Red planaria in refugium

[AdamB]

I have just noticed that I have several flatworms in my refugium . I see several of them floating on top which I assume they are dead .
I do not have any flatworms in my display thanks to melanurus wrasse .
I am up in the air about treating them with Exit again I treated just the sump 2 months ago and thought I had them under control but no.
I am thinking that my coral / fish might suffer if I have a large die off of flatworms.
What would y’all do or has anyone had this issue before ? Treat again?

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Hm good question. I'd lean towards flatworm exit but if your confident the wrasse will protect your dt then the flatworms could be beneficial clean up crew members in the sump

 

[AdamB]

Hm good question. I'd lean towards flatworm exit but if your confident the wrasse will protect your dt then the flatworms could be beneficial clean up crew members in the sump

I know .. that’s what I was leaning too as well . I was sort of worried if I had a huge flatworm does off in sump that it could stress my corals. I do not run carbon .
True too. But just like any infestation . Once you reach a a threshold number than it might be problematic and needs to
Be managed ..
Thanks for the feedback

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I know .. that’s what I was leaning too as well . I was sort of worried if I had a huge flatworm does off in sump that it could stress my corals. I do not run carbon .
True too. But just like any infestation . Once you reach a a threshold number than it might be problematic and needs to
Be managed ..
Thanks for the feedback

Try a nudibranch. I forget the species but there’s an electric blue one that only eats flatworms. It’ll mow down your sump infestation

 

[AdamB]

Try a nudibranch. I forget the species but there’s an electric blue one that only eats flatworms. It’ll mow down your sump infestation

Thank you ZF ! I will look into your suggestion!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Two options-
Effective is to siphon them out which rids of them in one step. It will take several times but worth it.
6 line wrasse is another option

if you can find one, blue velvet nudibranch will eat them like candy

last resort- salifert flatworm exit but much of it will be sent to tank via pump and any dead ones will release toxins and need frequent siphoning out So might as well start with siphoning

 

[AdamB]

Try a nudibranch. I forget the species but there’s an electric blue one that only eats flatworms. It’ll mow down your sump infestation

I agree .


Taking the time to siphon them off would be best as well
I have thought about siphoning and blowing them off into a small net and disposing of . My only worry from past experience was when I had a good experience with Salinger’s Exit treatment is that when you only see 100 flatworms in your tank before you treat and when you treat and flatworms start dieing that multi that by 10 or 100!
Flatworms came out of sand bed/ rocks by the 100’s of not 1000s! I threw in some carbon afterwards to remove toxin and 4 hrs later 25% water change .
So I think that I will need a combination of siphoning and Exit to treat and retreat with Exit 3 or 4 days later to kill the remainders in there hatch cycle ?
I am sure I might have a few stragglers . So maybe this would buy me some time to find nudibranch to keep threshold levels down in my fuge .??
I have a eshopps 300 sump . Refugium holds about 9 gallons . Could I just figure treating the gallon volume of sump instead of total water capacity?
Is this the nudibranch?

 

[Gtinnel]

I have a eshopps 300 sump . Refugium holds about 9 gallons . Could I just figure treating the gallon volume of sump instead of total water capacity?

I'm not familiar with that sump but can you stop flow into the fuge section? If so why not either just empty the fuge and clean them out, or treat just the fuge and do a complete water change on that chamber?

 

[AdamB]

I'm not familiar with that sump but can you stop flow into the fuge section? If so why not either just empty the fuge and clean them out, or treat just the fuge and do a complete water change on that chamber?

That’s a Good idea too .I had thought of that too but I have a large copepod colony in refugium and I don’t want to loose that after spending $$ on them a while back .

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

With your wrasse in the display you won’t have enough to worry about. I’d use flatworm exit. Then fire up some carbon and maybe a water change. I just did the same thing a month ago. No issues.

 

[AdamB]

With your wrasse in the display you won’t have enough to worry about. I’d use flatworm exit. Then fire up some carbon and maybe a water change. I just did the same thing a month ago. No issues.

Yep. I think that’s what I am going to do . I didn’t have issues of Exit a couple years ago either but was.As you can see the threshold level is getting up there in fuge l
Wanted to discuss with y’all to see if any better ways out there that everyone has tried .

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

You might try to filter or suck some out first. I kept changing filter socks as I was treating like every ten minutes.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I agree .


Taking the time to siphon them off would be best as well
I have thought about siphoning and blowing them off into a small net and disposing of . My only worry from past experience was when I had a good experience with Salinger’s Exit treatment is that when you only see 100 flatworms in your tank before you treat and when you treat and flatworms start dieing that multi that by 10 or 100!
Flatworms came out of sand bed/ rocks by the 100’s of not 1000s! I threw in some carbon afterwards to remove toxin and 4 hrs later 25% water change .
So I think that I will need a combination of siphoning and Exit to treat and retreat with Exit 3 or 4 days later to kill the remainders in there hatch cycle ?
I am sure I might have a few stragglers . So maybe this would buy me some time to find nudibranch to keep threshold levels down in my fuge .??
I have a eshopps 300 sump . Refugium holds about 9 gallons . Could I just figure treating the gallon volume of sump instead of total water capacity?
Is this the nudibranch?

Yeah that’s it. The eat nothing but flatworms so they don’t take long to clean the issue up.