Red Planaria[flatworms]

[smokey99]

4 months ago I set up my reef :D , now I have a small up and coming infestation of red Planaria :mad: . I have read about the remedies for this [natural predators/chemical/stripping tank and filling with water]and I was wondering if anyone has sucessfully gotten rid of these guys without stripping the tank and adding fresh water?. I bought a Mandarin, Scooter Blenny and a leopard wrasse not sure what they are eating yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated ;)

[DJ88]

Welcome to the board triger,

All you can do with flatworms is watch for the most part. I am lucky and my six line wrasse has wiped my tank out of flatwoms. DON'T GO BUY ONE THO! You will need to get rid of two of the three following fish as it is, if not all of them immediately.

I bought a Mandarin, Scooter Blenny and a leopard wrasse not sure what they are eating yet. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">All three of these fish eat the same food. 'Pods. Copepods and amphipods. Nothing else. A four month old tank is not going to produce enough of these invertabrates to keep three of these hunters alive. What size is your tank? Most people will not keep a mandarin in anything less than a tank that is a year old and 100 gallons. If you do not know what these fish are eating it is imperative that you take them back to the store and sit down and do very very careful research into each and every fish you want to stock in your tank. If you are extremely lucky one or more may eat prepared food. but if you don't know what they are eating it sounds like they are competing for waht little food your tank will have in it. Please heed my advice before these three fish starve to death. They ae all very very nice fish to look at but are very sepcific in what they will eat.

As for your flatworms one way that I reduced the numbers inmy tank was by not feeding the tank at all. I don't recommend this right now because of the fish you have in there. Otherwise you will will have to siphon as many as you can out regularly and keep the numbers in check manually.

[ 02 March 2002, 20:30: Message edited by: DJ88 ]

[smokey99]

I have a 70 gallon with a 20 gallon sump, Amiracle Protien skimmer [going to upgrade once i get this problem licked], 270 gph Zoomed rotating powerhead[not a bad little product], 25 watt UV sterilizer, calcium reactor[once i get this licked ], 150 watt heater running on almost the lowest temperature, H.O.T. Magnum canister filter [had it left over from the DISCUS days], 400w Iwasaki 6500k and 2 55w Hamilton actinic compact flourescent and about 100 lbs. mixed LR. a 4 inch sand bed [started with 40 lbs. LS]. I bought the mandarin,scooter bleeny and leopard wrasse on hopes these would eat the planaria and returning them if they didn't or after they did[sorry for the stress little fishies], Its been 1 week since I bought them and now know that the mandarin isn't eating them he is eating other critters though, I saw the scooter bleeny spit them out when picking through the rock. I'm definatly going to return these 2. As for the leopard wrasse he's pretty quick and is defiantly munching on stuff not sure if it's planaria though. Do you think I should just return him and get a six lined? or do you think I should further observe?. I do agree that all 3 wouldn't stand a chance of long term survival, but I have seen tons of life and think a small wrasse would probably do fine. How many did you have in your tank before you got rid of them? How long did it take for the six lined to do the job? How long has it been since you saw the last little bugger in your tank? seems these take about 3-4 months to largly spread over a tank [other info i've gotten off the net]. I appear to have 300-500 after syphoning. Has there been many sucess stories like yours or are you just 1 of the lucky 1's? I was reccomended by another reefer to fill tank with freshwater and run for 2 days. How long would you suggest I give it before I do this?[providing that neither the leopard or six lined does the job]. I don't want to delay the problem and just keep syphoning,as i was just around the corner from SPS [starting off slow of course] and then this. By the way I have moved my corals, 10 lbs. LR and my H.O.T. Magnum [ told ya she was good for something= extra filteration and a pump all in 1 :cool: } to 20 gallon. This is how i started out. While I wait to see what happens in the next little while,I think i'm going to torture the planaria with my air pump! Thanks for all the help if your still awake after reading this!!! ;)

[DJ88]

Triger,

My Six line was a fluke. Like most fish in this hobby no two are alike it seems. I didn't buy it with the sole reason of it eating flatworms. I bought it as I love the little guys. It just so happened that it does eat them in my case. I would say you could buy a dozen and have maybe half actually eat flatworms. Possibly only 1/4. I have heard most don't. It has taken months for them to all die off. But they have. I can't even find one now. but I stress.. That is in my case only. It is not the norm.

As for the others. I'd keep only one of the three. Look into which grow the largest and try to get one that will stay fairly small. That choice will be yours to make. Without a refugium I'd take all three back and set up some form of refugium or else somewhere in your tank that the fish can't get into but the pod's can grow. look up Pod piles on Reef central or reefs.org.

With the flatworms all I can say is stop feeding the tank. Period. Or cut back massively. OOmed is a chemical that you can get in the US for flatworms but I don't know that you can get it here. I don't think you can.

HTH

[terryp01]

A sure cure to this problems is a Morrison's goby. They are very similar to a mandarian but very difficult to find. Most people don't stock them at LFS or online sources and it is very difficult to find them wholesale.

You might want to ask your LFS if they can get one. Probably going to run you some $$ but it will get rid of the flats.

Good luck.

[Mak]

Thanks for the help guys, I think I will get someone to look after my tangs and my clown, then we can start starving the tank. I don't know if it's sufficient enough but for six months the 20 gallon sump[more like a tank with my equipment in it] has been running with about 15-20lbs LR and 1/2" sandbed and 15w[50/50] light and no critters added besides the LR. Would you reccomend a larger sand bed in there, maybe another 20w light,any preference to which bulbs I should use to do best for this?. I was actually planning on putting some macroalgae[tangs will love this] in there and making it A LR refugium. THANKS FOR THE HELP ;) , I'll let ya know what happens :confused: .

[Mak]

Your not kidding about the Morison's goby being hard to find found a pic of one and that's about it. Have you had a Morison's goby do this for you and other's aswell with a 100% sucess rate? JL would probably be the best chance for me considering the local stores around here are pretty hurting! :rolleyes: Including Langly and Surrey :confused: Maybe if there is a 100% sucess rate i'll do some hunting! Thank U

[DJ88]

These fish aren't gobies, they are a member of the dragonet family. They are quite avaiable for us in the hobby. J&L had several a week ago infact. They are usually sold as "red scooter blennies" yeah another mistaken ID.

Morrison's dragonet (http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Synchiropus&speciesname=morrisoni)

[smokinreefer]

so these guys will eat flatworms? any first hand experiences?

[ 03 March 2002, 22:07: Message edited by: smokinreefer ]

[DJ88]

None here Shao, Had one when I didn't know any better when it came to dragonets. Didn't have flatworms then.

Terry any experience out your way?

[DJ88]

Well these fellas are different from teh scooters we have seen at J&L. So anyone rushing there and asking about them. Don't.. THey aren't the same creature. Anyways J&L doesn't have any left.

Let's wait and see if Terry can pass on any new information.

For those interested and reading this. Until more is known I still say DO NOT rush out and buy dragonettes, wrasses or mandrins as a quick fix. 90% of the time they will not eat your flatworms and then will subsequently die as they wipe out your pod population in your tank. Unless you get one that you have SEEN eat prepared food with your OWN eyes, please don't buy these guys. most don't eat prepared food and will die in a tank not capable of handling them.

Save this fish's life and if you can, tell the stores that you don't like that they bring such food specific creatures in.

[George]

Don't have a solution for your flatworm problem. Just a side note here.
Big Al's tanks didn't have flatworm before. I went to their Richmond store last weekend and saw a few of their invert tanks were infested with flatworms. When and how did they get infested with flatworms?
Well, another reason not to shop at Big Al's.

George

[terryp01]

My experience through a local client who swears by it. I have never been able to purchase these so I cannot confirm. Of course, I am happy to say that I have never (knock on wood) had first hand experience with flat worms.

[Mak]

While were still on this topic, HOW DO WE PREVENT THESE GUYS FROM GETTING INTO THE TANK IN THE FIRST PLACE?[saltwater & freshwater dips] As it's seems these are next to impossible to fully clear out of your tank. I think if we work on solutions for stopping em from coming in to are tanks, we should be alright.After a fair bit of reasearch on these guys it seems that even alot of experts are getting these in there tanks :eek: [probably were unaware of such a thing].I guess the key is to PREVENT then from coming into the tank, not getting them OUT!!! As of now down comes my tank :( cause I was also thinking about setting up a 90 gallon and the location of this tank really needs to be changed as it keeps me up a night.