Weekly Discussion - Getting rid of reef pests?

[Anonymous]

Weekly Discussion - Getting rid of reef pests; is it worth nuking your tank?

Flatworms, bryopsis, GHA, etc. can be a real pain in the tank. Is it worth nuking the tank - either chemically or manually (removing everything and scrubbing it down) - to get rid of them, or is it better to just learn to live with them?

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[wombat1]

I just noticed a mantis shrimp in my university's 180 gallon reef. As far as I can tell he's been in there for years because we haven't added anything in a long time. If he gets along well with everything, I say leave him. There are emerald crabs, snails (although they're twice the size of him), and a coral banded shrimp that he could probably kill, but he hasn't I don't know what he eats, but he's kind of cute, and we have no intention of trying to catch him.

I've never dealt with flatworms, but all the algaes can be overcome with good tank maintenance. Worst case scenario is manual scrubbing of all rocks, but I would NEVER add any chemical to a reef designed to remove algae.

 

[danmhippo]

GHA can be controlled easier by total darkness for a week. Bryopsis, IME, can be dealt with strict nutrient control.

As for Flatworm, well, I nuked the whole tank manually. I freshwater dipped all rocks, most corals, top layer sands, razor blade cleaned all tank walls, and made 95% water change. Unfortunately, they came back again 3 weeks later. I finally got rid of them after an accident. Tank temp surged up to 95 and cooked all pests, so did most of my corals and fish........

 

[jimbo327]

As for algae, I say deal with it by pulling it and nutrient control. Also, it can be controlly naturally by snails, nudis, crabs...etc, cut back on feeding, skimmer and refugium export.

As for red FW, I would nuke the tank with medication because there is no natural predators and it would affect/crash(kill) your other tank inhabitants after it grows to explosive populations. I nuked my tank with Quinsulex a couple months back, and I've never seen a single red FW. I used my own method of dosing, and most of my tank inhabitants made it through with no problems. However, I did lose a few really cool SPS (montipora digitata, Acropora Yongei, and a Millepora) Every other SPS made a comeback after slight bleaching! To me, it was worth it. And I would do it again, but this time, I would frag my SPS before I go nuking it with Quinsulex.

And I would get rid of all mantis and unknown crabs because they just eat everything I put in the tank. I lost numerous snails and a fire shrimp to my hairy crab. Then my girlfriend caught it one day, and we sent him packing.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a small flatworm problem, and I suck them out once a week or so with ridgid airling tubing. Takes 2 minutes. I don't see why people would nuke and established tank and lose some corals - as almost everyone does - to get rid of pests that do almost nothing harmful to the tank. It seems easier to just think of them as normal chores.

 

[danmhippo]

At one time, 50% of surfaces in my tank are red dotted........

 

[Anonymous]

Mine never got that bad, but it did get pretty bad. Took about 30 minutes of sucking to get their levels down, several times. Now its pretty easy. My question is, would it be better to break down the tank and scrub everything, or learn to live with them on a regular basis.

 

[danmhippo]

After you nuke once, and learn to perform preventive measures every time you introduct a new piece (eg. FW dip), you don't need to learn to live with it.

 

[danmhippo]

But I never use chemicals to nuke my tank, yet............

 

[brandon4291]

J. Sprung has written a recent article describing the use use of certain nudibranchs to control flatworms, can't remember the genus and species. Will look up and repost...

He also states that these animals are often short-lived however. To me this seems to mean if the nudibranchs don't wipe out all the flatworms, or if more are eventually imported through new frags or LR, the numbers would just rebound after a few months. I thought this was interesting though because its a way of balancing certain animals in your system to keep each other in check--balance on yet another level in our captive reef. He writes in his article that providing stronger current tends to dislodge them and prevent them from accumulating...

article: Marine Reef and Fish 2003 Annual Edition, p36.

Brandon

 

[Carpentersreef]

I've had flatworms for years, and their population goes up and down all the time. I've noticed that they like like areas of low water flow, and medium light levels. One thing that I'm finding interesting is that I have them in my main tank, but I can't find any in my sump!
I consider them to be just another life form in my system. Way back when, I read where they can smother corals, but I have yet to see that happen.
I would never "nuke" my tank....it would just be another chemical in my system that could pop up later somewhere with maybe even worse consequences.

Mitch

 

[Will C1]

i got rid of my flat worms using a chelodurna (hope i spelled it right) but it diddent get them all before it croaked. it lived for 6mo's or so chomping them down and growing then suddenly died. sfter this one of my balasts blew up so i was reduced to one light which i cganged to a coral life 10k which is more like a 14k and now i dont see them at all. it just like they disapeared, they were so bad you couldent look in the tank at times. im not sure if its the lack of bright lights ( istill have 1 MH on the tank) or if the slug ate them to a level they couldent recover from.

 

[Philippe Dor]

Why nuke a tank when the introduction of any kind of damsels (chromis,OTB, Clowns etc) will get rid of all the flatworms in no time.
I's easy, super effective and a bunch of Chromis look good in any tank, but I guess some people always like to do it the hard way.

 

[Carpentersreef]

That's the first I've heard of that.

Mitch

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard of it before, just never heard anyone actually advocate it, and it always seems to be second or third hand anecdotal experience.

Philippe, have you actually ever seen a damsel eat a flatworm, and what do you think about the many people that have flatworms and damsels in the same tank? I, for one, had many damsels in my an angler species tank and they never touched the flatworms (and sometimes damsels would be in that tank for weeks at a time).

RR

 

[Anonymous]

I had a red flaworm problem- well not really a problem since they only sat on the rock- but there were a ton of them. I never did anything about it but eventually they disappeared from the main tank but remained in the refugium. My conclusion was that something was eating them. The only real contenders were an orchid dottyback or scarlet reef hermits. I actually did see a hermit pick one up and eat it once.

 

[Philippe Dor]

When I farmed mushrooms I had flatworms in several boxes and also caulerpa which became a pest. I then took out caulerpa loaded with flatworms and was feeding it to my tangs. The flatworms were floating everywhere and that's how the damsels started to eat them, later they were picking them off everything. Because flatworms are seldom moving one has to get them off the rocks first to show the fish what they are, the rest happens by itself, and worked everytime for me.

 

[Carpentersreef]

Any damsel in particular, Philippe?

Mitch

 

[Philippe Dor]

I had very good results with Chromis and Orange tail Bue Damsel, but I guess from this that any damsel will pick up the taste for flatworms if shown and given the opportunity.
I had tried many different ways before but never as easy and as successfull as this one, Some people don't like damsels as they are quite agressive buggers sometimes, but then which is the lesser evil, and Chromis and OTBs are the least agressive of the lot, and very colorfull and attractive in any tank.
So for me the choice is very easy, I now keep 5-10 Cromis and one OTB in all tanks I'm getting involved with. and I never have to worry about flatworms anymore!