Another Flatworm battle......

[SaltCreep]

Ok....after my first Flatworm Exit attempt was unsuccesful, and two different Six-Line wrasses and a black velvet nudibranch have failed to eat them and totally disappeared......

I'm going to try FWE again.

This time I will take the advice of SaltwaterB and others.


I have one gallon of tank water in a tupperware thingy.

It has 10 flatworms in it. I have added one drop at a time to determine the lethal dose.

I am at 3 drops right now. I waited 5 or 10 minutes between drops and mixed the water to see if they would die.

Once I get a lethal level, I plan on dipping the mushrooms that are covered with worms in this one gallon container.

My plan is to strain the flatworm corpses out of the gallon of water....and dip the mushrooms again tommorow when they are infested again.

This should cut their numbers and make a whole tank treatment less dangerous ( in theory ).

 

[afboundguy]

Def sounds like a great idea. Let us know how it works. Are you going to treat the whole tank after you treat the mushrooms?

 

[SaltCreep]

Def sounds like a great idea. Let us know how it works. Are you going to treat the whole tank after you treat the mushrooms?

Yep, the plan is to cut down the population as much as possible by dipping any infested rocks / shrooms in a small container of medicated tankwater. Once they have been signifigantly thinned out, I will treat the whole tank.

The bad news is that it took 6-7 drops in a gallon to really kill them.

At 5 drops they were hurting, frantic, and discolored.....but didnt die.

When the lights come on later today, I get to see how many have re-colonized on the mushrooms.

It will be very interesting to see if my one gallon of medicated water remains lethal after 24 hours.

 

[Snidgetless]

Wish it was that simple for me... i glued all my rocks together.

 

[JeremyR]

The flatworms that inhabit mushrooms require a much larger dose (as you found) to kill than the common flatworms. Some flatworms like the acro eating ones don't even seem to have a lethal dose of FWE.

 

[afboundguy]

Couldn't you also just do a freshwater dip? I thought I remember Greg Hiller saying it was almost instant death. But not a good idea on SPS corals...

I was just thinking it couldn't hurt if you're taking out the corals to dip them anyways why not a quick 5-10 freshwater dip with water of the same temp?

 

[JeremyR]

It only takes missing a couple flatworms in the tank tho.. so without a tank treatment or predation solution, they will just come back.

 

[SaltCreep]

I may do a freshwater dip to see how fast they die.

For now, I only wanted to:

1. Find the exact amount of FWE it takes to kill them.

2. Find out if FWE stays lethal for 24 hours.

3. Reduce worm numbers without stress to the dipped livestock. (in preparation for whole tank treatment).



Answers:
1. 6-7 drops per gallon to kill the mushroom loving flatworms.

2. Flatworm Exit is only semi-lethal after 24 hours. (around 5% would not die after dip, required 3 more drops to the gallon for death)

3. I reduced the worm population......but....these damn worms are on fertility drugs or something...

 

[SaltCreep]

Ok....here we go.

I put in a full bottle ( minus 10 drops ) into my 75.

I'm waiting for them to croak. It's taking forever....



I'll probably have to get another bottle and treat again next week.

 

[afboundguy]

Man that sucks... Good luck...

 

[MSMAN825]

what kind of flat worms do you have

 

[SaltCreep]

The harmless ones that like to hang on mushrooms.

They are not harmless though, when they reproduce like crazy...and start to try to invade and bother other corals.

They started to show up on a leather and some duncans.....and the hammer.....EVERYWHERE.

It's they day after treatment.....and I only saw one worm left....and he didnt look to good.

I think I may have killed my serpent star......it's all balled up and motionless....

 

[marco67]

The harmless ones that like to hang on mushrooms.

They are not harmless though, when they reproduce like crazy...and start to try to invade and bother other corals.

They started to show up on a leather and some duncans.....and the hammer.....EVERYWHERE.

It's they day after treatment.....and I only saw one worm left....and he didnt look to good.

I think I may have killed my serpent star......it's all balled up and motionless....

It probably goes without saying but......
I hope you are planning some water changes and carbon today?
It sounds like you hurt them pretty good.

One more thing (don't be offended if I'm stating the obvious)
Amquell and something to boost your bio on hand?
Depending on how much die of you have you may see anything from a small re-cycle to a significant Ammonia & Trite spike.

 

[Psychographic]

If it's for Planeria, I would'nt waste my time or money on FWE. Get some Levamisole, it's more effective and way cheaper than FWE too.

In case you did'nt figure it out, FWE failed miserably for me.

 

[RiverReefer]

what color are your flatworms?

 

[RiverReefer]

??

do they look like this or are they the AEFW that are brown?

 

[snowmaker]

It's apparently not well known, but a Valentini puffer will decimate a flatworm population in very short order.

 

[SaltCreep]

It probably goes without saying but......
I hope you are planning some water changes and carbon today?
It sounds like you hurt them pretty good.

One more thing (don't be offended if I'm stating the obvious)
Amquell and something to boost your bio on hand?
Depending on how much die of you have you may see anything from a small re-cycle to a significant Ammonia & Trite spike.

I did the water change and new carbon thing the last time I spent $22 on Flatworm Exit......and I ended up not killing all the worms.



This time I did a partial water change BEFORE treating the tank......and I removed much of the worm population with dips over the last few days.

I kept an eye on all the fish and corals....and they didnt appear to stressed, so I didnt try to remove any FWExit.
The hope is that it will eventually kill ALL the lil suckers.

So far so good. No worms have been seen since that one sick worm the day after treatment.




FYI These are the worms: