what the heck is this??? Help!

[jmarzullo]

Weird: I have little rectangular brown flecks appearing in my fuge, (and only in the fuge). They look like small pieces of cigarette tobacco! Are these some form of precipitate from my titanium heater and Kalk?? No clue??!!

[Shiandy]

Could be flatworms, a picture would help.

[CrystalAZ]

Do you use a phosphate remover? The description sounds just like that.

Photos would be very helpful.

Crystal

[frederickk]

What colour is it?

[jmarzullo]

Mystery solved. Flatworms. Never had them in 10 years. Any suggestions to get rid of them? Thanks for the replies, btw...

[Sepeku]

Flat wrom exit... some species of critters... Melev's Site... also Peppermint shrimp I've heard help..

[jmarzullo]

Thanks!

[thecoralreefer]

Some wrasses will eat them too. Salifert makes agood flat worm
medication.

[cowboyswife]

Be careful with the flatworm killing chemicals. If you have too many of them in your tank, or theyre pretty large, and you dose it with something, it can cause a pretty hefty ammonia spike. My husband is getting a coris wrasse this weekend to help take care of the ones in his tank.

[Icefire]

cowboyswife, not ammonia but flatworm toxins

[supervdl]

be careful with chemicals and try natural predators first.

[ClamIAm]

I have a peppermint shrimp that eats aiptasia, not flatworms though. I've never heard of that happening.

[squeezix]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2002/short.htm

I've had luck with the slugs in the above link. Wrasses might eat them, dragonets and shrimp might eat them, but C. Varians will definitely eat them until they are gone. With the amount of water you have, there won't be any significant problem when they die in your tank, as long as you do water changes regularly. I would rather have the flatworms than treat the tank, as sometimes they don't get out of control and I think I've read that a mass die off of them can harm corals. But I had no problem when the slugs died in my 38.

[frederickk]

A six line wrasse would eat flatworms