Flatworm eXit: So far, so good...

[JennM]

Hi all,

Yesterday at 4 PM I treated my 120 reef with Salifert's Flatworm eXit, to rid the tank of the dreaded Red Planaria. It took me 3 weeks to work up the nerve to do it, after hearing Sally's positive experience, and being at my wits' end with those pesky flatworms, I decided to go for it. Besides, I just had a tank disaster at home (not related to flatworms) and I figured if I was going to have multiple disasters, I might just as well be done all at once with it....

120 RR AGA Tank, with Kent Biorocker and Nautilus TE skimmer. Mag 1200 return pump, Mag 7 on the skimmer. 2 x 175 W MH 12K no actinics. Temp 78. pH usually 8.1-8.2, haven't tested other params lately but usually low to no nitrate (less than 5 ppm) ~150 lbs assorted live rock, Fiji, Manono, Tonga, and a bit of Caribbean, assortment of LPS SPS and soft corals, including Flo the huge bubble coral, star polyps, scolymia, hammer and many more, assorted snails, hermits, a long spined urchin and a ginormous sally lightfoot, and a large cleaner shrimp, also 2 red fromia stars.

Fish:
Purple Tang
Foxface
Redfinned Fairy Wrasse
Six Lined Wrasse
Marine Betta
Pair of Banggai Cardinals
Pair of false perculas
3 Green Chromis
Mandarin Dragonet

The six lined wrasse and Mandarin were placed in the tank most recently, in an effort to naturally control the flatworms. Both fish eat like pigs, but unfortunately I have never witnessed either eat a flatworm...

Around 1:30 PM I started siphoning off as many of the worms as I could, using a rigid tube and the hose off a Python Mini gravel vac. This is slightly wider than airline tubing but smaller than the standard gravel vac. My original intention was to put the water back into the tank, and used a fine mesh on the end of the tubing to catch the flatworms. That cought most of them but many got through (sieve effect) so I decided that putting THAT water back was not an option. Those worms STINK! When you get them en masse, they smell rather like Xenia -- peeewww. Anyway I siphoned off about 20 gallons' worth, and still did not make much of a dent in the population. Each time I'd stop siphoning to do something else, I'd come back and they would be all over where I had just cleaned.

At 4:00 I had siphoned all I was going to siphon. I had 25 or so gallons of new saltwater at the ready (I did replace the water I had siphoned out with new saltwater also), I have a Penn Plax Cascade 1500 Canister filter which moves 400 gph, which I packed with about 1 lb of Seachem Matrix Carbon, Seachem Purigen and a half a polyfilter pad and filter floss. I had the canister primed and ready to go, before I treated the tank.

At 4:00 I took a deep breath and counted out the 120 drops of chemical that is the dosage to treat the tank, per instructions, said a little prayer and dumped it in. The instructions say it should take 30 minutes or less to work -- it took less than 30 seconds -- they started dying left and right, and the living started scurrying away. Soon the water column was FULL of them -- I knew there were more in the tank than could be seen but OMG!!!!

I cranked up the canister, took a powerhead to blow the bodies out of the rocks at intervals, and ran the canister for about 3 more hours. During all of this the fish were more annoyed by my presence than anything, except the foxface looked somewhat more stressed than the rest. Still the bodies kept on coming...more and more, it kind of scared me -- and STINK! They smell just like Xenia after it's cut. I kept up with the stirring and blowing out the rocks with the powerhead so dead flatworms didn't settle on the rocks, this worked quite well.

At about 7:30 Scott changed 20-25 gallons of water, and I repacked the canister with fresh carbon, polyfilter, floss and purigen, and it's still running now. I seem to have one lamp burned out today (ugh I am hating those 12K, switching to 14 K soon...). It is now 11:15 on Saturday, all the fish are accounted for except one banggai and the foxface, but I don't see any bodies. Jury is out on the fromias, but the cleaner shrimp and sally are fine. Fish are beginning to behave as they normally do during th day but I think the one lamp being out is confusing them a bit Flo the bubble coral is opening despite being on the dark side of the tank. Green star polyps aren't quite as open as usual but again -- they are just "waking up".

I just spotted both banggais, so they are both accounted for, the only MIA is the foxface now. Corals still a bit ticked but coming around, I had lost a few frags to RTN, I believe it was related to the encroachment of the flatworms, also my hammer had not been opening like it used to, and I attribute that to the flatworms. I had a beautiful gorgonian which crashed some weeks ago, and when I removed it, I discovered that IT was ridden with flatworms.... so if there are any incidental losses in coral, I can't blame it on the treatment because they were suffering from flatworm encroachment to begin with.

I'll attach a rather blurry photo of one of the rocks infested Post-siphon but pre-treatment... I did see a couple of "survivors" last night but do not see them today. I will watch to see if I need to re-treat, although I on't like the thought of going through that stress again

I'll post an update later, especially if the foxface does/does not turn up -- I can't find a body (that's good news I think...) but I can't find the fish either. I think Boomerang the two legged fromia might be gone too, not sure where his buddy X the four legged fromia is either... stay tuned....


OH wanted to add this: YELLOW! The dead worms stain things yellow -- almost like iodine (is this a coincidence? Smells like Xenia which likes iodine, stains like iodine??? Could these things be causing iodine toxicity when they die? Just my uneducated theory...). The filter floss which was white, turned bright yellow. Ditto with the polyfilter, and ditto with my fingers after I rinsed out the floss. I discarded the floss instead of using it again, it was NASTY.

I also washed all my equipment in fresh water to rid it of any hangers-on, I don't want to contaminate any other tanks with this scourge...


Jenn

[Piero]

Hope it works out for you. Sounds like you did a good job of covering all your bases.

[Doug1]

Wow Jenn I hope this works well without serious backlash. It should be a hot product if it works as claimed

[Alice]

Jenn, what's in this stuff?

Sounds like it's going well so far.

[JennM]

I have no idea what it is. The solution is clear and has no odor or colour that I could smell or see -- but it worked like gangbusters.

The tank is still not "right", still no sign of the foxface, it's an hour after my first posting, I'm concerned about that, but I'm perparing another water change and I'll recharge the canister. Hopefully things will be more normal by the end of the day.

Jenn

[tdwyatt]

I would be interested in seeing what your nitrogen compounds are like for the next few weeks, especially 2 days from now.

The yellow stuff is the yellow chlorophyll contained in the worms (they are photosynthetic). Not iodine...

The foxface is a master of camouflage when scared, they will go rock still and change color so dramatically that you may be looking right at it and NEVER see the fish. No carcass is VERY good, unless the crabs have dragged it behind the rockwork somewhere and are chowing down even as we speak...

I no longer have a flatworm problem (you do NOT want to do what I did to get rid of them), but I hope this is a specie specific cure, as I would think that any product that kills them in this manner would affect all creatures that share the metabolic pathway that this product uses to effect its activity. I will check with one of the toxicilogy/poison informatiion services and see if it is listed (and what the ingredients are...) What is the EXACT name of the product, and where and by whom is it manufactured?

[JennM]

The product is called Flatworm eXit (the X is uppercase..) by Salfert, Nieuwgraaf 112-C, 6921RL Duiven, Holland.

Things have taken a turn for the worst. Foxface is gone, as I suspected. Things never looked "right" so Scott started another 30 g water change. Purple tang is iffy, one chromis gone. Water is YELLOW, we pulled all the corals out and put them in a bucket of reef water from the shop system, pulled out all the rock, moved the fish to the reef system in the shop, purple tang is on the quarantine, 50/50 whether he will make it.

Death toll:

Foxface
2 fromias
Chromis

The other fish who have been moved appear to be alright, if not just inconvenienced. Once they get over the surprise of being moved...

The water is YELLOW -- I suspect that Scott moving stuff around in the tank dislodged the rest of the dead flatworm bodies.

In retrospect, I think I'd do things differently -- I might still use the chemical to kill the flatworms, but I think I'd be inclined to do it remotely -- say, as a dip on coral and rock, OR remove the fish and corals (FW dip on corals usually removes the flatworms) and treat the rock/sand, keeping the fish OUT of the equasion altogether....

Stay tuned for more....

[JennM]

More -- I did test the water before the water change:

Ammonia, Nitrite, 0
Nitrate 20 (higher than normal but still acceptable)
pH 8.0

I honestly don't believe the chemical did any damage other than what it was supposed to - but just the sheer volume of flatworms going toxic is what has inflicted this carnage.

I'm glad I had a large backup system to move things to -- I did not put rock or coral in my shop system, as I don't want to introduce any leftover flatworms -- I only moved the fish. Rock is high and dry at the moment, we plan to change as much of the water as we can, run more carbon etc., and put the rock and coral back in, and wait a while before putting the fish back in...

Jenn

[Alice]

Well shoot....

[JennM]

Still more -- going to swish the live rock around in salt water in a bucket before moving it back to the tank-o-death...hopefully wash off any remaining flatworms, dead or alive.

Zoiks -- now I don't want to sell this stuff.

I'm concluding that there is a usefulness for this product, but once the infestation reaches a certain point, it becomes dangerous to use... in a way I'm glad that *I* am finding this out, not some unsuspecting hobbyist that I've sold the stuff too...

Well Scott's mixing new water, and I've got to repack the canister... thank goodness for comps

Jenn

[cyberchef]

You might want to read this thread I just found on RC..

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...=flatworm+exit

[125G's]

Thanks for posting this cyberchef. It was very informative. I don't have a major infestion, but there a few in my tank. As I'll be changing tanks soon this will give me the opportunity to dose my LR while I'm transitioning tanks. I won't have to expose my fish and corals (though they'll likely receive a quick dip and then be put in the new tank) to this potentially dangerous treatment.

JennM, sorry for the losses that you suffered in your tank. Thanks for sharing your experience with using this product. I'm sure it will help all of us that have FW's in our tanks. Wish you the best of luck on your "new" tank!!

Does anyone know the origination of these nasty little critters? Are they found in all oceans? Are they indigenous to a specific region?

Phil

[CAT]

Sorry to hear about your losses.

I have them in my system because they hitch-hiked via some macro algae I bought about 8 months ago. Mine have not reached plague proportions yet, they only do well in my fuge and if I discover what is keeping them under control in the main tank, I'll let you know.

I've read most of the threads about flatworms and I think you're right about removing the fish and inverts first. If and when I decide to treat the tank, I'll dip the corals in the eXit solution for a while then place them into a holding tank when I treat the main system.

The concensus in the threads seems to be that the amount of toxin released is the culprit. Some people have dosed 3X the recommended amount of the eXit and still had no problems.

Good luck rebuilding.

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by 125G's
...Does anyone know the origination of these nasty little critters? Are they found in all oceans? Are they indigenous to a specific region?

I was going to post more, but was unable to locate some of the previous threads that I have already written for TRT (so Brooke, where are these???) See this thread for several links on these acoel flatworms and one of their predators (Chelidonura varians nudibranch). The first two links were TRT threads and were good info, but seem to no longer be available...
(edited for spelling 03-30-2003)

[125G's]

thanks for posting the links. Good information to have.

Phil