Does flatworm exit work?

ihatenitrites

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About 2 hours ago I saw what I believe to be 2 flatworms on my glass. The aquarium is the fluval 13.5g with the pump that came with the aquarium. I don't use a powerhead right now because I had to deal with a purple bubble algae (face palm here, I introduced it to the tank because I thought it looked cool) infestation after I accidently popped 1. I think the issue was made a lot worse because of the powerhead so for me the few months I've been constantly trying to look for and eradicate any purple bubble algae I find. So far I found only 1 small bubble.

So on to the present. I took some pictures of them but they are not that great. Unfortunately this is the best I could do.

I used flatworm exit, 8 drops (4 drops = 5gallon), but nothing happened after 30 - 45min. The 2 flatworm was still on the glass, so I added another 4 drops like how the instructions say. I waited another 30min or so and still nothing happened so I just sucked those 2 with a turkey baster and then I put in carbon for safety (just in case there's flatworms dying and I don't see them) but I'm doubting that flatworm exit was effective at all.

I found another post where people were saying that it might be a flatworm exist resistant strain and they were telling op that wrasses are quite good at eating flatworms.

My questions are these:
1) Is it possible for you guys / gals to identify if these are even flatworms from my pictures?
2) If they are flatworms, how do you think I should proceed?

I would say that probably it's not ever recommended for me to add a wrasse in my tank since it's so small. My other inhabitants are 1 yellow clown goby, 1 blue leg hermit, 1 black hermit, 1 snail, 1 pistol shrimp, and some kind of copepods (some are very small, maybe half the size of that flatworm from my pic, but I also saw 1 that was around 0.5cm). I read that some people add 6 line wrasse to this type of aquarium but I'm not sure if it's a good idea, plus I also read that they can become quite aggressive and no doubt will severely out eat the yellow clown goby.

20220125_162855.jpg 20220125_162857.jpg
 

JaimeAdams

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Those are not the red planaria that you see people trying to kill with FWE. Those may be ghost flatworms which are harmless and feed on pods.
 

_sludgefactory

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Looks like brown flatworms. I had 1000s upon 1000s of them all over my tank. I was too afraid to nuke my tank with the flatworm exit. Ended up getting a mandarin goby and she keeps them in check. I don't recommend you do that but I wouldn't worry about 2.
 
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ihatenitrites

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Those are not the red planaria that you see people trying to kill with FWE. Those may be ghost flatworms which are harmless and feed on pods.
I think you might be right. They looked pretty white to me.

Looks like brown flatworms. I had 1000s upon 1000s of them all over my tank. I was too afraid to nuke my tank with the flatworm exit. Ended up getting a mandarin goby and she keeps them in check. I don't recommend you do that but I wouldn't worry about 2.
I think they might be ghost flatworms. I haven't really seen any brown in them when I was staring at the glass.

Lots of weird things pop up in the tank. A few days ago I found a small (maybe 0.5cm) purple looking thing. No idea what that was, maybe a baby bristle worm.
 

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