there is a monster in my tank!!!!

[chandlerchris]

Ok ladies and gents, there appears to be what looks like a huge flat piece of gray paper sliding across my rock. it is about the size of my palm. no joke. i have no idea how i missed that in a 20long. maybe it is a flatworm? its friggin huge though...my heart almost stopped when i saw it. i will try to post pics but i dont have a size converter to post them in the proper dimensions.

[Fly Guy]

look like this???

These are not macro shots. its a 4" flatworm in a 8" glass pieplate that likes to suck your snails right out of their shells. If its the same thing it is harmless to corals. All of these pics are of the same creature. I caught him going into a rock and i removed the rock and took a powerhead to remove him without hurting him. I have to admit it was the most awesome moving creature ive ever seen. In the months previous i had been going through cleaning crews like water and didnt know why. : )
They come in different colors........i will look and find out what exactly he was called.....i forget, but it is indeed a flatworm

[chandlerchris]

yeah, it looks almost identical but more flat and almost all gray. shall i kill him?

[Fly Guy]

I think he would be AWESOME in a species tank...........he will continue to deplete your snail population.......thats what he eats.

If you can catch him without hurting him....i want you to put him in a bowl with tank water and blow current on him........so im not the ONLY person to sit in amazement for hours watching this thing move......

im not kidding.....the thing was CRAZY.....and then report back : )

i would get rid of him if you could........actually....if you catch him....i will take him. I killed mine. But i now have a 80 gallon quarantine/holding tank that i would keep him happy in the sump of.............i think he would survive priority mail shipping.......no im not kidding : )

[Fly Guy]

Greenbean, thanks for the input. It only took you 8 minutes to look it up. I watched. Education is ALWAYS appreciated but i just wanted to make sure you dont think you are fooling everybody by daily posts acting like you know all of this information off of the top of your head.



Im not by any means saying you dont know a lot. I just have seen you in quite a few posts recently(not necessarily this one), act a little beligerent about the information you pull out of other resources, not all of which being 100% correct. Im a stay at home parent, im on here all day long on and off.

Personally, i dont mind, i like to ask questions and learn myself, as well as be corrected when i have a belief or notion that isnt necessarily correct.

The flatworm i had was grey until i pulled it out of the tank and put it on a different background.

To be sure, TRT is all about friendly learning, and i hope this post isnt taken the wrong way by anybody, if it is i apologize. : )

I just have seen greenbean argue several pointswith several people lately who ARE talking from personal experience and off of the top of their heads and IMO, practical knowledge and experience is more valuable than book knowledge in many instances.

[jdbassin]

Wow, Flyguy, Someone certainly got under your skin didn't they?????
There is a lot of info out there some good some bad. Experience counts a great deal but even personal experiences are unique in that which may hold true for one person often does not for another. And there is a great deal to be said about book smarts too. Often it's the only way to get info on a subject. But i do want to point out something about those that are considered the reef Gods on here, every so often I post a pic of one of my anemones and ask for an id. Everyone including the reef gods tell me it's aiptasia, kill it. It's not, it bunodosoma species and harmless. So I think the point being is, take what you can use from here and discard the rest, in the end everyone learns by trial and error and if you can gleen bits and pieces of info here and there that help the trials and prevent the errors GREAt...... But no one on here, or any book for that matter is the difinitive guide on reefing. If time and experience with reef keeping have taught me anything it's that nothing is ever black and white. until I learned to question what was told to me by those that stated their info on here as fact I could hardly stand to read these forums Flyguy, greenbean relax have a beer, reef on!!!!!


jd

[Geoff]

what have you been missing lately in your tank? that is a good place to start on what this flatworm eats. flatworms are very specific feeders, like nudi's. it is important to figure out what they are feeding on.

G~

[Spanky]

You know, Chris asked a simple question.

You guys get back on track, stop being defensive - that includes you green with the sand stars again - or you'll have to sit this one out.

[jdbassin]

I've never seen anything like it before but don't feel bad about having not seen it in a 20, I had a 20+ inch bobbit worm in my 30 and didn't find it for two years when I broke the tank down to upgrade to a larger one. Infact the title of my post about it was I found a monster in my tank, LOL that's what made me check out your thread, Very cool looking creature. Are you going to try to keep it????? hope you get a positive id soon. If you are on a windows based computer open paint it's in programs under accesories. open your pic just click file then open and find your pic. once it's open click on image at the upper left corner then attributes from there you can change the size to 1074 x 768 pixels after you've done that click file again then save as at the bottom will be save as file type select jpg and clkick on ok. then you can upload to trt. Cheers


jd

[Fly Guy]

Ill apologize again, but what instigated me writing that was a combination of a crying baby in my lap and the memory of many posts in the recent past where i have heard word for word recitals(this post wasnt even one of them.....crying baby set me off haha) in arguments for different things, not referenced as such, but as if it was known from real experience or knowledge....................and i was being petty. Im sorry.

I still DO want that worm if you catch it and let me pay for shipping.

: )

[Twitterbait]

You should also remember that most of these critters have color morphs depending on stress and environment.

[chandlerchris]

Yes you can have the worm. maybe you will trade me a nice tiny < 1 inch piece of any sps that you choose... pm me an address or post office box and voila. i will take pics AS SOON AS I CAN FIND IT!!!!

[Phishnoob]

OK what's a flatworm and what is it like? Is it sort of it's own unique branch on the tree of life or like a nudibranch or what?

Where do they come from?

[jdbassin]

Alot of them look like and mimic nudis but they are their own seperate little thing. Real scientific sounding. huh???? LOL


jd