weird maroon colored flakes all over LR

[reefmack]

I've got some wierd (algae?) spreading all over my LR for the past month or 2. It'a maroon in color and in very small flakes... unlike any algae problem i've ever had or seen. it's covering all of my live rock espeically early in the day (seems to subside a bit by evening)... gross, ugly, annoying... i'm going to attach a photo - please id this for me and help me figure out how to dispatch of the foul stuff.

 

[reefmack]

i'm going to give it another try trying to get the image up...

 

[reefmack]

I'm an idiot i guess - but for some reason if you right click on the broken image and paste the URL into a browser it will work (at least for me)... let me know.

 

[chris_h]

I saw your picture. YOu need a closer picture for anyone to be able to ID it.

[ December 01, 2001: Message edited by: chris_h ]</p>

 

[pathos]

possibly flatworms?

 

[reefmack]

I'll try and take some more pictures tomorrow - that one i have there is REALLY close (like right up to the glass). What are flat worms? The way it looks it seems more like some sort of algae... but it's EVERYWHERE. Very tiny maroon flakes that stick together and to everything else... they come off in sheets and individually... nasty.

 

[Anonymous]

First thing that comes to mind is flatworms, however it's almost impossible to tell from that pic. Another possibility is a brown calcareous algae that I've been seeing a lot of but the name escapes me currently. However the brown algae clings tightly to the contours of your rock and only after it has covered the rock does it tend to focus on growing outward in stiff plates.

RM here is a classic photo of flatworms

They can be siphoned out quite readily and have a very putrid smell.

 

[houston]

Hard to tell from the pic - cyano is my guess. Air bubbles trapped in the larger sheets (flakes?) is typical. Are any of your flakes large enough to tell if the stuff is slimy? That's also a typical sign.

Siphon it out as often as you can. I used Red Slime Remover once six months ago after I tired of the siphoning routine. Two doses with the skimmer off, feeding very lightly, and running air stones in the sump and fuge to oxygenate while the cyanobacteria - and other bacteria - were crashing. Only thing I lost was THE CYANO! Be sure to continue the light feeding and airstones for a couple of days after being able to skim again - there will be a lot of O2 consumed by the bacteria bioload die-off.

One benefit - RSR works great on red band disease. One tiny frag of encrusting porites was slowly succumbing to RBD, and I really couldn't get to it to treat it easily. The RSR's antibiotic instantly cured it - BUT - treatment would have been better out of the display tank AND my vet would have given/sold me the antibiotic A LOT cheaper....

 

[reefmack]

Thanks for all the advice... I've been doing some research (as all good little reefers do) and I think MickAv8r might be right - i think it's flatworms. I've got a horrible infestation too. I'm going to try and siphon them out... one interesting thing (i can't find out if this is a clue or not) is that they are tremendously worse in the morning than the evening... They sort of cling together when i try and siphon them off.

 

[Anonymous]

That's what those things are!! I've been trying to figure out what those little guys are all over my rocks & glass, but that PIC of flatworms is EXACTLY it.

But they seem to be munching on hair and slime, so I haven't done anything about them. Plus my clown will occasionally snack on them.

They're not a problem, right?

 

[Anonymous]

tsmejkal,
They don't hurt anything, most people just think that they are ugly.

 

[SPC]

If you get a heavy enough population they can smother your corals.
Steve

 

[reefmack]

I have a pretty heavy population (bordering VERY heavy). they're all over my LR, Clams, Snails and LS... How can i control them? My fish and inverts seem to ignore them - what eats them? Is cyphoning the best way to go - if so will they just keep coming back in full force if i don't control the source...

 

[SPC]

Reefmack, the flat worms you have are tough to get rid of, I have been lucky and never had them as bad as you. I have read where some very experienced reefers could not get rid of them and had to eventually resort to the use of Erythromycin (sp?), or a product that contains it. There is a current discussion on RC right now about a shrimp that a guy catches in Texas that eats flat worms, other than this shrimp I don't think there is a sure thing. My advice would be to do a search both here and on RC and then weigh the evidence as to whether you want to use this antibiotic or not.

 

[SPC]

Kat, to be fair here, I have read more people saying that the Madrin they bought for this purpose would not eat this type of flat worm. I am not saying that yours did not, I am just going by the majority of experiences that I have read.
Steve

 

[danmhippo]

JME, and I concurr with Steve. I think Katspaw is lucky to have one that eats them.

Tracey, was yours the green dragnet (picturatus) or the mandarin (splendidus)?

 

[pathos]

I agree, as I keep a Pterosynchiropus splendidus and have never seen him eat any of the flatworms in my tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Most of the time a flatworm infestation crashes. They reproduce so fast that they soon have nothing left to eat and a majority of them dieoff. After that they usually have a small harmless population that will stay that way as long as you do not grossly overfeed.

 

[Katspaw]

Mandrin Dragonettes, and there is a nudibranch that eats flatworms. I was infested with these guys, they produce more in intense lighting. I was planning on adding a dragonette to my tank anyway, and I know with the flatworms, he won't starve. I have a refugium also. At any rate, the mandrin was added and I have seen a marked decrease in the flatworms. But like I said I have a refugium full of pods to support him later also.

Tracey

 

[A&amp;J]

OMG! That's what they are! I have these all over my tank. I thought it was some sort of corraline algae until I saw this post. Then I went home and looked closer...sure enough :tri lobed tail, and these guys were actually crawling around on their own YUCK!

They are starting to choke out some of my corals....time to go. Any other natural predators you can suggest? What are these guys living on now? I have a 55g with ~440W VHOs.