Another Flatworn Exit Warning

[AllTheCorals]

Did you account for inner diameter of the tank and rock work when selecting your dosage?

For example my 120 gallon tank completely empty actually holds 105 gallons of water with sand. With rock a compete fill is just over 70 gallons.

 

[rob safron]

Yep. If anything went heavier than that on the dosage. Probably if anything, I could have waited longer for the carbon/water change but there were a lot of dead bodies after 10 min and didn’t want to chance it. Figured I would hit it with a second dose. That is until I saw how poorly the fish handled the first dose only lasting 15-30 min max.

 

[AllTheCorals]

Yep. If anything went heavier than that on the dosage. Probably if anything, I could have waited longer for the carbon/water change but there were a lot of dead bodies after 10 min and didn’t want to chance it. Figured I would hit it with a second dose. That is until I saw how poorly the fish handled the first dose only lasting 15-30 min max.

dang, really sorry to hear. I appreciate you posting a detailed recap of what happened. Best of luck in the future!

 

[leicaguy]

I have kept aquariums for over 50 years (yes I am OLD) I now have a 125 which I call my nano, I am using triton and bought some new macro algae, a week later thousands of the red pesky beasts, My corals were turning black some large colonies had died , fish were OK, I doses flatworm X and wow was I surprised, the water column was rusty colored thousands of the pesky beasts came out of no where the skimmer skimmed nasty orange skim mate, and I very quickly placed a Hugh reactor with about 4 pounds of carbon in the refugium, I removed all sand and after a few hours I placed a vortex diatom filter, and a few hour after that the water column had nasty strings of slime from corals and very cloudy. I changed 70 gallons of fresh sea water placed the vortex diatom filter again, Left it over night and hoped. I decided to remove the carbon and replaced it, I completed another 70 G water change and dosed with fauna marine bacteria. l, removed several dead corals and three days later another large water change. The tank is now amazing several corals lived, no further out breaks and my fish all lived. The diatom filter pulled out loads of nasty gunk, My learning curve here is to treat the macro algae with coral dip, and just know that strict observation of the corals and tank is essential especially when the skim mate turns orange

 

[leicaguy]

I have kept aquariums for over 50 years (yes I am OLD) I now have a 125 which I call my nano, I am using triton and bought some new macro algae, a week later thousands of the red pesky beasts, My corals were turning black some large colonies had died , fish were OK, I doses flatworm X and wow was I surprised, the water column was rusty colored thousands of the pesky beasts came out of no where the skimmer skimmed nasty orange skim mate, and I very quickly placed a Hugh reactor with about 4 pounds of carbon in the refugium, I removed all sand and after a few hours I placed a vortex diatom filter, and a few hour after that the water column had nasty strings of slime from corals and very cloudy. I changed 70 gallons of fresh sea water placed the vortex diatom filter again, Left it over night and hoped. I decided to remove the carbon and replaced it, I completed another 70 G water change and dosed with fauna marine bacteria. l, removed several dead corals and three days later another large water change. The tank is now amazing several corals lived, no further out breaks and my fish all lived. The diatom filter pulled out loads of nasty gunk, My learning curve here is to treat the macro algae with coral dip, and just know that strict observation of the corals and tank is essential especially when the skim mate turns orange

 

[melev]

It's a shame this didn't work for you as planned. Can you answer a couple of questions please? How often did you siphon out flatworms prior to dosing? And how much carbon did you use after treating the tank?

I hope your fish make it. Have you done anything else in the meantime?

 

[rob safron]

Fish are still alive, some look pretty beat up and I think it affected 2 of their visions. Seem to be having trouble seeing food unless it hits them in the face. I siphoned each day for several days prior to dosing. I had carbon in a small reactor in my sump and probably 2-2.5 lbs in a canister filter. I read stories about tanks turning orange and the skimmer turning orange. I saw plenty of dead bugs floating or hanging by strings but my water never turned color and neither did the skim that I could tell. I probobaly started the carbon and performed a water change much quicker than most as I worried going in about problems. I figured hit them quick and then come back a couple more time to get what I missed. They are definitely making a quick comeback. May try a Melanarus Wrasse this time verses more chemical. My fish are just too sensitive.

 

[Brew12]

Fish are still alive, some look pretty beat up and I think it affected 2 of their visions. Seem to be having trouble seeing food unless it hits them in the face. I siphoned each day for several days prior to dosing. I had carbon in a small reactor in my sump and probably 2-2.5 lbs in a canister filter. I read stories about tanks turning orange and the skimmer turning orange. I saw plenty of dead bugs floating or hanging by strings but my water never turned color and neither did the skim that I could tell. I probobaly started the carbon and performed a water change much quicker than most as I worried going in about problems. I figured hit them quick and then come back a couple more time to get what I missed. They are definitely making a quick comeback. May try a Melanarus Wrasse this time verses more chemical. My fish are just too sensitive.

I'm not an expert, so take this for what it is worth. Oh, and I don't really want to hijack your thread, so I'll try to keep it brief. In my opinion we hobbyists try to make everything seem simple. We act like there is one type of cyanobacteria or dinoflagellate. We act like our tanks all have the same bacteria and microfauna. I would suggest that either there are multiple species of red flatworm out there and you had one of the more toxic ones, or you had something else in your tank impacted by the flatworm exit that is causing this reaction. We see the same thing with Chemiclean. 99%+ of users don't have a problem. Yet there are still hundreds of cases where dosing Chemiclean has caused tank wipes. Another quick example. I recommended to a friend to dose 3% H2O2 at 1ml/10g to his system. One dose and it almost killed his soft corals.

Stuff like this just happens. Odds are we will never know why. The biological diversity is too large. We do our best to learn anecdotally from others but at the end of the day, we have to accept risk when we add chemical treatments to our tank. I hope the wrasse works out for you!

 

[rob safron]

Amen. I knew the risk and took some soul searching before I took the risk. I have use chemiclean in the past, worked like a charm with no issue. That was the point of my post, you have to make a decision if the risk is worth it. Sometimes you win but there will be times you lose especially with all the unknowns in a reef tank. I’ll update my post when I get the wrasse if it turns out successful, at least to keep population low.

 

[rob safron]

Just an update, lost 1 powder blue tang, 1 Montana clown that I didn’t even know was ill and 4 other fish look god awful and have not eaten since maybe Monday. Again, not bashing Flatworm Exit, just want folks to know the risk. You can go by the book which is what I did and still some coral browned out and all my fish have come down with ich, not a sign of it for at least 3 years prior. I certainly would try a predictor and just have lived with the worms if I had know even going by every successful post could still have a disaster like this.

 

[Reefman71]

I’m on my second dose right now. 90 gallon 20 gallon sump with refugium. Got a lot the first time i dosed. Coral puffed up, all fish seemed fine. About a week later I saw more worms. This time I used the entire bottle of flatworm exit. The remaining worms are gone. The key i think is you have to do it twice. They get deep into the sandbed also. My opinion, the reason people have issues is they don’t get the worms completely out of the sand. Also plan on taking about 6 hours to slowly go about the entire process. No carbon for the first hour and wait at least 5 or 6 hours to do a water change. That’s what I did and it worked. Flatworm stop is a waste of money by the way. Increases calcium.