Red Bugs Or Flatworms

Tristan · Nov 22, 2015

I have these tiny little red dots on my glass of my 10g nano reef that are the size of a fine grain of sand. They move relatively fast for their size. They are ovalish.

I don't know if it's me but it looks like they have 2 small antennae. I might be imagining that. They are very very very small.

If it's red bugs I have no SPS and I have never introduced SPS to my tank.

Triggreef · Nov 22, 2015

You have red planaria. Different from aefw acro eating flat worms, but still a flat worm. They are harmless, but unsightly. I shouldn't say harmless though as they do have a toxin that can be released when they die in large numbers.

Easily treated with flat worm exit. That's what I recommend. People will suggest nudibranchs, wrasse, dottybacks and even damsels (springeri) for control. None of those worked for me except wrasse but that took many many tries to finally find one, maybe. Flat worm exit worked great. Be sure to remove as many as possible manually. Siphoning with 1/4 inch air house works fantastic for that.

Tristan · Nov 22, 2015

I'll probably try to siphon out as many as I can manually then flatworm exit. Cause I don't think I can put a wrasse, dottyback, or damsel in a 10g.

pondman · Nov 22, 2015

I had theme in my tank I waited till lights out mine always went to the front glass used a hose in a filter sock in a bucket and went hunting did this a few times and greatly reduced their numbers good luck in your hunt.

Triggreef · Nov 22, 2015

pondman said:
I had theme in my tank I waited till lights out mine always went to the front glass used a hose in a filter sock in a bucket and went hunting did this a few times and greatly reduced their numbers good luck in your hunt.

That's right, such a small tank use a bucket and filter sock so you can dump the water back in. I remember when I had them in my frag tank, they also always went on the front glass. I believe that's due to the flow. Like that's where the flow pushed them to.