Flatwork exit carbon requirement

laughing tang · May 6, 2022

Hi there - we just moved our tank (13 hr drive) and found that we have an enormous amount of flatworms. We had no idea, never noticed them but they were all over the corals when we arrived. We dipped the rocks and corals but we realize we need to follow it up with FWE.

However, Salifert recommends lbs of carbon per 50 gallons. We have a 270.8, so that's 6 lbs. How the heck does one accommodate that? Our reactor only accommodates 1.7 lbs.

We do have fish in this system. Thanks. Wrasse is not an option.

jda · May 6, 2022

Run as much as you can. The product is safe and not the issue. The issue is with the toxins from the dying worms and nobody can know how high of a population that other people have. They will get slimy and start to clump when they start to die.. siphon as much of these out as you can and replace with clean salt mix... have 100 gallons ready if you have the means. I would run as many GAC reactors as you can get your hands on... like even 5 or 10 if you can get them... what would it hurt?

Can you beg or borrow more reactors from other locals?

Siphoning before treatment is helpful too.

Lastly, treat a few more times after the inital. These last few treatments are easy since you will have gotten the vast bulk of the worms in the first. These are just to get any stragglers that might have been above the water line or otherwise evaded the first treatment, or two.

sdreef · May 6, 2022

laughing tang said:
Hi there - we just moved our tank (13 hr drive) and found that we have an enormous amount of flatworms. We had no idea, never noticed them but they were all over the corals when we arrived. We dipped the rocks and corals but we realize we need to follow it up with FWE.

However, Salifert recommends lbs of carbon per 50 gallons. We have a 270.8, so that's 6 lbs. How the heck does one accommodate that? Our reactor only accommodates 1.7 lbs.

We do have fish in this system. Thanks. Wrasse is not an option.

What type of flat worms? FWE may not be effective for all types.

If they are amenable to FWE, then I agree with all of @jda 's advice. In particular siphon and remove as many as worms as possible in advance.

laughing tang · May 6, 2022

Likely Convolutriloba retrogemma. All the rocks were dipped prior to putting them back in the tank last Saturday, so a large amount of them died then. This would be only for control.

laughing tang · May 6, 2022

jda said:
Run as much as you can. The product is safe and not the issue. The issue is with the toxins from the dying worms and nobody can know how high of a population that other people have. They will get slimy and start to clump when they start to die.. siphon as much of these out as you can and replace with clean salt mix... have 100 gallons ready if you have the means. I would run as many GAC reactors as you can get your hands on... like even 5 or 10 if you can get them... what would it hurt?

Can you beg or borrow more reactors from other locals?

Siphoning before treatment is helpful too.

Lastly, treat a few more times after the inital. These last few treatments are easy since you will have gotten the vast bulk of the worms in the first. These are just to get any stragglers that might have been above the water line or otherwise evaded the first treatment, or two.

Thanks. Yeah I did all the research so we will be doing that.

I found the carbon from BRS requires less of it so the 1.7 lbs of that will likely do. Fingers crossed it all goes well. I don't know how we never spotted them, there were 1000s dying off with dipping.

jda · May 6, 2022

They can kinda look like coralline algae until you really know what to look for. They can hide well too. They can come out of crevices that you never knew that you had.

Good luck. That toxin is no joke.

laughing tang · May 6, 2022

We have an overgrowth of mushrooms and other softies so they were well hidden. Yeah the toxin is scary. That's why we want to keep up with it so we don't have to deal with the level of infestation that we had. Our nitrates are too high so they enjoyed that obviously. Sulfur denitrator is also on the menu.

laughing tang · May 7, 2022

Looking at the worms again I think they may be polyclad. That would explain why we had sudden death in two hammers and several frogspawns. Can anyone tell from this video? This is them being dipped.