wasp Posted July 16, 2006 Report Share Posted July 16, 2006 Colour not quite true, they are more brown than that. They are tiny, smaller than an uncooked grain of rice. Sometimes they sit there without moving, and sometimes they crawl around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDM Posted July 16, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2006 good work wasp, i was trying to find pies old post which has a pic in it but i gave up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossco Posted July 16, 2006 Report Share Posted July 16, 2006 Where do they normally park themselves? What corals are their favourites and what is their effect on them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted July 16, 2006 Report Share Posted July 16, 2006 They are photosynthetic so during the day they go anywhere there is good light, they also tend to hang out in groups. Because of the small size they can pass unnoticed, a while back I didn't realise I had them till I took a closer look at a few little specks, then Yikes! thousands of them. If they reach plague proportions they start to make the tank look dirty, plus they sit all over the corals and shade them. Other than shading they do not do any harm to corals, they derive their sustenance purely from nutrients in the water, plus photosynthesis. With the advances in the hobby nowadays towards lower nutrient tanks, these flatworms are less of a problem than they were years ago, but can still sometimes do surprisingly well even in low nutrient tanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelifaxNZ Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 Thanks Wasp for the pic and description. Definately good to know and keep an eye out for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 Oh, should add, these are different to several types of coral eating flatworms, fortunately these nasties are still fairly rare, but becoming more common as stuff gets shared around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tel Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 how goes the FW? also what size is your tank and how old? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDM Posted July 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 no sign of any flatworms :bounce: my tank is 4ft around 400 ltrs in the display, this set up is about 6 months old but most of the rock has been transfured when i upgraded so the rock would be around 2 years or more. i had nutrient problems towards the end of my last tank and i think thats where the flatworms were able to get a population started, then the upgrade came along which brought with it higher nutrients and bingo, even with the relatively lower nutrients that i have now they were still breading faster that i could syphon them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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