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I wiped out my flatworms and they...

Achilles Tang
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Achilles Tang Newbie

Achilles Tang

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Yesterday was a sad day. What started out as a flatworm eradication exercise has backfired badly.

3 to 6pm - manual siphoning of all visible flatworms. Rocks are cleaned of flatworms. Standby 20% new saltwater for water change and activated carbon.

6pm - administered Salifert Flatworm Exit (had to double-dosed with 8 bottles to wipe out very resistent flatworms as an earlier test showed that they required triple dosage to work).

6.02pm - flatworm by the hundreds started floating up. (hmm... expected)

6.03 - flatworms by the thousands started floating out from under the rocks. (hmmm.... they really hide well).

6.05 - flatworms by the hundreds of thousands started floating out (OMG... were they really that many?)

6.10 - flatworms by the thousands of thousands started floating. Water started turning orange as flatworms started dying. (OH SHIT!)

6.13 - placed 1 litre of carbon to absorb flatworm toxins.

6.15 - 80% of the flatworms are dead, 20% still moving around. (why are some still alive??)

6.18 - tank water very orange... skimmer has churned out 1 litres of orange juice already. Fishes are hiding. Fishes are all hiding. Noted that a lot of brittlestars and bristleworms are all immobilized & dead/dying. Suspect a lot of microlife are also dying as I see amphipods jerking about in the sandbed. (10% flatworms still moving around!!!)

6.20 - fishes are seen coming out, jerking in spasms. Immediate ###### out of dead flatworms flying on sandbed. 20% water change. Skimmer has churned out 2 litres of orange juice. (5% flatworms still moving around!!).

6.30 - water change complete... fishes started dying one by one. Another 20% water change done immediately. Skimmer has churned out 3 litres of orange juice.

6.40 - more fishes started dying. Suspected cucumber nuke. Fished out stunned tigertail seacuke. Couldn't find black sea cuke. Panic. Corals started to look bad as colours are disappearing... bleaching in progress (expected as per last flatworm killing exercise). Skimmer has churned out 4 litres of orange juice. (At least 20 very shrunken flatworms are still moving around)

7.00 to 9pm - water turning clearer from orange. (no more flatworms seen moving). Corals look bad. No more fish seen. Fished out at least 5 dead fishes which died with the mouths wide open. Can't find more dead bodies. Break for delayed dinner at in-laws at 9pm.

10pm - returned home. water turning murky white. Strange. Skimmer has churned out 5 litres of orange juice.

11pm - water turning even murkier. Looked closely. Saw millions of tiny dots in water. Checked for microbubbles from skimmer and return pump. Not the cause. Looked again. ALL MY CLAMS ARE SPAWNING!!!

11pm to 3am - CLAM SPAWNING non-stop, spewing clouds of eggs and sperm at regular intervals. Water is almost 70% opaque white. Another 20%water change. No effect. Gave up. Switched skimmer skimmate collection container to Coralife bucket as water bioload has now shot through the roof. Amazed at spawning episode. Half-amused at thought of harvesting loads of ultra-grade clams later on. Dead tired.

Today morning - Tank water just as murky white as previous night. Skimmer has churned out a lot of dark organic sludge instead of orange stuff. Turned on my lights. Some corals have RTNed.... estimated 30% loss of corals. Acroporas mainly affected. Pocci, monti digi, stylo, some LPS all ok. Lobos are shrunken. Clams are fine too. <_<

A few chromises and two wrasses are the sole fish survivors. The rest are all dead.

Water quality continues to drop as corals started losing more tissue as RTN spreads. 20% water change again today. Polyfilter added to aid in removal of toxins. More Seachem Prime added to cope with suspected ammonia surge.

Tonight - lost another 50% of my acropora corals. Monitoring water quality as water is still murky... suspect tomorrow will be another bleak day as I discover my SPS corals are still RTNing.

What happened: I killed the flatworms. Flatworm medication + flatworm toxins killed my fishes, and affected my corals. Water change affected my clams. Clam spawning made water condition worse. Flatworm toxins + dying livestock + clam spawning killed my corals.

FACT: Good things take years to happen. Bad things happen very very quickly in reef tanks.

Conclusion: I REALLY REALLY HATE FLATWORMS (100x more than marine velvet and 50x more than the monti-eating nudibranchs in my tank)

Regrets: I should have removed my sea cukes prior to Salifert Flatworm Exit treatment but how was I to know they would have been affected that badly? Or was it just the flatworm toxins?

Regrets: I should have killed the flatworms when they were first spotted some time ago instead of letting them breed into plague proportions.

Regrets: I should have followed up a week later after the first flatworm killing episode with more medication instead of letting the survivors build enough immunity to resist this 2nd treatment exercise. Who knows if their toxins have gotten even more deadly?

Conclusion: Beckett skimmers show their worth in situations like this. I have never seen so much skimmate being churned out so quickly before with other skimmers.

Upside: probably all the monti-eating nudibranch parasites perished as well.

Lesson to all: KILL FLATWORMS EARLY!!!

FACT: AT's Reef will rise again! ;)

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DeepBlue Newbie

DeepBlue

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I am sure you'll be able to produce and build an even greater reef than what you have now.

look at the bright side...you can join in the acro buying frenzy with the rest with that space avaliable. Joe and Dan's tank should be jam packed and full by now with the amount of acros they are buying recently. ;)

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yazid Newbie

yazid

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I was thinking of the Salifert Flatworm exit myself. :nuke:

:thanks: AT for letting us know.

Guess I start ###### those worms for now.

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Rocks Newbie

Rocks

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gosh ... yesterday when watching my fishes, i saw a little (1.5cm) worm like, flat and white color clawing on the glass wall.. just one ... and i thought probably no harm and i just leave it alone.

is that a flat worm ? ... then i need to spot it again and terminate it..

:(

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ryan Newbie

ryan

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oh dear... :o

sorry to hear that...

guess its a season for reef accidents now.

my 8 month old tank kinda crashed last week.

due to brown jelly disease in my hammer which polluted the water quite terribly.

lost almost all my fishes and NO3 went up to 40...

at least corals not badly affected. the surviving corals blooming larger than usual tho. can't figure out why tho... <_<

hope your tank recovers soon man!

any pics of the damage? flatworms?

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Hondace Newbie

Hondace

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IMHO : look out. The clams may be dying too. My 6-7" clam died on me a few days after spawning. I'll post the pics tonight when i reach home.

What I thought was an achievement crashed on me when i discover my clam is dying. Think this is a natural instinct - it know it is dying (old age?? as my 2 other smaller clams r fine) & therefore released all its eggs & sperm??

Any comments??

AT : so sad to hear yr story, thought mine is bad enough.

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Achilles Tang Newbie

Achilles Tang

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Clams are known to spawn when there's a drastic change in water conditions.

In my case, its was what pushed things out of control. It was traumatic enough for my reef tank as it is.

Oh well.... time to be VIP big spender customer again at LFS again! ;)

Oh... to get over this episode... I went out and bought myself a nice new Samsung 193P 19" LCD monitor. :lol:

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strat Newbie

strat

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Clams are known to spawn when there's a drastic change in water conditions.

In my case, its was what pushed things out of control. It was traumatic enough for my reef tank as it is.

Oh well.... time to be VIP big spender customer again at LFS again! ;)

Oh... to get over this episode... I went out and bought myself a nice new Samsung 193P 19" LCD monitor. :lol:

Wow..a 19" LCD ...nice ....

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Dispar_Anthias Apprentice

Dispar_Anthias

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Clams are known to spawn when there's a drastic change in water conditions.

In my case, its was what pushed things out of control. It was traumatic enough for my reef tank as it is.

Oh well.... time to be VIP big spender customer again at LFS again! ;)

Oh... to get over this episode... I went out and bought myself a nice new Samsung 193P 19" LCD monitor. :lol:

hey my condolence to you.. yeah thats how many places make clams spawn.... Actually my clam spawn did nearly crash my tank last time but luckily i was there to administer the problem....

nvm you will rise again ahaha.. i bet you will



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