Need A Creative Solution

[Fishfishfishfish]

Hello,

Hoping someone here can help me. I have found the source of red flat worms in my tank, unfortunately there are what appears to be hundreds of them in my home made refugium. I would really like to avoid adding any chemicals to my tank and then hoping i have enough carbon running. Are there any creatures I can add to this refugium that won't decimate my FINALLY healthy pod population?

Two pictures below. The first is my Chaeto, full of red flat worms The second is of my refugium set up. As you can see, the top of the "fuge" is elevated above the water so whatever fish or invert i get in there to eat these worms wont be able to escape unless it jumps.

Thanks in advance for your help. Please remember I'd like to save my pod population if possible so I'm trying to stay away from wrasses (already have one in my DT that does a great job keeping the worms at bay there), etc.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Hi, sorry to hear about your flatworm problem. I'm going on my 5th FW exit treatment. I haven't found anything other than a Wrasse that will take care of them. There might other creatures I'm not aware of and somebody might chime in. You might be able to use a couple of buckets and dip your cheato and rubble with FW exit in one and rinse in the other. Vacuum out as many as you can in your fuge, I'm not sure how many pods you would loose. From what I have seen these guys multiple pretty fast.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Velvet nudibranch

 

[Etmanning]

On my system, my refugium is filled with the suckers but my DT stats completely clean. Probably due to my leopard and coris wrasses. As long as there aren't any in your DT I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Fishfishfishfish]

Velvet nudibranch

I have two loaded into my cart on LiveAquaria. @Etmanning is suggesting letting it ride for now, and I have to admit they aren't an actual problem in the DT so I'll keep these in the holster for now. Do you know if the flat worms eat pods? What about the nudibranch? Thanks!

 

[ca1ore]

Velvet would be my suggestion also. Both flatworms and nudies move really slowly, so your pod population is safe.

 

[Rjukan]

I would also suggest the velvet nudi, I used one a long time ago on my 75g and it did a great job. Pic of it is my avatar.

 

[Fishfishfishfish]

Thanks all!

 

[Rjukan]

Only thing I want to add is that FWs are all that it eats, so once it's supply is done, or in numbers too small for it to eat enough per day (it's pretty slow moving), it's going to starve and die. Might want to post in your local reef forum that you're getting one so maybe you can trade/sell it to someone who needs it.