Need an ID please

[Salty75]

Ok I know this is going to be hard with out a photo but my digital camera’s batteries are dead so I can put up a pic till tomorrow. What I have is a type of flat worm rust in color ¼ of an inch at max seem to be in groups along the shadow area of the rock and sand will only move if disturbed. On the underside at the front they have a light almost white area with I assume is the head and digestive system. If there is any more info I can give please ask. I will post a pic as soon as possible. Also would like to know how to eradicate them by natural means if possible.
Thanks,
Salty75

 

[reefrunner]

What I have is a type of flat worm

Ye sounds like you got flatworms (Planaria).

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/flatworms.htm

 

[Curtswearing]

Is it the reddish brown ones shown 1/3 of the way down this page on The Sea Slug Forum

 

[NaH2O]

>>Here's<< another link to check out. I believe Travis had a flatworm problem and used double the dose of flatworm exit - maybe he'll share his experience...I'm not sure about natural means of eradication, hopefully someone will chime in.

 

[Salty75]

Yep it is defiantly Convolutriloba sp and after reading your link Reefrunner I feel a little more at ease about them. Thanks to everyone one who posted.
Salty75

 

[Curtswearing]

I would recommend siphoning them out if there are a lot or if you see the population build.

Right now, they are also eating something in your tank. A waterchange would be a good idea as well.

 

[wooddood]

from what ive read a few are'nt going to hurt anything bit i would keep an eye on them though.if you start seeing large ones,time to get rid of them.jmpo though im sure not an expert.

 

[jks1]

i have had a few on some mushrooms for a month now and they dont seem to be multiplying or causing any issues

 

[Curtswearing]

.

 

[Curtswearing]

Red Planaria are a royal pain in the neck. They reproduce through fission and are toxic if they spread and die out in large numbers.

That's why I recommended siphoning them. Even the instructions to Flatworm Exit recommend siphoning as many as possible prior to using their product.

We had a huge outbreak of them in St. Louis earlier in the year. I didn't buy a coral for quite some time as a result. If you have them, siphon, siphon, siphon. Then do some waterchanges. If necessary, use a chemical killer like flatworm exit.

They are nasty little buggers.

 

[Cosmic]

If anyone does find a cure, I'd be more than willing to listen to it.
I'm not one to go adding any type of chemicals to my tank though. Even if DEEMED safe, I'll rather live with the flatworms, JMHO.

I've been overrun with the red planaria flatworms for about 3 months now. They overgrow onto EVERYTHING, and have given my coralline-riddled tank an orange look because of it. They started out small in numbers, which lasted all of about one week.

I do regular weekly water changes, concentrating each time on ONLY sucking these things out, all to no affect. I manage to wither the numbers, but within a few hours have "re-emerged" to almost as great of numbers as before the siphon.

I refuse to use any chemical approach to the solution, but if I can gather anything else in my fight againast them, I'll be sure to give some insight.
So far, nothing I have done has helped more than temporarily. However, even in as bad of numbers as they are, they have yet to show any harmful results in the whole time being in my system.

-HTH-
Cos

 

[Curtswearing]

I'm all for using chemicals as a last resort as well.

Here are some of the things that people did in St. Louis that anecdotally worked---target mandarin, leopard wrasse, siphoning, and there was a type of nudibranch some of them bought.

I copied the following off of the internet and no one in St. Louis tried it (to my knowledge). Take a short section of PVC pipe (3/4in) and drill some holes in the sides of the pipe. Locate some nylon socks and fill this with some krill, fresh fish, ect.. and put the bait into the sock. Place the sock into the pipe. Put a 3/4 PVC cap on both ends of the pipe. Place into the tank near where you can see some worms. leave over night then remove. Remove the sock and look for worms ! DON'T TOUCH WORMS !. The worms will get hooked on the nylon while looking for food. Put the sock and worms in trash. Re-bait trap with new sock. Keep this up for a week or more until you rarely get any worms and rarely see them.

 

[Boomer]

Here is some more from my oldf freind Mike from Norway

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?base=flatworm2&id=5836


Fission in Convolutriloba longifissura: asexual reproduction in acoelous turbellarians revisited

Bertil Åkesson, Robert Gschwentner, Jan Hendelberg, Peter Ladurner, Johann Müller & Reinhard Rieger

Studies of the asexual reproduction of Convolutriloba longifissura (Acoela, Acoelomorpha) revealed that there is no longitudinal fission of the whole animal as has been described by Bartolomaeus and Balzer (1997). Instead, the first step is a transverse fission. This results in the detachment of the caudal fourth of the mother animal. The detached part forms what we call the butterfly stage, which initially has no mouth and no eye fields. This stage gives rise to two new individuals by a longitudinal fission. Within 2-3 days the eye fields and a mouth develop in each of the two progenies formed in this way. In the meantime the mother individual grows and develops the three typical caudal lobes. The mother animal can repeat this process resulting in three individuals every fourth day. The finding of this new pattern of reproduction in the Acoela has prompted us to review the various ways by which asexual reproduction occurs in the group. The peculiar combination of few cases but high diversity of asexual reproduction in the Acoela is discussed from an evolutionary point of view.

For Cos

The red planaria have most probably moved into your reef with new purcheased live rock or coral. Red planaria (Convolutriloba retrogemma) eat diatoms, or damaged coral tissue; and transfer the zooxanthels into their body - therefore the red coloring. There are several methods to get rid of them: 1) If there are only few of them, the following reef-safe fish can eat them: Mandarinfish (Synchiropus picturatus), six-line wrasse (Pseudocheilinius hexatenia), or some other wrasses, such as: Halichoeres marginatus & H. chrysus. 2) These snails eat planaria: Chelidonura amoena, C. sandrana, C. livida, & C. hirundinina. Unfortunately these snails have a short life expectancy in aquariums. 3) A fresh water dip helps very effectively, after 30 seconds all planaria should be dead or bady damaged, so that they can not recover anymore. But a freshwater dip is a torture for your corals, good that your corals are not infected yet. The following corals do not tolerate freshwater: Softcorals -Anthelia, Cespitularia, Xenia, & Cladiella / Stonycorals - Tubipora musica, Fungia & Heliofungia. You can use this method for new purchased stock, e.g. a mushroom colony on a piece of liverock. 4) In case of an outbreak, chemical warfare is the only solution. Before starting with the medication, try to remove as many planaria as possible, by sucking them with an external powerfilter, filled with filterwool. In Europe, we use "CONCURRAT-L" by Bayer, to fight an outbreak. I'm sure it is available in U.S. as well, or there will be an equivalent. The dose is 7,5 g CONCURRAT-L powder for each 400 liters (apprx. 100 gallons) of aquarium water. Before mixing it into your tank, make sure to remove active carbon from your filter. ecause of CONCURRAT-L treatment the red planaria release a powerful poison before they die. Therefore the skimmer must run all the time at it's highest level. After 3 hours put new active carbon into the filter and remove it after 10 hours again and do not use it anymore. I'm sure, that one of these methods (correctly implemented) will solve your planaria problem.

 

[Curtswearing]

Awesome info. Thanks Boomer

 

[Cosmic]

Thanks for the info Boomer! good to see you made your way over here too BTW

Being a chemistry buff, any ideas what exactly the concurrat is composed of? I REALLY hate adding chemicals to the tank, but have had no success in the past with mandarins OR 6-lines. I admittedly haven't tried the haliocheres Chyrsus yet, but just may add one instead of the chemicals first to see what happens.

Cos

 

[Boomer]

I also believe in adding no chems to the tank Cos.

I have not found out yet what is in it. It may be just a Euro drug. 1 hit on Google's, the info site I posted. I may have to ask Randy, he has one of those pricy programs as does Hab , SCi-Find or something like that, which is a few hundred dollars a month.

Did you catch this from Mike;

There have been some recent developments regarding Convolutriloba in aquaria - specifically two antihelminth drugs have been released, which can be used to destroy these worms with 'fairly' mild repercussions to fish and corals

 

[Craig Manoukian]

Cosmic,

I've never seen flat worms in my tank and I have a Halichoeres crysalis, beautiful yellow with irridescent orange lateral head markings. I don't know if this is coincidental, but I thought I would pass the information on.

Even if it doesn't eradicate your flatworms it would be a great addition to your reefscape. But if it would rid you of those orange little buggers you would have a double win, eh?

:smirk:

 

[wooddood]

ive never had them,knock on wood and hope i never do.

 

[Cosmic]

I never had a problem either for 5 years, then all of a sudden I'm flooded with them! They appeared very shortly after tearing down my reef to replace the aquarium, and I haven't been able to get rid of them since.

Boomer,
Yes, I DID see the "FAIRLY" mild reprecussions. With any hope it won't come down to that, but I'm getting close to the end of my patience with these things now....

I remember Mojoreef stating that he tried removing them by feeding heavy, heavier, heaviest, and then starve the tank to remove the food source of a greatly increased colony of worms. Limited success from what I recall, but I'm more worried about my fish than those flatworms to try this approach. When up against this or chemicals though....Hmmmm.

Food for thought,
Cos

 

[Boomer]

Randy will check for me on Monday......CONCURRAT-L .

Habib just gave me this;

It is IIRC a forbidden substance in several European countries but not all of them.

Craig

Well, he is on the list and you have never seen any so who knows