I want to share my recient experience in trying to rid my tank for flatworms using Flatworm Exit....but 1st some background. I've been in the saltwater hobby for over 20yrs, started with a FOWLR and moved into reef about 3yrs ago. Tank is a 125gal mixed Softy, LPS & SPS about 30 different species & 9 fish (Tangs, Clown, Anthias, Fairy Wrasse, shrimps, emerald crabs, etc) medium depth sand bed, lots of LR, with 36" Trigger Emerald sump, ReefOcto Protein Skimmer, Refugium, & Maxspect LED lights & 2 Maxspect Gyre's. Water from a BRS 6stage RO system & Redsea Blue bucket salt.
Noticed a few red/brown flatworms about 6months ago and tried to attack them by reducing nutrients and upping my cleaning routine....this did not work and population continued to grow. In the last few weeks the flatworm population got to the point that a lot of my sand bed in area's of low flow would be covered as well as lower parts of live rock....no damage to coral that I could see, but it was getting very hard to keep tank clean. I started doing research and read every blog I could find on Flatworm Exit...the good & the bad. After weighing many option I decided to give it a try. Got 20pnds of Activated Carbon ready, made 50 gals of new SW & had another 50gal of RO/DI on hand just incase. Before treatment I sucked out as many worms as I could but with my LR & sand bed I knew this would be difficult and this is what I believe lead to my downfall. Dosed Exit as directed and in 30min saw floating worms, at that point started sucking out worms in the water column, started my water changes (about 30gals) and started adding multiple 3pd carbon bags throughout the sump. The entire process took about 2.5hrs. The Flatworm Exit worked as expected....killed the little buggers no problem....my problem was that I totally under estimated my FW population. The amt of toxins they emitted were too much for my water changes & AC. All SPS went into shock, Monti's lost all color, Euphoric hammers sucked in and closed up, all Zoa's shrunk to almost nothing, Gorgonia retracted, Inforno & Purple Peoney Shrooms shrunk to almost nothing, all fish went into major shock & 1 fairy wrasse died within 20min. I went into panic mode, changed more water changed out carbon bags ever 2 hrs.
Over the next 5 days kept doing 20% water changes and changing out carbon bags....ended up going through almost 50pnd of AC and 100gals of SW. Thankfully the only thing I lost so far was 1 fairy wrasse, most fish have now come out of stress but one other fairy wrasse still showing signs, all softies & LPS have come back all zoa's have reopened, but all SPS's are still browned, out while there is no flesh loss I'm not sure if they will make it as they have no color left.
So the conclusion is the FW Exit worked as advertised, but I totally under estimated the amt of worms I had due to the sand bed & LR. My stress level was/is through the roof, now after a week things are looking OK but not happy about my SPS color loss...hope they survive. 20/20 hind site I'm not too sure I would do it again the same way.....if you see flatworms treat as soon as you see one...do not let the population get out of control as I did.
Noticed a few red/brown flatworms about 6months ago and tried to attack them by reducing nutrients and upping my cleaning routine....this did not work and population continued to grow. In the last few weeks the flatworm population got to the point that a lot of my sand bed in area's of low flow would be covered as well as lower parts of live rock....no damage to coral that I could see, but it was getting very hard to keep tank clean. I started doing research and read every blog I could find on Flatworm Exit...the good & the bad. After weighing many option I decided to give it a try. Got 20pnds of Activated Carbon ready, made 50 gals of new SW & had another 50gal of RO/DI on hand just incase. Before treatment I sucked out as many worms as I could but with my LR & sand bed I knew this would be difficult and this is what I believe lead to my downfall. Dosed Exit as directed and in 30min saw floating worms, at that point started sucking out worms in the water column, started my water changes (about 30gals) and started adding multiple 3pd carbon bags throughout the sump. The entire process took about 2.5hrs. The Flatworm Exit worked as expected....killed the little buggers no problem....my problem was that I totally under estimated my FW population. The amt of toxins they emitted were too much for my water changes & AC. All SPS went into shock, Monti's lost all color, Euphoric hammers sucked in and closed up, all Zoa's shrunk to almost nothing, Gorgonia retracted, Inforno & Purple Peoney Shrooms shrunk to almost nothing, all fish went into major shock & 1 fairy wrasse died within 20min. I went into panic mode, changed more water changed out carbon bags ever 2 hrs.
Over the next 5 days kept doing 20% water changes and changing out carbon bags....ended up going through almost 50pnd of AC and 100gals of SW. Thankfully the only thing I lost so far was 1 fairy wrasse, most fish have now come out of stress but one other fairy wrasse still showing signs, all softies & LPS have come back all zoa's have reopened, but all SPS's are still browned, out while there is no flesh loss I'm not sure if they will make it as they have no color left.
So the conclusion is the FW Exit worked as advertised, but I totally under estimated the amt of worms I had due to the sand bed & LR. My stress level was/is through the roof, now after a week things are looking OK but not happy about my SPS color loss...hope they survive. 20/20 hind site I'm not too sure I would do it again the same way.....if you see flatworms treat as soon as you see one...do not let the population get out of control as I did.
