leechs? on shrooms

Hello I have a green mushroom i got it as a frag it has double in size but there is something on it now and I've seen more and more is this thing bad? is it going to afect my other inmates. Need help don't know what it is and how will afect my shroom and other corals.
Thanks for any replies.

 

Looks like aceol flatworms. Do a search on www.wetwebmedia.com and you will get lots of information. They probably are not going to be a huge problem, but very rarely the population can get out of hand and they will kill coral. Before you get worried, you need to understand that they hurt coral by blocking light. Obviously, there need to be LOTS of them in your tank before this becomes an issue.

They also have a pretty specific diet, so chances are they will die off on their own. One of the things they like to eat are tunicates. (Most people don't have any to begin with.) I had a lovely mushroom rock covered with beautifull little transparent tunicates with orange rimmed mouths. Flatworms wiped them out, but after a short population boom they seam to have gone away completely.

They have a few natural predators: cleaner wrasse, manderin gobies, and some others. But consider what these fish are going to eat after the worms are gone before adding them to the tank. Lots of fish like these die every year of starvation because people put them in tanks that can't support their specialized diets. Do your homework.

To sum up - wait it out. One of the best things you can do is simply siphon them out of the tank. They will likely multiply before they wane, but in the long run any more drastic means of removing them could be worse for the tank than doing nothing.

Good luck!

 

Some flatworms eat tunicates, but IIRC the red planaria doesn't. They can get out of controll, believe me, I've seen it. One bad thing about them is if the population collapses all at once, they'll release a very toxic substance.

 

I recently had the red planaria flat worm plague. That is what it looks like you have Tepoz. You can read my thread here - basically better circulation was the trick for me.

 

Thank's for all the replies, i think I'll increase the circullation fpr now since it's only a few.
Thank's

 

They tend to explode is lesser water quality, I'd do water changes, and syphon out as many as possiable.