Photosynthetic flatworms?

[MartinM]

I have thousands of these little guys popping up out of the sand bed throughout my aquarium. They react to stimuli, and crawl around. Half of them is green and sticks above the same and the other half stay is buried. I’ve never seen them before, any ideas?

 

[Goaway]

Yes, flatworms. Sorry, I don't know the best route of removal. Or which ones they are :(

Manually remove what you can.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I have thousands of these little guys popping up out of the sand bed throughout my aquarium. They react to stimuli, and crawl around. Half of them is green and sticks above the same and the other half stay is buried. I’ve never seen them before, any ideas?

I cannot remember the name of these guys for the life of me.

Do you have a lot of macro? Halimeda or codium? I ask, as I needed up with some of these in my coral qt when I got a shipment of both of those macros. That is all they ate and didn’t hurt a thing.

I removed them via a siphon with a small tubing and filter sock and then just did a good rodi scrub on the macro to remove eggs with a toothbrush and never saw them again.

 

[MartinM]

Thanks for the info, and yep @Eagle_Steve I have a lot of various kinds of macro.

They don’t bother me, so is there a reason to try to remove them?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Thanks for the info, and yep @Eagle_Steve I have a lot of various kinds of macro.

They don’t bother me, so is there a reason to try to remove them?

If they are not decimating the macro, not really. My issue was flatworms can blow up in population very quickly. Due to this, I was worried about them eating the macro or having a mass die off and killing things in the tank. The latter being my biggest concern due to the toxins they release when they die.

 

[MartinM]

They’re mostly in the sand bed with the green part poking up. I actually havent seen any on the macro. Didn’t know they released toxins though. Thanks!

 

[taricha]

They don’t bother me, so is there a reason to try to remove them?

most of these sorts of flatworms eat copepods and are photosynthetic.
they multiply to ridiculous proportions in a system without predators.
I've never seen this exact kind before.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

most of these sorts of flatworms eat copepods and are photosynthetic.
they multiply to ridiculous proportions in a system without predators.
I've never seen this exact kind before.

Agree with @taricha on this, as if not on the macro and eating it, then more than likely different from the ones I had.

 

[Tired]

Oh, cool! It's like they're trying to be plants.

A lot of wrasse species eat flatworms, IIRC.

 

[MartinM]

What’s really ironic is that I was treating a whole tank with a AEFW to eliminate acro flat worms, and it did nothing to these guys…

I wonder if a mandarin would eat them? Or sleeper gobies since they’re in the sand? Because they have achieved said ridiculous proportions!

 

[taricha]

I don't think mandarins usually eat these plague flatworms. Would be awesome if they did.
a wrasse worked better than multiple rounds of flatworm exit for me.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

Never seen these before. They look more plant then flatworm