Red very small worms

[volynda]

Macro shot :

about 2 mm/0.08inchs long. They seem to be very static until you try to move the rock on which they stand.

They are moving like worm.

 

[Anonymous]

Flatworms...Planaria.

 

[volynda]

Thnx... i need to find the good predator now

 

[Anonymous]

My damsels gobble all the planaria they can find. I dont' think they'll really hurt anything anyway.

 

[old ron]

not to insult you but your tank is dirty excess food and nutrients wil cause an explosion of flatworms all tanks have them but they only become a problem when the above occures one thing that is often overlooked is excreament from the animals you are feeding if you overfeed then their feces will be very rich with food as it has a tendency to pass thru them quickly when food is abundent this is a trick that nature uses so the animal is able to eat a lot extract what it needs and dump the rest when food is scarce then the organisims retain the food longer in their gut there by lowering the nutrient value of the feces.

 

[Anonymous]

They are also very common in relatively new tanks. When I first had an explosion of them I had no fish, only live rock and a clean-up crew.

 

[aquarist=broke]

They are also very common in relatively new tanks. When I first had an explosion of them I had no fish, only live rock and a clean-up crew.

Ditto!

 

[Cabreradavid]

Just a question out of curiosity. When I have observed these flatworms in tanks, they are always in the light. Has anyone determined if they indeed have some sort of photosynthetic symbiosis? I wonder how much of their nutrition comes from detritus etc and how much from symbiosis.

DMC

 

[old ron]

flat worms do not have symbionts, they shun light, are you sure you are seeing flatworms?

 

[Cabreradavid]

There are definitely flatworm (Platyhelminthes) species that have dinoflagellates living in their tissues, I was just wondering if the plague type brown-red form I have seen in reef tanks does. The flatworms I have often observed do not shun the light, rather they stay in it. Perhaps we are talking about two different species.

DMC