anyone have pics of flatworms?

[nietzsche]

anyone have any pics of the flatworms that prey on zoanthids?

ive been seeing these things that look like an upside down U with a clear visible white circle inside of them and it has dots on the circle. i found a colony that was infested with them and these things are really attached to the colony. as a resuly, ive lost a couple of colonies and am in the process of losing another 2. just recently i've noticed them on my glass now

i need to find a way to treat this and was wondering if using flatworm exit would help?

[MUCHO REEF]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatworm

http://www.scuba-equipment-usa.com/m.../Blue_Flatworm(Cycloporus_sp).html

http://www.scuba-equipment-usa.com/m...gined_Flatworm(Callioplana_marginata).html

http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/page...latwormmi.html

Mucho

[nietzsche]

here's the best i could do with a camera phone:

to the right there's a chiton and to the left it's this thing. i think they may be egg sacs now but of what? maybe nudibranches? they're a PITA to remove and barely come off when you run a mag-float across it a few times


here you can see two circle looking things which is what im talking about, inside this sac looks like eggs




when i saw them on the colony it looked like it was two needle-like things connected to this sac with the small eggs attached to the zoanthids

when i did the fw dip nothing came off and taking them off with a razor was really difficult

[bunglito]

Are these what you are seeing?

[bunglito]

Or these:

[pepino]

how do i get rid of this ones what are the name of them what fish will eat them

[dc_909]

Sixline wrasse might do the job

[pepino]

well thanks i going to the lfs to get one of this

[pepino]

hey forget to ask are this bad for the reef cause i ask before and they said not to worry about it that aventually they will die

[nietzsche]

Originally posted by bunglito
Are these what you are seeing?

hey!! that's really close to what i'm seeing! they're not stretched out but that's pretty much them exactly. what are they?

[revautosports]

Those are flatworms

[bunglito]

They are currently in my QT and I'm researching them myself. The best I've got is that they are acoel flatworms.

Here's a good link:

http://home2.pacific.net.ph/~sweetyu...itchworms.html

I've been told that these(Convolutriloba macropyga I think), opposed to the other picture that I posted(Convolutriloba Retrogemma), are not as bad. I've been watching them for a couple days and haven't noted an increase in size or number. But I'll let ya know.

[nietzsche]

these guys are bad, theyve been destroying my zoanthids.

is flatworm exit a good approach to remove them?

[pepino]

the ones on my tank are the ones that bunglito posted a picture of

[nietzsche]

thats what i have but theyre al attached to my zoanthids and theyre really hard to scrape off

[pepino]

i know they said not to worry much about it that aventually they ll die but i dont like seeing them in my tank i think im going to get the six line wrasse

[nietzsche]

Originally posted by pepino
i know they said not to worry much about it that aventually they ll die but i dont like seeing them in my tank i think im going to get the six line wrasse

why would they die on their own? im not sure if a sixline would help out that much. im getting one too but just to have

[pepino]

idont know still pretty new on this still learning but will see how it goes i getting the fish if i have luck with it i let you know if you find another way to get rid of them let me know

[otiso777]

I had these in my tank shortly after I set it up. They're harmless. They must eat some sort of food that is in short supply on new live rock because they disappeared after a few months.

Check out this site for more info:
http://www.melevsreef.com/id/flatworm.html

[nietzsche]

the ones i have are attached to zoanthids, so i dont know about them being harmless. the ones theyre attached to have closed up and never opened again.. other colonies died.. but i have the ones that are similar to the picture provided by bunglito

[revautosports]

They are harmless in general. But when they die they release toxins and they have very powerful toxins. Flatworm exit will work but make sure you wipe them out on the first try as the survivors will build up immunity to the flatworm exit and become super flatworms.

[reefitup]

Here is how you can tell if they have become super flatworms. You have to look very closely at them. I got a pic of some that didn't die from Flatworm Exit so you can actually see a difference from the ones before the Exit and the ones after they were genetically altered. (Main ingredient in Flatworm Exit is actually similar to kryptonite)




I'm sorry. My apparent lack of self control got the best of me

[kiknchikn]

Originally posted by bunglito
Are these what you are seeing?

Those are a "harmless" variety of flatworm that feed on copepods I believe. I've had mine for years now and their population never reaches plague proportions, but it grows noticeably after a boom in my copepod population. I've never seen them harm anything in the tank.

If you have flatworms eating your zoanthids they most likely aren't that species right there.

[Namyar]

Flat worms stick I have had them twice. I think only because I didn't get rid of them all the first time.

[nietzsche]

how do they die though? can you use flatworm exit for this? theones i have are attached to the zoanthids so theyre not the harmless type