I had a fresh set of eyes viewing my tanks the other day when Sam stopped and I am afraid that I was not to happy with what he saw. We like to think that we know our systems inside and out and will not find anything suprising when someone looks at them, not to mention defensive if we don't like what is found. I was doing water changes when Sam stopped by and it wasn't long before he spotted a planarian, I said "excuse me". Did Sam say that I had some of the very pests that I had been sitting quietly on the sidelines while everyone else was dealing with. I quickly squished the flatworm beween the glass knowing full well that it was just a visual jesture of my dissatisfaction and the many that still were unseen in the tank were laughing at me. Unfortunatly that was not the end of my pests as Sam felt like I had acro eating flatworms - IMPOSSIBLE. I only have several acro's in the tank and they do not have pests despite how poorly the milli was doing!! Sam took the milli home and called me several hours later to report that dipping the coral revealed numerous acro eating flat worms. The corals also had to be fragged as there were to many eggs at its base to be removed. I was very thankful that the infestation was pointed out but I was not happy by any means. We are all to ready to talk about our successes but not willing to share our failures so that others may learn. Sam is planning on doing a lecture on pests at a meeting in the next couple of months to highlight the infestation that hobbyists have seen in the past several months.
Marc will not be visiting Arkansas untill Reef Splash 2011 and the current influx of pests is not only in hobbyist tanks but lfs tanks so it the need for information about what we are see is great. I would put Sams experience with dealing with flatworms and redbugs up against anyones - including Marc.
For the acro eating flatworms (aefw) I used coral pro RX to rid them from the frag I got from Chris. This dip works very well but the problem is that coral pro RX doesn't kill the eggs so you will have to dip the coral several times over the next few weeks to break the life cycle of the aefw. I try to scrape all the eggs off after the first dip but you can't get all of them sometimes. That is why you need a QT tank setup for all the acros that are in the main tank so you can starve the aefw. While in QT any of the eggs that you miss will hatch and the coral pro RX can be used to kill the active aefw before they are egg laying adults. This process can take 6 to 8 weeks. That is why they are so difficult to get rid of but they can be beat.  For the red planaria, Flatworm Exit is what is used to rid the tank of this pest. Just follow the directions very closely and you will rid these from your system. It may take more than one treatment to completely exterminate the planaria flatworms.Â
