can someone ID this ?

zigman

Member
Hi
Had a power outage for bout 4 hours and during that time literally thousands of these guys coated the glass on the tank. After power came back on, it took several days for them to disappear. Anyone know what they are? Was thinking some type of copepod but I couldn't find any pictures on the web which looked like them.

Thanks!unk hitchikers.jpg
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Flatworms

They didn't go way as such they just went back into hiding. Some kinds do damage corals, but if you don't have a problem with then doing that you can leave them alone. Otherwise you carefully use a product such as flatworm exit.
 

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
Is best to get rid of those as said above there is a treatment for these but if you don't want to use chemicals and you've got the patience you could suck them out individually with a turkey baster and once got rid of the worst of them every time you see one just suck them out, Eventually you will get rid of all of them.


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Blue Space

Well-Known Member
Some flatworms are harmless. Unless you have an issue with them damaging acros or zoas I'd leave them. The toxins that the flatworm create when they die from such treatment could be potentially worse for your tank -plus all the water changes- than if you just leave them alone.
 

zigman

Member
Hi
Had a power outage for bout 4 hours and during that time literally thousands of these guys coated the glass on the tank. After power came back on, it took several days for them to disappear. Anyone know what they are? Was thinking some type of copepod but I couldn't find any pictures on the web which looked like them.

Thanks!View attachment 46245[/QUOTE
Thanks for all the replies! I looked at pictures of flatworms but since none looked exactly like these I wasn't sure.
Since the power went back on and they went into hiding, I haven't really seen any significant numbers of them so manually removing them would be hopeless. I did have a large Duncan and Torch die before I noticed these critters, but never saw any of them on the corals so didn't really associate the two. At this point things in the tank seem stable, my eagle eyed zoa is still fine, so I think I may just keep an eye on thing for now.
Thanks for all the advice!
 

zigman

Member
Hi,
As a follow up to my earlier ID question, now identified as flatworms, I took a closer look at my eagle eye zoanthid. It is fairly sizable now, and about 15-20% developed what looked to me like little white blisters on it - it otherwise opens up fine and none of it has died, and it really has been this way for several months. Now that you told me I have flatworms, which might bother zoas, I took a closer look and attached a pic. I fear these blisters are actually flatworms. Now if the zoa doesn't seem to mine, do I ignore them or treat them? No way I can get the zoa out of the tank, so that means treat the whole thing...
Thanks in advance for your thoughtsIMG_1307.jpg
 

oneofmany

New Member
I rid my tank of these through manual removal. It was definitely a little tedious, but I figured if I'm going to feed the fish once or twice a day I might as well siphon some of these little buggers out at the same time.
 
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