Acoel Flatworms?

[echinatl]

Hey guys, I've always noticed small little brown things on my LR but thought it was something that just settled on it. Today I found one on some Xenia, and noticed it moving.

I sucked it out, and started looking for more. I never really noticed them, but after looking, i ended up sucking out about 50. I've never noticed them on coral, should I be concerned?

I dumped them on a paper towel, here are a few:

 

[echinatl]

Pic didn't upload, perhaps too big...
One more try:

 

[echinatl]

Pic:

alt="" /></a>

 

[skriz]

pic is too small really, but they look like red planaria.

 

[echinatl]

Ugh I think you're right. Here is larger pic too:

alt="" /></a>

 

[echinatl]

<span style="color: black;">I've been reading that these don't eat or hurt anything unless they multiply to a point where there are so many that they block light from corals. Is this true? </span>

 

[skriz]

yeah, they won't directly hurt anything. BUT, they will reproduce to plague proportions rather quickly. They will cause major issues if you have a large die-off as they release a toxin.

Red planaria is quite common and is manageable. There are natural predators and you can syphon the heck out of them. Then, you can dose with flatworm exit. BUT, you have to be careful with the chemical warfare...the toxins are deadly.

 

[echinatl]

Thanks for the help guys. I pulled about 80 out manually. I'm thinking about getting a 6 line to eat some of the ones I missed, seems like people have had good luck with them keeping the flat worms in check after hitting them hard with manual removal.

 

[rickey]

The melanarus wrasse is much better at eating flatworms. I tried three 6 lines and none of them ate flatworms but two different melanarus wrasse do in two different tanks. Flatworm exit works well but you will have a major dieoff of flatworms as Skriz said. The problem with this is toxin. You have to syphon them quick as they die and you know there is no way to get most of them since they are in the rock.

 

[echinatl]

Thanks for the tip, I'll def check them out.

 

[jaustin]

My Manderin eats these....it's fat now

 

[skriz]

Rickey is dead on with the melanarus wrasse. A single melanarus has been shown to keep an 800 gallon system under control!

There is also the velvet sea slug-pretty and their only food is red planaria. I didn't have any luck with them though (i think too much flow in the tank)

The light green mandarin is known to eat them.

 

[echinatl]

I really like the melanarus wrasse and mandarines. I've read that it's tuff to keep both in the same tank because they compete over the same food sources. Is that true? I've got a 29g biocube.

I've read that a lot or people have problems with the velvet sea slug, skriz what happened to yours?

I'm also kinda glad I've had this little issue, it's forced me to read up on a lot of various topics and I've learned a lot.

 

[FutureInterest]

I wouldn't recommend a mandarin in a 29. There just isn't enough live fauna in them to keep a mandarin alive long term. Especially if you add a competing fish like a wrasse. I kept a mandarin in my tank for a few years with an army of wrasses... I tried to remove the mandarin for its own sake for months to no avail. Eventually, in its weakened state it got shredded by one of my vortechs.

 

[echinatl]

Ouch, what a way to go!

If I purchased additional sources of copepods to feed the Mandarin would that allow me to keep one successfully?

 

[johnr2604]

I would really not try the mandarin in that small of tank. You are running a fuge which helps and the tank is pretty established but they delete pod populations pretty fast in that small of tank. Yes, you could supliment but that can get expensive. If you could find somebody selling one of the rare ones that will except prepared food that would help but I doubt you would find anybody wanting to give that up.

 

[skriz]

echinatl;213109 wrote: I really like the melanarus wrasse and mandarines. I've read that it's tuff to keep both in the same tank because they compete over the same food sources. Is that true? I've got a 29g biocube.

I've read that a lot or people have problems with the velvet sea slug, skriz what happened to yours?

I'm also kinda glad I've had this little issue, it's forced me to read up on a lot of various topics and I've learned a lot.

A 29 is really not big enough to house the mandarin. The melanarus will get rather large too, so eventually you'll have to move him or upgrade.

My velvets got blown around by my tunzes. My mystery nipped at them at first, but not sure if he did much more than that. I think the flow is what did them in. I saw them for the first couple of days only. I would try one again in a smaller system with less flow, but not the big tank; I don't feel up to blowing a couple of hundred bucks again :yuk: