Zoa Pests?

[troutonmyline]

I noticed some white oblong bugs? on the skirts of the blue paly we got recently. Unfortunately, I'm not a good photographer and also don't know how to post pictures. Any clues from this brief description?

Also noticing some rectangular orange spots on rocks, tank and some stems of corals, about the size of pin heads. Ideas?

Thanks

[Rekonn]

Take a look at this thread, it has pics of several kinds of pests. You can also look on Melev's site and see if you recognize what you have there.

[Mr. Ugly]

The red might be planaria flatworms.

The only white things I can think of would be zoa pox or nudibranch eggs. But I wouldn't expect them on your protopalys(?), or on the skirts.

Can you post even a blurry pic?

[troutonmyline]

Finally took a couple of pictures of the worms. I don't know if the images will be big enough. Pulled a snail shell out and put it in a dish and a dozen worms fell off of it. So there must be millions in the tank. Ouch.
If anyone can tell what they are LMK, or if someone local to Newark could come over and take a look. Stupid things are so small, they're hard to see in a photo.
I'm worried about them. Maybe why my tank hasn't been doing well??
Thanks in advance
Steve[IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG]

[Mr. Ugly]

Those red things are planaria flatworms.

You can do some water changes and siphon them out. Or you could siphon down to your sump through a filter sock to catch the worms.

6 line wrasses are supposed to eat them, and decreasing nutrient levels will help get rid of the planaria too.

[delsol650]

I've heard of 6line going to town too, have you tried yellow coris
?

[troutonmyline]

Thanks guys for your answers. How detrimental are they? Would they cause poor growth of my corals?

Merry Christmas to all!

[rhythmicfire]

Yup, I agree, Planaria sp. flatworms. Sixline wrasse, vacuum them out with airline tubing, lower nutrient levels

[rhythmicfire]

Yup, I agree, Planaria sp. flatworms. Sixline wrasse, vacuum them out with airline tubing, lower nutrient levels. They won't directly harm your corals (like eat them), but they can reach plague levels and smother your corals. That and they're ugly!

[troutonmyline]

Are six-line wrasses pain in the butts? There's a lot of negative stuff written about them.

[-=Zepplock=-]

I had 6 line and it ate all planaria, and other pods too. All of them. Be careful with 6line if you have fish that depends on pod population i.e. mandarin fish.

[Mr. Ugly]

I've had several 6 lines, and never had problems with them bothering other fish. Other people had problems with their 6 lines being too aggressive.

You may need to cut back on feeding for a 6 line to go for the planaria. That would be a good idea even without the wrasse in order to slow down the spread of the flatworms.

The flatworms can make your corals unhappy if there are too many and they cover up your corals.

[troutonmyline]

I had stepped up feeding since the last meeting. I got the impression that feeding the pods didn't add to nitrates. I'll cut back and start measuring the amounts. I was hoping my corals would start to grow more. That hasn't seemed to happen either though.

[Mr. Ugly]

If I remember right, planaria will eat small copepods. Probably the newly hatched ones.

I have a 4 compartment cubical tank for frogfishes. The flow is on the low side, and because there aren't any other fish, that tank is pod heaven.

Unfortunately, I got some hitchhiker planaria at some point, and shortly afterwards, there were a ton of planaria.

I ended up getting a 6 line, and rotated him and the frogfishes around so that the 6 line could clean out each of the compartments.

I put the wrasse into one of my big tanks after that.

[troutonmyline]

Went to Aquatic Gallery to buy a Six Line and Dr. Le suggested Flatworm Exit instead. What do you guys think? Nobody mentioned this earlier.

[sfsuphysics]

FWE will work to some degree, but it is a pain because if you have a deep infestation you can very easily kill your tank with the toxins the flatworms will release as they die.

If you have a quarantine tank, you might get away with tossing some pvc & rock in there and removing all fish so you don't need to feed ANYTHING to that tank to try to starve them into submission, although I'm unsure what the life cycle is on them and how long you'd have to starve them out. I went from daily feedings to every 2-3 days and it didn't seem to put a dent as far as "reducing nutrients" but hey others have claimed it worked.

[troutonmyline]

His suggestion was to put a fine net next to a powerhead and catch them after they have released from the rocks. Logical?

[Mr. Ugly]

Try to remove as many as you can, and you might not need the FWE.

It's kind of involved to use FWE properly, and you can easily nuke your tank.

I figure if you're asking about or how to use FWE, then you shouldn't use it.

If you think you know everything you need to know about FWE and you have all your precautionary measures completely ready, then think about it some more before you use it.

[troutonmyline]

Dr. Le was not aware that a six line wrasse would work on planaria. Which way should I go? Should I dip as many corals and rocks as possible first? If so, in iodine? Then try a wrasse? Opinions please!

[tuberider]

I've seen blue devil damsels mac out on them. Your best bet though is the involved task that most people recommend here, siphon into a filter sock (I've used a hanky and a funnel before as well). IME with FWE they still come back, and you run the risk of nuking your tank.

[troutonmyline]

Just got done vaccuuming my tank. Pretty easy really. Put a ankle nylon(no not mine, T's mom's) on the end of a siphon tube and siphoned about two gallons worth of water out. Collected quite a few little buggers in the nylon. Then I refiltered the water and put it back into the sump. Things look much better. Should I still buy a six line now? Thanks everyone.