For those battling planaria...

[Diana]

J&L just got a batch of Chelidonura varians. Extremely difficult to keep, but man does he suck the little buggers up.


:D
-Diana

[Chaloupa]

FINALLY...and now I don't need one...I have been waiting for over a year and a half for these and finally gave up, dipped all the rock, threw out all the sand and am starting that tank over again..they were out of control! And now, they get them in....argh...oh well, someone will be happy!

[reeferious]

are these the purple coloured seaslugs?

[Diana]

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/images/313_bluevelvet.jpg

Not my pic....


Yeah I've waited literally for years for these guys. I've tried dipping the rock and replacing sand in the past, I've also had my planaria colony crash and wipe out my seahorses (it was really rough, i'd had them for years). There must have been 1 that survived and now I have millions. But this nudi is actually sucking them up! I cant wait to be rid of them.

To say the least I was very happy! :D

[Borderjumper]

Will the nudies survive once the flatworms are gone? I thought I read that their diet pretty much consists of... flatworms.

[Chaloupa]

Everything I have read indicates that once the flatworms are gone...the nudi's need to be shared with friend as they only eat FW....

[justinl]

yeah that's why i am of very mixed minds concerning these guys. On the one hand yeah they're great at eradication, but after that they're pretty much dead meat unless you shove it into someone else's hands... which certainly doesn't solve the problem.

[EmilyB]

When you really get angry about the flatworms, you siphon and blow. They hate flow. It took only a couple weeks for me to completely get rid of them.

Flatworms = suck & blow

Amen.

[Diana]

Haha lots of flow in a seahorse/pipefish tank is a hard! I honestly tried pretty much everything except flatworm exit cus I was too scared. These guys were in plauge porportions... I mean.... my sand was no longer white. :S

These nudis should really not be brought in for decorative purposes, but if they can be kept alive with planaria then I'm all for it. I've heard they generally have short lifespans anyways.

[justinl]

Yeah true nudis have relatively short lifespans (dunno abut velvets in particular) but lets not pretend starvation isn't near inevitable. I dont mean to argue, just stating my opinion.

What kind of planarians do you have? My banana wrasse did wonders for eradicating the greenish brown ones with the medial red dot (the photosynthetic ones whose name escapes me).

[Chin_Lee]

with their short lifespans and the flatworm problems many aquarists have, I don't believe starvation will be the root cause of death for those that are bought. Acclimatization to captivity will usually be what kills them.

[Diana]

Which is good I guess that they only show up once every couple years. :)

Yeah true nudis have relatively short lifespans (dunno abut velvets in particular) but lets not pretend starvation isn't near inevitable. I dont mean to argue, just stating my opinion.

What kind of planarians do you have? My banana wrasse did wonders for eradicating the greenish brown ones with the medial red dot (the photosynthetic ones whose name escapes me).


They are just the reddish brown ones, pretty common in aquariums. I think they are also photosynthetic. I did not want to add a wrasse (first of all cus wild caught fish with tank raised seahorses is usually not such a great idea), also because the wrasse would most likely also eat my seahorse fry. :(

[AndyL]

Trading to a friend is good - you'll probably want to bring him back a week or two after you think you're clean just to make sure... I know with my FWE treatments, I generally need to dose again a few weeks after the first treatment ot avoid the plague returning...