A flatworm tale...

[addict]

Well, the wife and I were looking at the tank this morning, when we noticed these little rust-colored blotches on some of our live rock surrounding the encrusting montipora we added to the tank last week. There were also a couple on the glass at the far end of the tank, which to our surprise started moving.
Now I've read all about flatworms, mostly listening to people's pleas for help in forum threads... but I still didn't recognize them at first. We narrowed down the culprit (the monti of course) who carried the hitchhikers, and after a couple hours of siphoning flatworms off the monti and the surrounding rock, we took a trip to the LFS (with flatworms in a jar) to let them know they may have an infestation.
Infestation would be an understatement... their display tank is completely overrun by the little buggers... all the rocks look like they're a rusty-orange color... it's bad.
Their attitude was "Oh, well they don't hurt the corals any, so we really don't worry about it."
I was dumbfounded...
So, they also got a bit more money out of me (potentially)... I put in a request for a Pygmy Possum Wrasse to take care of whatever flatworms I can't find (plus I've wanted one for a while). We've been scanning the rock with a flashlight all evening, siphoning off worms with an eyedropper whenever we spot one... it sucks.
The LFS probably won't see my money for corals until they clean that up... I can't understand why they're contaminating all their customers tanks just because they don't view flatworms as a problem... yeesh.
Is this common?

[CAT]

Not unusual for lfs to do that. There was one lfs where I lived last year that felt the same way. I ended up with flatworms in the fuge where I put the macro algae I bought from them.

Actually, I'll buy nice corals from infested tanks but I dip them in Flatworm eXit before adding them to my tank. The eXit works well.

BTW, the flatworms in my fuge never got that bad so I didn't treat the tank with the eXit and now, they've disappeared on their own. Weird.

Good luck with your wrasse.

[Montanareefer]

That is a bummer Dave! We talked about it in chat so understand your frustration. Looks like your getting a handle on those buggers anyway!

[mnreefman]

i had a major, MAJOR infestation last year.... the sides of the tank and my sandbed were totally covered in them... then i got a manderian and he ate them so fast!! but i had to return him as i noticed he was getting rather skimmy a few weeks after the fw were gone..... i loved that fish

[Cosmic]

I just finished handling a flatworm invasion in my tank as well. Not sure where they came from originally, although I suspect they imported on some local fragging trades I took part in.

I fought these things for many weeks by siphoning, siphoning, and even siphoning some more when the siphoning was done!! All this to no avail as they would just reproduce and be back to original infestation levels in a few days. This went on for ~10 weeks before I broke down and added a Haliocheres Chrysus, or yellow (canary) coris wrasse. I did one major siphoning even upon adding this fish so that it had a depleted population to work with, and w/i 3 weeks EVERY flatworm in my tank is GONE!!!
Now, I'm not one to believe in miracle cures, but this fish has me second guessing now
I guess the best part about it is that it's reef-friendly, attractive, and also eating prepared foods, so starvation is out of the question once it's favorite worms are extinct.

Sorry to hear about your infestation, coming from first hand experience

Cos

[ScottT1980]

I have a six-line whose belly is always buldging from my flatworms and I siphon off a good bit of them every water change (1X per week). Other than that I don't really worry about them. A number of reefers get very concerned about these said flatworms but to be honest, I just don't really pay much attention to them beyond what I normally do. My numbers are gradually decreasing and I am pretty sure that it is just a matter of time before they are all gone.

As far as I know, they haven't hurt anything in my tank. Good luck!

Take er easy
Scott T.

[brian_e]

both our lfs tanks are over run with them and they dont care at all

[Maxx]

Yeah, the over run LFS thing is alot more common than you would think. Like Cat, I now dose Flatworm exit every time I bring something new home since thats how I aquired them initially. I also have a 6 line wrasse in my tank which helps keep things in check too. I like the bilogical controls more than the chemical whenever possible.
Nick

[addict]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
So I guess it is fairly common... I just figured that my LFS was 'special'...
Well, I guess I'll have to start using flatworm exit before adding any more corals.
The thing that gets me is they know the have an infestation, yet never pass that on to the customer... they should at least send you home with a dose of flatworm exit or something like that when you buy a coral.
The funny thing is that I just started buying corals again after a long break, so they're missing out on my buying mood now...

Thank goodness for the internet... (now if they'd only lower the prices on overnight shipping... ).