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View Full Version : Outbreak of Flatworms


travis32
09/29/2010, 06:32 AM
O.k. I knew I had some flatworms.. Not a lot, I left them alone, thought maybe they'd be food for a wrasse or something in the future. nothing like a free food supply someday right? And who knows, maybe my betta will get tired enough of flake food and eat some flat worms...

Well.... Recently the timer on my PC lights got messed up and I decided to leave the light off a couple days. I started to have some outbreaks of cyano and with the timer being screwed up, I said screw it. I'll let the lights be off two days in a row and then fix the timer... That's what I did.

Well, I come to turn the lights back on.... and OMG, I can hardly see through the glass. The Asterina starfish spawned so much that the glass was covered in starfish. (a few here and there were on some corals, but I think they just eat dead tishua. I scrape them off as necessary and things are good.)

Well, in addition to the outbreak of asterinas, my glass is covered in large, highly visible reddish orange flat worms. Between the starfish and worms, it's actually hard to see through the tank...

So, did the lights off just trigger a spawning cycle in the asterinas and worms? And is that a good sign or a bad sign? Spawning is generally thought of as good. Not sure if it's good in terms of starfish and flat worms though....

mike_cmu04
09/29/2010, 08:53 AM
The starfish are no big deal but the flatworms are a problem as they can suffocate your corals and cause tissue loss. If the aefw then you are really in for some problems if you keep or are going to keep sps.

travis32
09/29/2010, 09:05 AM
May be what killed my bubble coral then. I didn't have this large of flat worms before, they were all tiny and almost microscopic, these are plainly visible.

Not sure about SPS for the time being. I need better lighting and before, I may need a tank that doesn't leak... I may have to destroy them as a result of possible issues with LPS if they are capable of killing LPS.

:hammer:

Or I could just :blown: my tank. :idea:

lordofthereef
09/29/2010, 09:11 AM
Flatworm exit worked well for me, although you basically need to manually siphon them out as they are dieing. Sounds like you have a lot of fun on your hands!

Strange that they spawned like crazy in the lack of light. I thought they were at least partially photosynthetic. Maybe they are just all coming out in droves for the light they have been lacking for a couple days.

travis32
09/29/2010, 06:31 PM
Well, since the 55g is leaking from the bottom. (Definately not getting better, may be getting worse.) I will most likely be tearing my tank down in the next month or so. So, I could use FW exit when I'm ready to tear the tank down.

Will they cause an amonia spike if I don't siphon them? Or they could live through it?