ID and Solution, please.

[AuntKaren]

It's nice to be back! We finally got DSL and I'm not boycotting the internet anymore! LOL

Can anyone ID these things and tell me what to do about them?

There are thousands of these creatures in our 180 gallon reef tank. They appeared about a month ago and have become an eyesore nuisance. What are these creatures and what will eat them?

They are not a bacteria because they move under their own power. They are about 1/8" long and move if something touches them. The parameters in the tank are all good. The fish inhabiting are: a chromis, 3 pj cardinalfishes, a longnose butterfly, 2 percula clowns, a dwarf angel. None of these seem the least interested in munching on the creatures. There are 2 serpent starfishes and numerous brittle stars, a porcelain crab and of course hermit crabs and snails. Again, none of these guys are interested in the creatures.

These things go into the sand when the lights go out and a few of them crawl up the sides of the tank during the day.

What are these creatures and how do we get rid of them?

[jojo22]

From the pics they appear to be flatworms, get a sixline quick, or maybe even two if you know someone who may take the second after the job is done.

[Whoyah]

Scotter Blennies also eat them. They are caused by an over abundance of nutrients in the water. Flatworm Exit will kill them but the dying flatworms will cause a toxic bloom in the tank, if most are not removed prior to using it.

[greg97527]

i forget the name of that specific flatworm but they only harm corals because they are so abundant and actually cover and shade the corals to death. follow shad's advice with the sixline, also a spotted mandarin will eat them or a blue velvet nudibranch. if u use flatworm exit make sure you are running lots of carbon during the treatment.

[Reptoreef]

Yep... flatworms!!! IMO, try a natural preditor such as wrasses before going to chemical solutions.

[melev]

They are Red Planaria. And here's what I have about them on my site:
http://www.melevsreef.com/flatworms.html

[AuntKaren]

Thank you all! Hubby is all primed to siphon and then add the 2 fish he has been pining for (LOL) he's wanted a mandarin and a six line forever! Since the tank's just over a year old we can add them. He's ecstatic! Melev your page is a huge help thanks so much!

[melev]

You are very welcome. Good luck, and don't nuke your tank with those things.

[AuntKaren]

What we wound up doing

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Thanks to each one of you for responding. We paid close attention to each response and checked with several of our local LFS's. I'm not kidding there must have been 10,000 flatworms in our tank.

We removed all 8 fish and all the crabs and snails, brittle and serpent stars and put them in the hospital tank, swished the corals in a quick freshwater dip and put them into the HT too. We removed every single piece of live rock and swished them in fresh water. With each rock there must have been hundreds of flatworms jumping off.

We then siphoned out the tank, deeply. After the dust settled (so to speak) we siphoned again and were still getting thousands of flatworms! Our skimmer was turned up to maximum and within 15 minutes we had to empty the cannister which was full of those (#$&% flatworms.

We put the rocks back into the tank and then we dosed the tank with the worm exit stuff from Salifert. Those worms remaining died within minutes it was amazing. We stirred the sand lightly to get the flatworms beneath the surface. We waited 24 hours and siphoned again. There were very few flatworm bodies in the siphon and the skimmer had none. So we put the livestock back into the tank. We lost one fish and the brittle stars but there has been no sign of problems with anything else. We haven't seen any sign at all of those flatworms either.

Yes it might seem like a bit of "overkill" but I'm not exaggerating when I say there were at least 10,000 flatworms. This was the only way we could determine to be the quickest least harmful way to eliminate such a large infestation. We put 10 lbs of live sand in today to hopefully offset the loss in the sand from the big stir.


So thanks again for identifying our problem and advice on what needed to be done. It's nice to have someplace to run and scream HELP and have caring advise. I posted these results because rarely do I see the outcome of someone's panic. Now ya know........... Y'all are teriffic peoples!

[jojo22]

Glad to hear you got them under control