The Battle with Red Planaria Flatworms

[N1Husker]

Would a coral banded shrimp take care of them?

I have a coral banded shrimp and he didn't do anything, but they do eat bristleworms. I got a melenurus wrasse and he wiped them out in two weeks and I had allot of them.
None since.

 

[racin2438]

Good article, I got some some how not a lot but they multiply fast.I always dip but still some to in there. I will try the preditor things first.

My LFS, said I could also do a cup of RODI with 10 drops of hydrogen peroxide and a baster and blast them. It has been working , I'm seeing less and less.

But impossible to see on rocks.

 

[DecanoLA]

Hi guys,

I have had this problem with planaria also. They where EVERYWHERE !!!! covered entire rocks !!!!! mostly didn't harm corals until they just started to grow on top of them. But they did seem to kill zoas , by irritating them or not letting them open up... anyway:

I tried all of the chemical solutions, including flatworm exit (in three different occasions!!!!), followed by a 200 gal water change (tank was 75 gal) each time....
I have to say that chemical really kills them off... the whole tank turned red !!!! it was raining planaria !!!! it was crazy... The fish and the corals didnt like this, obviously, but in a couple of days were open and eating and all... the flatworms seemed to have disappeared... HOWEVER... in a couple of days I spotted a few... then some more... the next week a couple more... and in about 2-3 weeks I was just were I began flatworms everywhere.... I think it might have to do with a lot of liverock, or places with low flow, maybe the chemical cant get everywhere... who knows...

I was just about to quit... and someone mentioned trying some specific wrasses... I already had a 6-line (mean critter) that wasn't touching them, so I thought I would give it a try, I was desperate...

I managed to get my "fish guy" to find me some African Black Leopard Wrasses (2)... and while I was at his shop, I saw a cute little coris wrasse and I took him as well... Needless to say the Leopard wrasses were shy at first and it took some days experimenting to get them to eat frozen food, but they acclimated well... and in a couple of days or weeks KABOOOOOMMM !!!! the flatworms were gone!!! not a single freakin one !!!! I really thought it was a miracle... I don't know if it was the Leopards or the coris or what... but they were annihilated !!! I was sooooo happy..

Then in the end the 6 line chased the leopards around so much they jumped out
But I haven't had a single flatworm ever since (this 3 years ago)...

 

[Browner20]

I have had some red/brown flatworms but they have really exploded at times and then severely reduced w/o any intervention by me. Currently reduced to very few confined to basically one rock. They have always had a rock or two where they are predominantly found. Any ideas on why that is?

 

[Browner20]

Probably have 20 or so that I can see but they are all huddled into a crevice in one rock. Fish include blue/hippo tang, oc clown, six line, and a coral banded butterfly(probably just a temp resident after he polishes off the last couple aptasia). I do feed heavy amounts but infrequently (2-3) times per week. Everyone is fat as can be but do you think the 6 line is snacking in between feeding?

 

[nelson.jdautobody]

Hopefully I will never need to use this information but I'm tagging this great read just in case

 

[Sense of nature]

I have noticed a few... no problems I'm aware of yet( besides brown jelly disease ) maybe they instigated my outbreak?

 

[racin2438]

Does one have to have the bio pellets and gfo off too.. when treating with the FWE, my reactors are in line not independent of each other. Or would I have to fill all three reactors with carbon. ....?.?????

 

[N1Husker]

I had a flatworm problem and I was told to get a Hoevans (Melanurus) Wrasse. I went to the LFS and finally found one and put him in the tank. I mean these red planria flatworms were all over everything. I had high hopes for that Melanurus Wrasse and he did not disappoint, within two weeks I couldn't find a flatworm in the tank. He is a beautiful fish, very fast and he keeps the tank in check. He has a permanent home and has earned his keep, besides, he is gorgeous.

 

[Carmen]

I had a flatworm problem and I was told to get a Hoevans (Melanurus) Wrasse. I went to the LFS and finally found one and put him in the tank. I mean these red planria flatworms were all over everything. I had high hopes for that Melanurus Wrasse and he did not disappoint, within two weeks I couldn't find a flatworm in the tank. He is a beautiful fish, very fast and he keeps the tank in check. He has a permanent home and has earned his keep, besides, he is gorgeous.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I didn't think my Melanurus did anything for the flatworms. I sent him back to the fish store when I saw him swallow a Peppermint shrimp practically whole. So I still have the flat worms. It seems like I don't see them for a while, then I'll one day I'll walk by the tank and the poor Flowerpot coral is just covered in them. Now they are starting to bother the ric mushrooms. I have been removing the ones off the rics manually. Impossible to do this with the Flowerpot as it closes up as soon as it's touched. I've dipped it in RODI water and they come right off. But the ones on the inside can't be reached once the coral closes up. Regarding the Flatworm Exit, does it kill snails? I would love to use it and would be glad to start up a carbon filter. Don'[t want my snails to die though.

 

[N1Husker]

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I didn't think my Melanurus did anything for the flatworms. I sent him back to the fish store when I saw him swallow a Peppermint shrimp practically whole. So I still have the flat worms. It seems like I don't see them for a while, then I'll one day I'll walk by the tank and the poor Flowerpot coral is just covered in them. Now they are starting to bother the ric mushrooms. I have been removing the ones off the rics manually. Impossible to do this with the Flowerpot as it closes up as soon as it's touched. I've dipped it in RODI water and they come right off. But the ones on the inside can't be reached once the coral closes up. Regarding the Flatworm Exit, does it kill snails? I would love to use it and would be glad to start up a carbon filter. Don'[t want my snails to die though.

I don't know if it kills snails or not. I am very reluctant to use chemicals in my tank. I don't think that every Melenurus will eat the flatworms, they are fish, some do, some don't. I do however, before I put a coral in the tank, dip it in Coral Rx for 10 minutes followed by a dip for 5 minutes in Flatworm Exit. I then rinse it in fresh RO water. That has seemed to have kept them out of my tank.
if it were me I would try the Melenurus again before using Flatworm Exit.

 

[Carmen]

I don't know if it kills snails or not. I am very reluctant to use chemicals in my tank. I don't think that every Melenurus will eat the flatworms, they are fish, some do, some don't. I do however, before I put a coral in the tank, dip it in Coral Rx for 10 minutes followed by a dip for 5 minutes in Flatworm Exit. I then rinse it in fresh RO water. That has seemed to have kept them out of my tank.
if it were me I would try the Melenurus again before using Flatworm Exit.

I don't want to add another fish now. I've gotten a few (smaller) fish since then. I'm afraid the tank would be crowded. I know I should have followed the protocalls you stated, however being a new reefer, there were some things I didn't know about so here I am.

Does anyone else know if it will kill snails?

 

[chaoha]

I have used flat worm exit before and it didn't kill the snails but it also didn't kill all the flatworms. I just got Flatworm Solution at lfs and it worked great. That was a month ago and no flatworms.
You should siphon as many flatworms out as possible before using any chemical remover. They release a toxin when dying that can kill fish and coral. Water change and carbon should be used after treatment

 

[Wiz]

I admit I did not read the first page of this thread. So if I'm being redundant forgive me. Have you tried velvet nudibranches?

 

[Midrats]

Flatworm Exit didn't work for me. It just ruined a really nice tank that has since been decommissioned because it was never the same after the treatments.

I have had luck with Bluestripe Pipefish eating flatworms, plus they are feisty cool little fish.

 

[Mustbenuts]

If you have ever fought a battle against Aiptasia anemones, then you know what a pain it is to get rid of an aggressive aquarium pest. Aiptasia are very hard to get rid of if left unchecked, and like Aiptasia, there are many pests that hitchhike into our aquariums on corals and live rock and absolutely take over. One of the most prolific pests to enter into our salty tanks are the red Planaria flatworms. These rust colored worms are relatively harmless, but they reproduce so quickly that they can blanket corals and block out light, causing localized bleaching. Fortunately, there are methods to get rid of flatworms.
Red Planaria flatworms (Convolutriloba sp.) are generally rust colored, like mentioned above, and they can be further identified by a trio of lobes at the worm’s posterior that drag behind they crawl around. This pest feeds primarily through photosynthesis and they can quickly multiply to the point that they fall under a plague category. But don’t expect to kill them in your aquarium without repercussions. One main thing to know about these flatworms is that when they die, they releaser a toxin in the water that has the ability to kill sessile inverts and even fish if a large amount of the worms die. The problem here is not when you kill one flatworm, but when you kill them in mass numbers.

Before we talk about how to kill the worms, there’s a sure fire way to avoid the flatworm headache altogether, and that’s to avoid introducing these critters into your tank in the first place. The number one best way is to quarantine all corals before introducing them to your aquarium, but another effective solution is to simply dip your new coral in an iodine solution.*Dipping your coral and rock ensures you get rid of most of the pests, but it’s not always 100% effective and can still lead to an outbreak. For that reason alone, we highly recommend placing your new purchase into a quarantine tank, allowing you to observe and decide whether your recent buy is pest free. Another way to prevent a Planaria invasion is to closely examine any coral or rock prior to purchase.
Say you fail to take these precautions and you have already introduced this flatworm into your system. Well let me tell you it is a tough battle. Failing to do the first step mentioned above myself, I know what it’s like to battle red Planaria. Once I found I had this pest, I went straight into research. There are two main approaches you can take to rid yourself of the worms, and those are either natural or chemical. For the natural method, you have three main techniques: nutrient reduction, natural predators, and manual removal. For the chemical approach,* I went with a popular Salifert product called “Flatworm eXitâ€. Some approaches work for some and don’t for others. We took both approaches and recorded our results.

For the natural approach, we combined all three techniques. First was reducing nutrients. While it is believed that red Planaria get most of their nutrients from photosynthesis, we also know that the flatworms do get some nutrients from the water column. To accomplish this, we added more filtering material (Purigen in our case) and we also reduced the amount of food entering the aquarium. The skimmer was also adjusted to pull more dissolved organic material. Also, because we now know flatworms release toxins when they die, tripled the amount of carbon as a precaution. Next was the natural predator. We’ve heard stories that the target mandarin and various wrasses naturally to eat on these critters, so we went ahead and added both a Target Mandarin and a Sixline Wrasse to help with the battle. Lastly was the manual removal. This technique is fairly simple. What you do is combine airline tubing with a rigid tube to create a cheap and easy to manage flatworm siphon. You then target siphon these worms out, greatly reducing their numbers.

After combining all these methods and giving this approach roughly three weeks, we came to the following conclusions. Reducing the nutrients was not really very effective, since the worms are photosynthetic. The worms would still quickly multiply and fill the spots where the worms were manually removed. As for our predators, the Target Mandarin did not aggressively eat these pests, though it did pick around them causing some to detach from the rock work. The sixline wrasse, on the other hand, went did attack the worms. Now the sixline did not take it upon its own effort to pick and search for the flatworms, but if one or two occasionally floated around, it would eat them. So we find this technique to also not be as effective in the long run, though it would depend on the voracity of the pest eating fish. The siphoned method did work quite well, but it would take a constant siphoning to properly dispose of all these flatworms completely, and by the time they are gone you might go through a bucket of salt or two for all the lost water. Although I did find that some folks were attaching some sort of filter material at the end of the siphon tube to simply filter the worms out, we questioned whether the worms were dying on the filter material and just releasing toxins into the water you were going to pour back into the tank. Needless to say, we did not take this approach. So all together, these three methods might work, but simply will not cut it if you want to get rid of the worms within days. So now let’s move on to the chemical approach.
In all the time I have been in the hobby, I try my best to stay away from chemicals being introduced into the aquarium. But after having no success the all natural way,* we decided to try this method because we found many individuals using this product without any type of major downfall. This product is easily removed from the water column with carbon so keep that in mind. When the day finally came for our Flatworm eXit treatment, we prepared with plenty of carbon and an extra canister filter to properly run this carbon. I got home and thoroughly read the directions on the chemical and found two of the previously mentioned tips on the instructions of this product. One was to siphon out as many of the flatworms as possible to reduce the amount of toxins released, and the other was to run extra carbon to also absorb those toxins once the worms started to perish away.

Before starting the treatment, we removed all carbon from our system. This step is very important if now the carbon will weaken the treatment and it’s not necessary until after the worms start dying. We then siphoned out as many of the worms as possible, followed by dosing the amount of treatment indicated on the instruction. To my surprise, the flatworms started to wither away and detach from wherever they were within ten minutes. It was like it was snowing flatworms to the point that it was actually impressive how infested the system was. I let the product sit for roughly thirty minutes, then turned on the hang-on filter with carbon to begin removing the treatment and the toxins out of the water. We let the aquarium sit two more hours with carbon then observed. We still saw a couple of the worms moving around and not showing any side affects of the chemical, so I then stopped the carbon filtering and dosed half the recommended dose like the instructions indicated. After another thirty minutes with the second dose and the carbon back up and running, I finally won the battle. The flatworms were fully gone, and no matter of turkey basting or aiming water pumps to kick up worms revealed any living pests.
I am in no way or form stating that you should follow any of our experiment. The way you decide to approach this certain pest or plague is completely up to you. Like previously mentioned, some methods work and others don’t. The only way to simply avoid this is by dipping all specimens prior to introduction to a system and also quarantine. Always remember to practice safe reef keeping in order to keep a healthy and pest free aquarium don’t make the lazy mistake like I did but in the case that you do here are my observations.



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Please post your thoughts as well here!

The get rid of those flat worms is super easy, depending on the size of your tank, just add 10 - 20 blue-green Chromis or other Damsels, stir up the worms to get them to float for a while and once the fish have picked up the taste of these flat worms they will completely eliminate them in no time at all.

 

[Chris Adams]

Thank you! Nope, these aren't what I have. Mine are white. Kind of similar though

Jackie
125g mixed reef peninsula

check this link maybe it will help you identify what you have Jackie
http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker/hitchhiker.shtml

 

[fragguy]

Chromis (damselfish) species will take care of them.

I'm sure that the Chromis solution will not work on all species of Flatworms but on the species that I had (which I believe is referred to as Red Flatworm Convolutriloba retrogemma and looked just like the ones pictured in the first post) they had no problem making them disappear. I placed 5 Chromis in a 350 reef that is well packed with live rock and corals.

(Mustbenuts) You beat me to it. I got distracted and took to long in the reply box.

 

[Homebrwr]

So I had an infestation of these buggers a couple of months ago. I was doing water changes and siphoning out what I thought was algea. No experience of what a Flat worm is. Then one day I siphoned into a white bucket rather than a orange Home Depot bucket and noticed the darn things swimming.. UH OH !!!! I called on a friend for advisement. The following is the process I used. I didn't loose any fish but I beleive it might have effected some corals.
After adding the Flat Worm Exit and seeing the flat worms dying off I used a net to remove as many as I could that were floating around in the display.

1. 25% water change.
> Make sure you are siphoning out all of the flatworms that you can see If you can see 100 there is 1000 in there
> You should barely be able to see any at all. If this means it takes you a month to get to the point where you
barely see them then it takes a month
2. 25% water change with hardly any flatworms visible.
3. Make up as much water as you possibly can and have it on hand ready to go in case you see a problem.
I would have at least 50% ready to go so 80 or 100 gallons that is the correct temperature and salinity
4. Have Activated carbon on hand, I use ESV .. there is no phosphates in esv
>
What we typically do is do this in 2 stages. 1 for preliminary treatment and to see if we have an OH **** moment.
and the 2nd treatment to get rid of the remaining.. IF you do it all at once.. you are for sure to have some serious issues..
>
READY FOR DOSE / Preferably on say a Saturday where you will be around the carefully watch the tank. and in the morning.

5. Turn Protein skimmer off… you can just put the air intake under the water …so its still running
6. Dose the Standard dosage the bottle recommends
7. wait 1/2 hour.
8. If everything looks fine and no fish are gasping for air then you can precede to the second dosage that is in
> additional 1/2 dosage of what they recommend.
9. Thats it for the 1st dosage.
>
> If everything is ok, and you don’t have any issues then you should start in the morning right when the lights come
> on and end as late in the evening as possible. you would then do the largest water change you can do. Add
> the activated carbon . and then try to get your skimmer going which will over flow over and over again until
> everything is removed from the system chemicals etc..
>
Also.. as the dosage is going on.. you can always siphone out what flatworms surprise you and continue to do so.
> Remember the flatworms are toxic and they will redisolve back into the system and polute the system.. thats why we
> take our time and do the water changes and use the carbon.
>
> Wait a couple of days.. no more than say 3
> Make up your water again and have ready on hand.
>
> Follow the exact dosage above….
> Except..
> you start with the ending dosage..
> which would be 1.5 times.. what it recommends..
> Then you end with a total of 2 times what the recommendation asks for..
> Make sense????
> dose 1.5 then wait 1 hour or so.. then if everything is
> fine.. follow up with the extra .5 dosage.
>
> That should be it.
>
> I CANNOT STRESS
> ENOUGH>>>>>>>>>>>
> that if you can see the flatworms.. there are thousands more that you cannot see.. and that is the real concern

 

[prsnlty]

check this link maybe it will help you identify what you have Jackie
http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker/hitchhiker.shtml

Thank you Chris That was an old post and my previous tank. Mine where not the r.p. version and were taken care of by Exit and adding some wrasses