Jimmy Chen

As of to date, I do not know if any total eradication method that is also 100% safe, including the using the nudi. I myself have been dealing with this issue for over 4 years and nothing have totally eradicated them. The closest I ever came to getting rid of them was when I gave my tank a total scrub down, added a kickass skimmer, and couple of massive water changes. But now that I have SPS attached all over my rocks, I no longer can use this method.

Just this weekend week I went down the road that I never recommend, and that is using chemicals. I read some old archives from Reef Central with people suggesting oomed and Greenex. My understanding is Oomed is no longer available, but Greenex is still quite common.

I got myself a bottle of Greenex at the local Petland Discounts for $5, shut off my skimmer and dosed the system according to instruction, one drop per gallon. Within an hour I started to see flat worms floating in the water column. Within 3-4 hours my water was totally cloudy and I started my skimmer again. From what I can see as of today, it has totally got rid of the flatworm. But this also produced an effect on the corals. Forty-eight hours later, most of my corals (35+, mostly SPS) are starting to extend again, with a few that still arent extending. A lot of corals have lost their coloration as if they were under a period of dark period and shows sign of color bleaching. Couple of the corals have signs of tissues coming off, and I may have possibly lost one SPS coral, but it is still hard for me to tell as of this point as this coral had became all white once before for a period a month. Rest of the live form within the tank are all fine and there is no sign of problems, ie: fish, snails, shrimps, pods.

As of this point I do not have enough experiences to pin point if this effect on the corals were caused by a negative reaction to Greenex, or negative reaction to the flat worm die offs.

Does the method work in killing the flatworms? Yes. Is it safe? No.

Mike McCawley

Damn. I could have saved you some pain if I posted this in May. To make (lousy) amends ....

I've done something similar with success. The dying flatworms are releasing their personal toxin into the water column as they die (melt/dissolve actually), and it irritates the hell out of all sorts of things. Supposedly really lethal to echinoderms, per the folks ... well, I gotta protect my sources. Anyway, they are developing this product, and I was selected to be a product beta site. They offered the following procedure:

Dose the tank. Then, after a minute or two, stop all pumps, skimmer, heater, etc. and let the water motion come to a stop. I made ready some airline tubing and a bucket, and as the flatworms started dying (they turn brown, curl up, and float away from whatever they were clinging to) I then slowly, meticulously, so as not to stir the water so much, siphoned the dead little buggers outta the tank. Took about an hour for a well infested 20gal Didn't get 'em all, but I got lots. Then, I sucked enough more water out to make it a 30% water change. I topped off the water with new salt, and fired up the skimmer and powerheads, and dropped a sock full of GAC into an AquaClear mini ... end of flatworms. For good. I repeated this procedure on the other tank I had infested, a 10 gal. Had to move the brittle star out, and moved it back in after a week. Again, no issues.

No issues with corals or fish, and most importantly, no flatworms, and they never came back, going on 7 months now. Imagine, no flatworms in an afternoon!

Too good to be true? Yes. This procedure is not ready for prime time ... I got lucky I guess, or I more carefully followed the directions, but I know of two others in the product beta program (of a size unknown to me) that had disastrous experiences. It's hard to productize something that depends on a weird way of calculating dosage, and the degree of meticulousness necessary to make this work. They don't know if they can overcome these problems and bring the stuff to market.

In fact, the dude that helped develop this procedure managed pushed the envelope on dosing and managed to WIPE OUT his display tank of SPS frags. Flesh just melted off. Sad. The whole trick is to get most of the dead flatworms outta the tank before the dissolve and release their poisons. The chemical and the toxins both are apparently readily removed by GAC, and more slowly by the skimmer itself. A large flatworm die-off is too great to handle by the skimmer alone.

Anyway, if the Greenex is similar, a similar procedure could easily remove the dead toxins before they can cause the tank distress.

btw, don't ask WHAT I dosed the tank with ... I'm sworn to secrecy. Why I didn't post the experience to the list in May. I wish I posted this earlier so you could have possibly benefited from it, Jimmy.

Jimmy Chen

I've done something similar with success. The dying flatworms are releasing their personal toxin into the water column as they die (melt/dissolve actually), and it irritates the hell out of all sorts of things.

I knew about the toxin, but I never knew they would melt that quickly.

I then slowly, meticulously, so as not to stir the water so much, siphoned the dead little buggers outta the tank. Took about an hour for a well infested 20gal. Didn't get 'em all, but I got lots

Problem with this method is I dont know how many people would actually follow this instructions, especially people with larger tanks. My tank is a 120g and if it took you 2 hours for a 20g, I dont want to know how long it would take for a 120g. I can hear the complains about back aches already. ;p

Had to move the brittle star out, and moved it back in after a week. Again, no issues.

I dont have any problem with those guys. My stars, shrimps and cukes all seems not to be effected by this event.

U

As of this point I do not have enough experiences to pin point if this effect on the corals were caused by a negative reaction to Greenex, or negative reaction to the flat worm die offs.

Does the method work in killing the flatworms? Yes. Is it safe? No.

This was in a 120, right? When you added 1 drop per gallon, did you account for actual water volume, or did you just add 120 drops?

FWIW I've used Greenex to get rid of marine ich. IME, it works really well, but it's real easy to overdose. One drop per actual water volume in the tank works great. One drop per "advertised" tank volume would be an overdose. I've seen no ill effects on any animals in the tank, when dosed into the actual water volume (as close as I can calculate it), and not more often than once in 48~72 hours. I have seen it burn animals if overdosed, or dosed more frequently.

You've previously stated your 120's dimensions were 48x24x24 if memory serves. That's probably outer dimensions; chop at least an inch off each dimension for actual inner dimensions. Assuming 4" of fine substrate, and accounting for the inside dimensions, your actual water volume (without rocks) is probably 89 gallons (based on dimensions of 47x23x19). Subtract about another 3 gallons or so for each case of live rock in the tank (assuming Fiji). I don't know how big your sump is, but you'd have to add that back in. If you don't have a sump (I don't remember if you do or not), then it's conceivable that your tank is only holding 80-odd gallons of water. If you put 120 drops in 80 gallons of water, that might help explain what happened.

Dave Block

Assuming that it was the dose, and not the flat worm die off that has caused the coral reaction (but you are right, I've heard killing off many at once releases iodine?) do you think that 1/3 or 1/2 the dosage may be the way to go, in order to keep the corals from doing this? I've still got sheets of flatworms on the underside of my live rock ....so far, I think they are just an eye sore, but I'm in the same boat, not being able to move my corals, before a potentially hazardous dose of Greenex/P>

Jimmy Chen

This was the problem I had. It really needs to be done under a controlled environment in order for us to know for sure if it was the chemical or the toxin that effected the corals. So the dosage may not be the problem here. Many reports on Reef Central also indicated die offs, but most points to the flat worm toxin rather then the chemical. These are all just observations and no one can really pin point to the exact source.

Based on my observation, I knew before hand the flat worms would release toxin after they die, but I never knew they would melt into nothing in such a short amount of time. My tank went from blue/green to cloudy within 3-4 hours after dosage. But it took even shorter amount of time because after about one hour of dosage, I did see some flatworms floating and no sign of bad water.

So IHMO when one employees this procedure, a few safety steps needs to be in place ...

1. Get as much flat worm out as possible.
2. Have the skimmer off initially, but turn it back on in a few hours. Greenex seems to get skimmed out very quickly.
3. 3. Be around and get ready for a massive (at least 25~50%) water change.