Flat work help!

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

sorry flat worm not work
salinity 1.026
Ph 8.0
Kh 7.3
Cal 440-460
Mag 1350 -1450
Po4 .08
Nitrate <5
Temp 78
Ok so over the past 2 weeks my poker star monti , forest fire monti and superman monti have gone from looking amazing. Amazing color and growth. To 90% polop recession. Base still has color but polops are gone. Now the last few days my two hammers one is about 1.5 months old and no QT. they have been opening less and less. Tonight I found dark red or brown flat worms all over hammer old that is 1 year old.
Question 1 how much damage can the flat worms really do if I treat and don't manually remove the worms.

Quastion 2 will prazipro work for flat worms. It says it dose on bottle and dose flat worm exit work that much better then prazi

Maritimer · Aug 28, 2016

I've never used Prazi in the display, nor FWE ... but wanted to chime in with something that keeps my red planaria confined to my refugium: fairy wrasses and a target mandarin. Not sure which one did the job (I suspect the mandarin), but since their introduction my once-healthy population of red flatworms has become a memory in the display.

How much damage they'll do depends on which worms you've got and what they're eating - if you've got coral-eating ones, they can reproduce pretty quickly and become a real problem, but not all flatworms feast on coral.

~Bruce

Tahoe61 · Aug 28, 2016

Google Red Planaria and see if that looks like the fw type you have.
The issue with red planaria is that they cover corals diminishing lighting as well as gas exchange, they are smothering the corals. With a large enough fw population corals over time suffer.
Some fw are photosynthetic just like corals, they use zooxanthellae. Black outs can assist in diminishing the over all population explosion.
Some fish types are a good way of keeping fw in check.
Have you checked to makes sure that montipora eating nudibrachs are not the issue with the montipora?

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Tahoe61 said:
Google Red Planaria and see if that looks like the fw type you have.
The issue with red planaria is that they cover corals diminishing lighting as well as gas exchange, they are smothering the corals. With a large enough fw population corals over time suffer.
Some fw are photosynthetic just like corals, they use zooxanthellae. Black outs can assist in diminishing the over all population explosion.
Some fish types are a good way of keeping fw in check.
Have you checked to makes sure that montipora eating nudibrachs are not the issue with the montipora?

I have looked on coral but have not seen anything other then the flat worms. The flat worms I where on the skeleton of my hammer in between the base and the polops. I only seen them after lights out.

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

I would say they looked allot like this. There where probably about 8 just that I could see. And when I shined a bright flash light on them they started to move. They seem to be darker then any pictures I can find online

twilliard · Aug 28, 2016

Peroxide and mechanical filtration is a great way to pull these guys out without using meds

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

twilliard said:
Peroxide and mechanical filtration is a great way to pull these guys out without using meds

Peroxide kills them? Any links for instructions?

twilliard · Aug 28, 2016

No it doesn't kill them and that is a good thing

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/peroxide-and-the-use-against-flatworm.228032/

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Trying a prazi pro bath

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Prazi had no effect on flatworms.
So I rinsed fresh saltwater then tried peroxide. Also had no affect. So I turkey bartered about 30 off my hammer and put it back in tank

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Unfortunately all my other rock is much to large to remove. So I am not really sure what I am going to do at this point. And still can't find any reason to why montis are not doing well. They growing on rock the size of a small basket ball so not that easy to inspect.

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

I think I will have to try flat worm exit

twilliard · Aug 28, 2016

FWE will kill them if dosed outside of the listed instructions.
Beware of the toxins and added organics

Robink · Aug 28, 2016

get a wrasse, yellow coris, sixline or melanarus. Will also prevent future infestations.

Reefpro · Aug 28, 2016

Word to the wise, I have experienced a drop in oxygen in water when using FWE so watch your wish closely and follow the instructions. Good luck

RyanSweet · Aug 28, 2016

I just went through a serious infestation of flat worms and I can tell you that flat worm exit worked really well for me. I followed the directions exactly and kept extra carbon onhand in 2 different reactors. I ended up having to dose 3 times over 2 months and for almost a month I haven't seen flatworms at all. I didn't have any loss of coral or fish, and my LPS are much healthier looking since getting the flat worms out.

saltyfilmfolks · Aug 28, 2016

Melevs reefs has a great write up on fwe. And yea those are not red flatworms or the brown ones. Those are huge.

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Robink said:
get a wrasse, yellow coris, sixline or melanarus. Will also prevent future infestations.

I have a malanarus he is about 6inches
I have 3" checkerboard wrasse and 3" leapored wrasse.

Kershaw · Aug 28, 2016

Thanks. if there are no other options I will be going to get fwe tomorrow. I have only seen the worms on one coral so far. And I will get more carbon and hope for the best. I am really afraid of hurting my fish. I have a bubbler I can use in sump to help with oxygen

saltyfilmfolks · Aug 28, 2016

Kershaw said:
Thanks. if there are no other options I will be going to get fwe tomorrow. I have only seen the worms on one coral so far. And I will get more carbon and hope for the best. I am really afraid of hurting my fish. I have a bubbler I can use in sump to help with oxygen

IMO>>>dont jump to the nuclear option without understanding the consequences. If you params are iffy, the oxygen is already low, condition the tank first before meds. Research exactly how fwe works. are the worms eating the coral ot the mulm and not the coral?, how bad is the infestation.?
I would Begin manual removal daily of the ones you can see, check the sump get a feel for the population size. The hardest part about fwe is it kills them all at once.(and other stuff you didnt know you had) So light poison follows by a huge amount of released toxins from the flatties corpses.
Its also quite possible its just a bloom. If you keep an eye on pop and manually remove the bloom may fade in time. I yearly notice a trend in blooms in my tank of all the bugs. Brown flatworms the benign ones flare up in the fall in my tank and following the boards, seemingly others too. ???7 9 ????Weeks?
youll have time to observe this week, get the pop down(for 2 reasons), buy a canister filter for the carbon(and corpses)!!!!!! And double check the health of the tank before surgery IF needed.

http://www.melevsreef.com/node/651
@melev