Emergency advice wanted quick. Polyclad flatworms killing everything in tank
 

Before coming home ten minutes ago to see this firsthand.....I wouldnt have believed it.

I have what i believe to be polyclad flatworms of some kind nearly 2" long. Right now I can see many different colors. My small tomini has a black one, several orange ones and a good size tan one stuck in his mouth. My rabbitfish has such a big one in his mouth he cnat hardly swim at all.

Im going to just do a FW dip as that is the fasted thing I can think of. There are still a bunh of other fish I havent even seen

Please advise. 90% of the snails in the tank are alxo currently under attack. I always thought it was kind of cool when a single flatworm eats a snail........but Ive never watched it happen to my entire tank at once What the heck is going on here??

LeslieH, out of curiousity, could my tank crash a month ago in which i hit temps in excess of 100 degrees and pretty much lost everything be a contributing fsactor to whats going on here?? I havent seen a polyclad flatworm in any of my tanks for over a year and a half, and I now have a rainbow of different ones all of a sudden waging war......

Ok..going to work......first things first...try to save the fish.........

My

ok....looking for suggestion on what I can safely dump them in NOW.......Ill give the rabbitfish 5 more minutes and im just going ot drop him in some .009. He is suffocating.

The tomini is hurting...but hanging in there......i hasve fond atrigget that need ssome assistance as welll......but hanging for the moment....

Sorry I can't help did the FW dip help at all?

I can't offer real advice, unfortunately. However, I know you can drop a fish to hypo MUCH faster than you can bring one back from hypo. I usually do it over a couple days, but I think its safe to do it much quicker in an emergency. I don't know about immediately though.

Sorry I can't be much more help.

I say go full on FW, no salt, for 5 min each. match temp and PH and dip.

Wow. A Polyclad attacking a fish? Get some pictures, but you have some serious problems on your hands. When was your last purchase? Where from? Did you QT? You posted this at 1am my time. What has happened since then? How are things?

I know it's not readily available anymore, but would Salifert's Flatworm Exit work on these guys?

Can you QT your fish and treat with copper? I know it's fatal to most (if not all) invertebrates. A stretch, I know, but hey....

Given nothing to feed on in the display tank, they may die out?

No, FWExit does not work on Polyclad Flatworms.

That's horrible. I've never heard of flatworms eating fish and don't know how to explain your population explosion. If there are still flatworms on your fish when you read this net the fish, removing the flatworms by hand, then putting them in a QT tank. Same for the snails & anything else you want to save. Then try the flatworm exit - many people have used it successfully for outbreaks of the smaller species. Take pictures if you can of the flatworms before you kill them so I can send them off to an expert who might be able to id them & provide some information on their behavior.

Why is it not readily available anymore??

At least it's not up here (Canada). Not sure why--it was made illegal, I think....

You can mail order it. It's not illegal. Maybe your LFS just don't carry it.