What are these all over mu refugium?

[huthain]

My aquarium is around 6 months old now, but for the past 2 to 3 months ive had these brown things everywhere in my fuge and exclusively there, every other chamber and my display doesn't have this. I do also have pods in there too and ive had a healthy population of them sustaining themselves there. Here are pictures.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Looks like a plague of flatworms.

 

[StradicCi4]

I could be wrong, but they look like flatworms to me.

 

[Dom]

Looks like a plague of flatworms.

Not an infestation... nor an outbreak... but a plague.

Never heard it put that way.

 

[huthain]

Looks like a plague of flatworms.

Ufff not what I was expecting and plague seems to be the right way to put it.

Any recommended course of action? I dont believe ive seen any in my display to be hinest but I reckon they wouldnt be super easy to spot. Do I need to address them? Anything I should be worried about?

 

[huthain]

Looks like a plague of flatworms.

@Randy Holmes-Farley ive just thought of an idea, given this looks like it's mainly in my sump more specifically refugium. I am going to assume the fish are taking care of the display tank.

What do you think if I siphon the water out of my tank completely and leave it dry? In the process ill also try to siphon them off the glass etc and once I fill up fresh salt water run carbon too for 2 to 3 days. Thoughts?

 

[huthain]

Looks like a plague of flatworms.

Took out the rocks and chaeto dipped them in rodi, then siphoned out the fuge. Already a significant improvement

 

[EnterName]

Manual removal will probably be a significant part of the treatment anyway, so the RO/DI dip might have been a good choice for now. I don't think their eggs will be affected, but you can simply repeat the process.

Even if you decide to use the nuclear option (Flatworm Exit or whatever), it is adviced to get rid of as many flatworms as possible beforehand, because apparently some flatworms can release toxins on death.

There are fish that eat flatworms but this won't help you in the refugium. I don't know about other treatment methods but would advice to wait for a response from others before using medication.

 

[twentyleagues]

I know some flat worms are bad like euphyllia eating and acro eating but some are more nuisance than bad eating leftovers and detritus. If the tank is clear fish are probably handling them, free food yumm! They seem to fade in time. Just in fuge I wouldnt worry too much, with plague proportions I would not kill them in mass with flat worm exit or something like it that much death would not be good for tank parameters.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are they reddish?

 

[huthain]

These are the best shots I can get. But they look more brown than red generally.

 

[huthain]

Are they reddish?

@Randy Holmes-Farley they seem to slowly be reappearing what do you think will be best course of action, should I run the sump dry for an hour after clearing as many possible before hand and then run carbon for a day

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I believe that I used Flatworm Exit successfully many years ago, but I’ll leave advice on current best treatments to others that have had such issues more recently.

I also found that chaeto could be rinsed in ro/di, killing the flatworms and not the chaeto.

 

[Subsea]

I believe that I used Flatworm Exit successfully many years ago, but I’ll leave advice on current best treatments to others that have had such issues more recently.

I also found that chaeto could be rinsed in ro/di, killing the flatworms and not the chaeto.

I am an expert at Red Planaria. They are rusty brown, not red. I will link my on going thread.

However, I experienced flatworms in two seperate display tanks 120G @ 5 years mature and a 75G at 25 years mature. I treated them several times in the 75G with flatworms exit. I even disassembled front cabinet and removed 30G mud/algae refugium and nuked it with bleach and sunlight for 2 weeks. During that time, I ran refugium pump as a closed loop. That turned out to be a source of contamination & regeneration. I was very frustrated and lost interest in tank. One year later flat worms were gone and I don’t know for certain, as to why it who consumed them.

 

[huthain]

I am an expert at Red Planaria. They are rusty brown, not red. I will link my on going thread.

However, I experienced flatworms in two seperate display tanks 120G @ 5 years mature and a 75G at 25 years mature. I treated them several times in the 75G with flatworms exit. I even disassembled front cabinet and removed 30G mud/algae refugium and nuked it with bleach and sunlight for 2 weeks. During that time, I ran refugium pump as a closed loop. That turned out to be a source of contamination & regeneration. I was very frustrated and lost interest in tank. One year later flat worms were gone and I don’t know for certain, as to why it who consumed them.

That sounds frustrating! But glad you're done with it. Is there a reason to try and eradicate them though? What's the worst that can happen? Are they going to harm my corals? Diminish my copepod population which is still going strong. Ive genuinely not seen a single one outside of my sump so my assumption is my fish stocking is dealing with that which is great. If its just unsightly for the refugium should I even bother removing them? I could run my sump dry for a few hours and see how i do but if theres even a single one in any pipe (which im sure there is) they'll just make a comeback in a matter of time.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

That sounds frustrating! But glad you're done with it. Is there a reason to try and eradicate them though? What's the worst that can happen? Are they going to harm my corals? Diminish my copepod population which is still going strong. Ive genuinely not seen a single one outside of my sump so my assumption is my fish stocking is dealing with that which is great. If its just unsightly for the refugium should I even bother removing them? I could run my sump dry for a few hours and see how i do but if theres even a single one in any pipe (which im sure there is) they'll just make a comeback in a matter of time.

If they cover photosynthetic organisms, those will be shaded and be deterred from getting enough light.

 

[Ziggy17]

I had red planeria and tried to manually remove for a week but couldn’t keep up. Ended up using flatworm exit and they vanished. The med had Zero impact on the coral. I added a Melanarus Wrasse afterward to make sure they couldn’t make a comeback. That was over 2 years ago and haven’t seen one since.