Flatworms in the fuge :(

[dakar]

Was doing a bit of maintenance and found myself again peering at the endless amount of itty bitty's crawling all over everything, then when I spotted a flatworm. Closer inspectioon revealed a few more, not a lot, but found half a dozen or so, have had them before and have never seen them in the display tank, but I have a pretty good idea of where they hitchhiked in from.

But to the meat of it, recommendations of a good critter to turn loose in the fuge, either as a temporary or permanent resident that will snack on them?

The fuge is around 15-16 gallons and about 1/3 full of chaeto. Just a couple of small hermits, asst small snails, and a serpent star (recovering from something eating off most of his legs) living in there now.

I do not want to use any chemicals as a solution, natural is better. But we'll be placing a critter order here in the next couple days anyhows so any suggestions?

[Reptoreef]

Maybe a six line wrasse... Tell me... are the flatworms yellow, brown, or more clear???

[dakar]

6-line is what we were thinking as well, not a lot of room for him though, might make for good temp. resident if I can get a juvenile one.
The flatworms are pretty translucent, clearish in color. Got what I hope are some good pics, but windoze is hosed and needs to be rebooted before it'll let me download the pics. I'll post them tommorrow.

[Reptoreef]

The clear sp is completely harmless... the yellowish brown sp are bad due to their photosynthetic nature and cause their harm more by masking needed light to photosynthetic corals... there's a bit of reading here about the diff sp..."Invertibrates A Quick Reference Guide" by Julian Sprung. If you don't have this series of books, get em... they're great for what they're intended... quick reference. BTW, info is on pg.84.

[Whoyah]

I was at the LFS today, add he happened to mention a nudibrach that eats flatworm. He says they work very while. Not quite sure why we got on that subject, I was looking at the lettuce sea slug. I am not sure what the flatworm eating nudibrach looked like. If your still interested in removing the flatworms (harmless or not) may be worth researching.

Whoyah

[Reptoreef]

They are very dark black with a brilliant blue rim along all edges... careful not to get a mimick sp and if you chose to use this method, you must be willing to provide endless flatworms or remove the brach when you think all of the flatworms are axed.

[dakar]

For now I think I'm just going to let them be and see how long they last, if they start getting out of hand I think a 6-line is in order, turn him loose in there for a spell then be able to move him to the big tank. A little leary of the nudibrach's, heard too many horror stories of mimics that go coral munching and stuff.

[Reptoreef]

You'll be fine...

[dakar]

Finally got around to pulling the pics off the digi... here's one of the little boogers.

[Reptoreef]

I've got em, too... they're safe, IMO.