Nasty worm :(

[MrMatthew]

So I have this polyclad flatworm still in my tank. I made a post several months back trying to get it ID'd when I caught it on camera. This thing is very elusive and I've only seen it a few times ever in my tank. It only comes out late into the night when all the lights are off to hunt. It devoured all my turbo snails and an expensive clam I bought before I actually knew what was going on. I started to see empty turbo snail shells everywhere and then woke up one morning to find my clam completely sucked clean, and I mean liteally not a single peice of flesh left. At this point though I still had no idea what was doing it, I was thinking there was something wrong in my system that was causing my snails and clam to die. Until one morning I noticed something eating the last turbo snail in my tank and sure enough it was this worm. I tryed to grab my tweezers and pull it out but it disappeared into the rock work as soon as touched it. I've only seen it one other time since then and before I could grab my tweezers it was gone. That was the first time I had seen it since september and who knows when it will show itself again.

So I've been thinking of ways to lure it out so I can capture it. I thought about luring it out with more turbo snails but that might be a longshot because turbos are all over the place, underneath rock and such. The clam it ate was around $75 so getting another one of those as bait is a little iffy lol, I'de hate to lose another to this thing. Theres no telling when it might strike, I had the clam a couple of weeks before it killed it.

Anyone have any ideas of how to get something like this out of a tank? I'de really like to keep clams as a part of my reef. I've talked to a few people from some LFS around and no one has even heard of these things. You can search youtube for "polyclad flatworm" and theres a few videos showing some but there aren't many. The vid I posted originally I ended up taking down but I do still have the actual vid of mine if anyone wants to see lol. Any help would be great thanks.

[renogaw]

buy some steamers from stop and shop

[mylifeismyown66]

I think I have seen kits to catch bristle worms. Maybe using one of them might work with this one too?

[Litter Box]

A sure fire way to get it out is to pull your live rock and dump club soda (carbonated water) into the rock. It should come out pretty quickly that way.

If you can isolate what rock he's in, it will be much easier.

If he doesn't come out with the club soda, I'd just dunk the rock in fresh RO water.

Jason

[MrMatthew]

renogaw- LOL

mylifeismyown66- I'll have to look into those type of kits, I sure do have a tons of bristle worms too lol but I like them and I read they're good addition to a cuc. But I'll check it out.

Litter Box- My last ditch effort would be to take each peice of live rock out and examine it. But I really don't want to disturb my system that much if I don't have to. I have a bunch of corals set in place nicely and some corals have grown over and connected to other rocks. And this worm seems to pose no threat to any other livestock other than clams and snails.

[coralfever]

Something like this might work.




Could easily build one with some scrap pieces

*edit they blocked the link. Search e bay for acrylic worm trap.

It is just a box with one end angled inward so the worm crawls up the ramp and falls in, then cannot get out.

[Gillundr]

I would use a tall glass or something similar. Bait in the glass and lean it against the reef. Then it could climb the rocks to get in the glass, but once in the bottom of the glass it would be too slippery to climb back out.. Worth a try anyways. I caught a mantis shrimp like this. There are traps that you can buy at LFS for about 10 bucks. I got one and tried it. It didn't work well, it was difficult to get set good so it wouldn't trigger on it's own or not trigger at all. that's what made me try the glass on a longshot.
Good luck,

[SushiGirl]

Flatworms can easily climb glass. Google bottle trap & try that with, seriously, the steamers mentioned above (or some kind of clam). Maybe you can get to him before he figures out how to get out of the bottle trap.

[MrMatthew]

steamers are dead arent they?

[MrMatthew]

I like the idea of baiting it inside of a trap or something. Just need a clam to throw in there.

[SushiGirl]

Just buy an uncooked clam at the grocery store. Pretty sure it's not a requirement that it be alive LOL. My gastropod-eating snail ate frozen clam fish food.

[IMM3DOORSDOWN]

There a guy on YouTube.he saw the worm munching on his snails.he cought them going into some rock.he broke the rock and cought 3. He filmed them then RELEASED them back into his tank.saying that he doesn't know to much about them.!!! Well hello they were eating your snails.my personal saying when in doubt pull it out. Oh well

[MrMatthew]

Yeah watching those two vids now I know mine is also a pericelis for sure. Same pattern on it's body.

[Gregz263]

How about a section of PVC pipe, cap both ends, put bait inside. Drill some small holes in the pipe. Place in tank overnight. Remove in the morning, perhaps he will slither in overnight after the bait.

[renogaw]

Originally Posted by MrMatthew

steamers are dead arent they?

not until you steam them...they are the gray clams at stop and shop, or other stores. they are also considered cleaner clams, although they tend to die nicely in our water because of how clean the water generally is and how warm our water is compared to what they are used to.

[Gillundr]

steamers in the grocery store are live until you cook them. If you see any that are open in the store those ones are dead but the ones that are closed up tight are alive. When you go to the store and buy a bunch of clams if any are open don't cook it. It is dead and more than likely rotten. Clams, crabs etc have an enzyme that begins rotting their meat within 20 minutes of being dead. You could get seriously sick eating an open clam.

As far as the worms or mantis climbing glass goes, it couldn't in mine. I know they can inside an aquarium but there are micro things growing on it I guess. One freshly cleaned out of the dishwasher was too slick of a surface, or maybe I just got lucky. I did stay up and pull it out right away and was able to catch it. Maybe I was just lucky. Also just thought I would throw out a cheap suggestion.
I have seen people use a water bottle for a trap. Cut the top off the bottle put bait inside the bottle. Then invert the top and put it back inside the bottle and attach it with glue or something. This way there is a sort of funnel leading into the bottle but once inside it would be difficult to get out because the inverted top. I will try to post a picture to make it easier to understand. If not you can google it.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CCQQ9QEwAg

[MrMatthew]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've actually used the inverted bottle trap to catch a damsel fish just recently and it worked quite well. I guess I could try putting a steamer in there one night at a time and try and stay up to see if it will find it's way in there. I was just concerned about putting a dead clam in my tank. But if you guys think it should be ok maybe it's worth a try.

[MrMatthew]

Does anyone want it if I catch it? lol, They are very rare.

[IMM3DOORSDOWN]

pm that guy on youtube.lol