A few days ago, I noticed a few intense red spots on the live rock, pretty but unusual. I couldn't figure out what they were. They never seemed to move. I haven't added anything new to the tank in a few months. I finally saw one move today. I guess they are the dreaded red flatworms (planaria). I don't have many but, since I feed the corals well, I assume they will continue to multiply. I've read that Flatworm Exit is safe to use but am scared to try it. What chemical is in it (the web sites don't say)? I have snails, crabs, two fish, feather dusters, and so on. Should I just wait and see what happens or risk treating the tank now before there are a lot of them? It's a 12 gallon nano cube. If I look hard, I can only find about half a dozen at any one time at this point. Thanks.
Red Flatworms
- Thread starter Fishy
- Start date
My advice would be if they arent bothering anything, let them be. I may or may not have them ;-) They dont bother my corals so I dont do anything about them. If you wanted to do something about them, I would suggest getting some rigid airline tubing and siphoning out as many as you can. Do this a few times and see what happens. I try to avoid chemical attacks of any sort whenever possible.
HTH,
Jesse
HTH,
Jesse
TimSchmidt
New Member
From what I understand the real issue is that if you kill them they will release toxins. So I, too, would recommend Jesse's method or just leave them alone.
Exactly. So if you do decide to zap them you will still want to remove as many of them as possible to avoid an excess amount of toxins being released and then I believe the tell you to run a bunch of carbon after treatment. I dont remember the exact instructions though.TimSchmidt said:
Jesse