Damnit, the reef gods have it out for me, I have flat worms

[badbread]

Yup, little tiny white f'ers all over the glass this morning.

This is in my 28 gallon tank,

I was reading about siphoning them out, using flatworm eXit, does Interceptor do something to flat worms as well? Or should I even bother? A couple articles on WetWebMedia suggest not overfeeding, not over stocked (which I'm not) and aggressive skimming.

What do you all suggest I do?

 

[tuberider]

What type, I assume you mean red planaria?

 

[badbread]

I'm not sure, they are all very small and pure white.

 

[zambavi]

I have a flatworm eating sixline that your welcome to. He's a mean SOB but I introduced him into my 29g after finding a flatworm problem and I saw him picking them off the glass same day. A couple months later.... no flatworms. I picked up some flatworm exit but never had to use it.

 

[badbread]

I have a 6-line in this tank, I'm going to go watch him right now, see if he picks any off. I hope so!!

 

[iani]

If you have a flatworm outbreak, your nutrients are probably high. Test for nitrates, if they are high do some water changes.

 

[zambavi]

you may need to hold back on feeding your tank so that he notices them. I did the same when I introduced mine. It was the only thing he had to eat his first two days so that's what he ate. Gained an appetite for them.

 

[badbread]

Hrm, do you think this outbreak occurred because of my little avalanche last night and all the corals slime'ing up?

 

[badbread]

Testing my nitrate now.

The 6 line's belly is pretty plump, so he's eating something, i haven't fed in a couple of days, hopefully he's eating the little aliens.

 

[badbread]

Just checked nitrates, color never changed from bright yellow so I would assume they are around 0

 

[Gomer]

Flatworms are practically ubiquitous. It is just a matter of ideal conditions for them to "show up". Sort of how you can have an algae free tank ..but crank the nutrients and you get a massive outbreak of all sorts of algae. The flatworms tend to spread fast when the food supply is high from over feeding. (nitrates can still show as zero from over feeding if your bacteria can cycle the waste fast enough).

 

[badbread]

So should I just ride it out? Watch my feedings? I think I may have dosed a bit to much oyster egg late last night...

 

[iani]

Some flat worms are actually photosynthetic. They will use nitrates as food.

 

[tuberider]

I have the little red guys, just a few here and there, they never bother anything.

 

[iani]

Same here its more of an esthetics issue than anything else.

 

[Gomer]

Unless a tank hits plague proportions, I dont worry about it. Wrasse gets free food.

 

[GreshamH]

White/clear flat worms? harmless algae eaters, no need to do anything!!!

 

[Gomer]

Gresham, do they eat free floating algae like phytoplankton, or graze on stuff like diatoms and hair algae?

 

[FinalPhaze987]

i used to have a bunch of these in the fuge...the little suckers popped up even more when i started feeding my coral more frequently...there numbers have dissapated after getting a skimmer that matched my tank volume and a denitrator...FWIW when i did have alot they never seemed to harm anything..

 

[GreshamH]

Well they aren't filter feeders so grazing is their only option (not on hair algae though, mainly surface slime). FWIW diatoms are indeed both free floating as well as a phytoplankton