Flat worm removal a sucess with chemicals!

[Acrylic Guy]

I had two problems, apistas which came on some live rock and flat worms. The apista was eliminated by taking the live rock out and leaving it in the sun for a couple weeks. This may be a problem for some...but it worked for me.
The flat worms would hang out 95% of the time on a my hairy mushrooms which are mounted to a small rock. Once a week I would remove the rock and dip into R/O water for 1 minute...shake the dead off and return it to the tank. The remaining worms in the tank would go to the mushrooms again and after 3 times they are all gone!

 

[liquid]

That's pretty darned slick. Fortunately I've never had to deal with flatworm problems (yet).

Shane

 

[Acrylic Guy]

That's pretty darned slick. Fortunately I've never had to deal with flatworm problems (yet).

Shane

Thanks! Seeing alot of people kill their tanks using flatworm remover...this is all natural and it doesn't hurt the mushrooms. My mushrooms were so covered by the flatworms that they appeared brown instead of bright green! Now I can't find even one worm.

 

[Len]

What kind of mushrooms were these and what kind of flatworms do you have? This is very interesting indeed. I'd imagine you could make good money selling mushrooms that attract flatworms

 

[Acrylic Guy]

I'm not sure what kind of flatworm they are...I didn't know there are different kinds. There were two kinds of mushrooms...don't know their scientific name....one was an everyday green mushroom and the other are called green hairy mushroom...not much help.

Seem to me that whatever they are hosting on in your tank can be used to get rid of them! George

 

[wade1]

Just to make a point here... using straight RO water will kill most animals. Including the shrooms if allowed to stay long enough (luckily, they are very resilient beasts).

In order to do a proper freshwater dip (not that I even consider it in most cases) you need to a) match the pH of the water to the tank (~8-8.3) and b) match the temperature. You can use marine buffer (small amount) to get the pH steady... this prevents serious immediate damage to the animals, although for those without protective physiology, its just as useful. Flatworms, worms, pods and the like will come screaming off of rock or corals.

Wade

 

[MattM]

Don't know what your flatworms were, but I know the Waminoa genus likes to hang out on mushrooms and most people's infestations are the Convolutriloba genus.