 of them. :(

i think that added to the flatworm's ability to reproduce with no harassment.

[Keri]

What kind of baby wrasse did you get?

[dareefguy]

I used flatworm exit aswell. It worked well but also killed my sea hares. This is what I blame for loosing all my fish, which chain reacted to kill some corals with the spike that came from that. To top it all off I never did get rid of all the flatworms. However they overpopulated themselves and used up whatever nutriant that they live on and tapered down to decent numbers. Now I don't bother them and they don't bother me. Although since I added a velvit nudi, but I think my sixline killed it.

[Keri]

I used flatworm exit aswell. It worked well but also killed my sea hares. This is what I blame for loosing all my fish, which chain reacted to kill some corals with the spike that came from that. To top it all off I never did get rid of all the flatworms. However they overpopulated themselves and used up whatever nutriant that they live on and tapered down to decent numbers. Now I don't bother them and they don't bother me. Although since I added a velvit nudi, but I think my sixline killed it.

It's a good thing this hobby is just as rewarding as it is frustrating!!!

[dareefguy]

It's a good thing this hobby is just as rewarding as it is frustrating!!!

Thank god for that or beleive me it would be gone a few times. lol

[EmilyB]

I am also looking for a non-chemical cure. Otherwise they can stay there.