3 Inch Flatworm?? ID Please.

[marcus50]

Found this guy wandering all over my liverock in my frag tank. Had to take the whole piece of rock out to remove him from the tank. Anyone seen anything like this before? Reef safe? ID? I'm guessing it's a flatworm? I have a short video I shot of it when I put it on a paper plate....I'll attempt to upload it with the photos.

It's a little bigger than an average stick of chewing gum when it's all flattened out.

 

[Azurel]

It is the type that eats snails I think.....It is definitely not reef safe.

 

[Yellowtang]

Predatory polyclad flatworm preys on Tridacnid clams info from wet web media

FlatwormFAQs

JR,

 

[2FarNorth]

Wow, that's big!

 

[Paul_N]

Yep I had one. It ate about 5 of my snails luckily my clams were up on the rocks and it hadn't made it up that far yet. I caught it while it was munching on the leg of a serpent star.

 

[marcus50]

Thank you to all for responding....I will definitely be sending him down the toilet! I have had dead snails (thought is was the hermit crabs doing the killing) and now I'm thinking it might have been this flatworm.

Another question....since I had one flatworm, is it likely I have more? Should the "night patrol" commence on a regular basis?

 

[killingseed2000]

they eat more then snails and clams little is known about them. i have one and it ate my cleaner shrimp , i think. could you have more then 1 its possible, hard to say. i have read about people with one but not beyond that.

 

[marcus50]

I was just wondering if they "spread"/lay eggs/reproduce easily or if they're usually lone wolves....I guess only time will tell. I'm hoping he was operating alone. I'm now thinking back to all the livestock (shrimps/snails/nano-fish) that have died over the past year that I just chalked up to being the normal ups and downs (in this case -- downs) of the hobby. It would actually explain a lot if this guy was the culprit. Do they leave coral alone?

 

[Yellowtang]

I didn'y read anything that said they ate corals, but I did read that some of them didn't need a mate to lay eggs, which really sounds bad!

JR,

 

[lzqkeith]

they don't ate coral ,but they release toxin and walk on the coral body

 

[Yellowtang]

Well I was wrong it still takes two but each has both sexes. But they can asexually reproduce by droping off a piece of their tail and both pieces will regrow the missing parts..

JR,