What is this

adamp377

Member
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In the first picture its the reddish thing at the top then in the second its kind of in the middle almost looks like little slugs as far as i can tell the are only on my glass and there are alot. I can not find anything that looks like them. The rears ends on them kind of look like they split into two tails almost. Please help
 

michaellong

New Member
I used flatworm exit and it is a pig dewormer. BE CAREFUL please, as the flatworm is very toxic. When the flatworm dies it excretes this toxin into the water. When I first did this I killed many fish. What you need to do is figure for every one you see, there are 10 hidden. I find they usually live on rock. I bucketed water mixed that was good clean r/o water with the temp the same as the tank, and mixed with salt - heated to 78. I dosed each bucket, and moved each of all my rocks to these holding facilities for the half hour treatment. Then I treated the tank almost empty, just fish. The toxins were less in the tank. Ran activated carbon HEAVY with 3 canisters. After the rock and corals were treated I reintroduced them to the tank. Make sure you "swish" the rocks around in the buckets so the flatworm exit gets in the dead spot areas where water flow is still. Then most of your toxins are in the bucket and down the drain when you empty the bucket water. Do not put the bucket water in the tank. I did this with 300 Gallons. Believe me, they got so bad I couldn't sleep. They were everywhere. they loved my halides and became worse a coral threat than the final straw - the stealizing of the tank. Nobody wants to pull their corals. The first time when I did treat the tank, the water turned orange, and I was just prepared with carbon, and a 25% water change. I lost a yellow tang, hypo tang, a pygme angel, and a lawnmower blenny. The second time 6 months later with the bucket plan, all my livestock lived with the exception of 1 small colt coral. good luck and please don't take chances with the orangish flatworms. they look like rust right?
 

adamp377

Member
I wouldnt say they look like rust, they are more red look like little slugs except they dont have antennas on the front they have the little split tail they also dont dont pull themselves from front to back like an worm it ppears thry just kind of glide across the gkass all at once. I still cant find an exact picture with color and description
 

adamp377

Member
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Here is another picture I took early this morning please ignore the mess on the glass. If you see the snail on the glass look a little up and to the left its the brown looking round spot with the lighter center. I dont know where or why these things are in my tank as I have never had them before. I did have an acro for like a month but I lost it to a alkalinity swing and that was a couple weeks ago and I didnt notice these things then it was also dipped before it went in the tank. There has not been any new additions to the tank the only thing I have been doing differently is dropping a couple drops of Kents ZooMax every other day or so...

I only see them on the glass not on any of my corals or even on the substrate.

I also have a bunch of what appears to be baby microscopic copepods on my glass too which I never had before the zoomax

Sorry none of my pictures are that great but its the best I can do with an iphone it goes out of focus to quick before I can take a good pic
 

adamp377

Member
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This is a image off google of a red flatworm and What I have DOES NOT look like this at all

Doesnt look like a nudibranch either... I have noo idea

I just looked up Planaria and I still dont think what i have looks like those either...
 

adamp377

Member
I understand that they are not all the same color and I agree that they are a type of flatworm but I was reiterating that mine are a different color thinking maybe someone would say that they have seen those or maybe due to color variation they werent harmful or a more tolerable flatworm etc. Like I read some where clear ones aren't that bad and dont spread like crazy and would probably just die off, and rust colored ones are worse than the others, I cant find anything on the ones(color variation) I have. Just trying to get a better idea of what kind of beast I am working with.

Thank you for everyones input, I am waiting for the guy I deal with at my LFS to get to work and see if he has any FWE or if I will have to order some this afternoon.
 

lcstorc

Well-Known Member
Since the only recent change is the additional nutrient dosing, I would hazard a guess that they are using that as a food source and multiplying. If you reduce or eliminate the feeding the numbers should naturally reduce. Some flatwoms are a much bigger deal than others. From what I can understand the red ones are the worst so yours may not be a big deal at all. Flatworm exit is definitely the recommended treatment but reducing the nutrients is a lot less drastic. I haven't seen any in my tank in a long time though mine were the white ones.
 
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