Red Planaria (flatworms) in sump but not display?!?!?

My sump (20g) is infested with flatworms. For some reason I do not have a single one in my display (72g). They are everywhere on every macroalgae I have in my sump, mangroves, caulerpa and chaeto, just covering it.....but not a single one in my display. I'm assuming my mandarin dragonet eats them.

Anyone have any experience with flatworms and mandarins?

Would you guys suggest I treat my sump with flatworm exit or similar separately from my tank (disconnect my return and move the heater to the display)? Or just take my sump down and restart with clean macros, rock and sand? I was even thinking about popping my mandarin into the sump for a couple months but the problem is there in each chamber and hes not gonna be able to fit through the baffles.

 

A simple blue damsel might do the trick, just do not feed it often and he will start picking the FW off quickly. Worked for me.


Good luck

 

but he's never going to be able to eat them all....that's my point. They are in each chamber of the sump except the fist chamber where my overflow pours into the sump. Considering no fish will ever be able to eat them all, should I just rip down the sump, dry it out and restart it? I would lose a lot of life, but would probably lose all of the life if I treated the tank too.

Picture for reference....sketch of sump and red dots are flatworms....

 

I was told the flatworms I had (a tan one)were fine in that they wern't covering my corals or anything so as long as they're kept in check you may be fine.

 

Flatworm exit seems like the course of action. Taking the sump of line, remove as many as you can via syphon, treat, change out the water and run some carbon. If they make it into the display somehow and there is a big risk that they will eventually, the treatment there will be much more intense. After treating the sump addition of a damsel, or wrasse to keep the numbers in check would be a good idea.

 

SkyFire-These are red planaria. the over populating smothering flatworm

What you have are probably these....amphiscolops acoel flatworm...harmless




Corailline- your probably right. Flatworm exit and taking the sump offline is probably the best option for me. I can take all of the rock/macroalgae out of the sump and do a freshwater dip to knock out most of them, then try to scoop what I can out of the water, remove my pistol shrimp and treat the sump. Just not looking forward to doing all of that, but its probably my only option.

 

Mine look more like the ghosts on pacman, no rounded front part and can get fat then thin as they inch (ok ...mm) along. My madarines have taken care of them though ;D

Good luck with getting rid of yours.