Flatworm Exit and Water Change

[CT Reefer]

Hi there. I have a red flatworm infestation. I've been syphoning the little buggers out for the past few days and scraping the top layer of sand and removing. I only see a couple on the glass now, but I am sure many, many more are in my system. I am planning to treat with flatworm exit tomorrow. I read the instructions...dose, wait, syphon dead worms and turn on canister w/carbon. Do again in a week to kill the eggs. My question to those of you with experience with this product is when to do the water change? Right after the carbon goes on? Also, what percent change did you do (instructions say 25%)? I have a 140G mixed reef with sand bed.

Many thanks.
Kathy

[usingthejohn]

Originally Posted by CT Reefer

Hi there. I have a red flatworm infestation. I've been syphoning the little buggers out for the past few days and scraping the top layer of sand and removing. I only see a couple on the glass now, but I am sure many, many more are in my system. I am planning to treat with flatworm exit tomorrow. I read the instructions...dose, wait, syphon dead worms and turn on canister w/carbon. Do again in a week to kill the eggs. My question to those of you with experience with this product is when to do the water change? Right after the carbon goes on? Also, what percent change did you do (instructions say 25%)? I have a 140G mixed reef with sand bed.

Many thanks.
Kathy

My friend did it and sadly lost 80% of his fish including an established moorish idol.

I don't know the dosages or whatnot, but If memory serves me right he said he did the exit, waited 30 minutes or whatever was on the instructions and then did a 60% water change as the flatworm released a bad toxin when they die.

Also make sure y ou have a lot of fresh carbon.

[pinnatus]

I had a huge infestation. And I am sure that for every one you see there are probably 5 more you don't see. I had a 20% water change on hand and a lot of brand new carbon. However, when i used flatworm exit, my water turned brown and 20% water change and carbon didn't touch it. I had tremendous losses of livestock. This was not from the flatworm exit itself, but from the dying flatworms.

If I were to have it to do over again in hindsight, I would not do the flatworm exit. Maybe I would get a wrasse, although I had a yellow coris wrasse at the time who did not seem to help. But honestly, the flatworms really weren't hurting anything, and probably as with most the plagues that occur in our tanks, they would have eventually gone away on their own over time.

If you do decide to do it, siphon as many as possible beforehand. Be prepared to do massive water changes if needed.

Many people have done this safely, I just wanted to relay my experience to make sure you were aware.

[CT Reefer]

Sounds like I should have about 50% new water on hand. Yes?

[usingthejohn]

At the minimum yes 50%

[Scott07]

Hi Kathy,

I've used the FWE a couple of times on a previous nano tank, and had mixed success. I didn't loose a coral or fish during the treatment... but was not keeping stony or more sensitive corals at the time. The big question is whether to use it or not to use it. I've still got these flatworms in my newer tank (transfered over from the other), but they are hardly a problem at this point. For a while I did have quite a number of them... but manual removal, and letting them run their course over a few months... and now when I look at my tank I can only find a handful here and there.

If you do use the FWE, I would suggest waiting slightly longer than the instructions state to make sure you get as many as possible. Then I would do a large WC... probably more than the 25% the instructions call for... and finally introduce carbon. Doing the WC and carbon in reverse order... I would just worry that the carbon may become saturated with the FW toxin, and potentially leech back into your water column. Not sure if this is the case or not... but why not get as much of it out of your tank as possible before running carbon. Hope this helps....

[CT Reefer]

Thanks. Feeling a little edgy about this....

Originally Posted by Scott07

Hi Kathy,

I've used the FWE a couple of times on a previous nano tank, and had mixed success. I didn't loose a coral or fish during the treatment... but was not keeping stony or more sensitive corals at the time. The big question is whether to use it or not to use it. I've still got these flatworms in my newer tank (transfered over from the other), but they are hardly a problem at this point. For a while I did have quite a number of them... but manual removal, and letting them run their course over a few months... and now when I look at my tank I can only find a handful here and there.

If you do use the FWE, I would suggest waiting slightly longer than the instructions state to make sure you get as many as possible. Then I would do a large WC... probably more than the 25% the instructions call for... and finally introduce carbon. Doing the WC and carbon in reverse order... I would just worry that the carbon may become saturated with the FW toxin, and potentially leech back into your water column. Not sure if this is the case or not... but why not get as much of it out of your tank as possible before running carbon. Hope this helps....

[Nina51]

i have them but now that my coris wrasse finally came out of hiding after 2 months, he has been picking at the rocks and making a dent in them.

i know the fwe probably works ok but for every success story i've read, i've seen 2 or 3 disastrous outcomes so i'm not going anywhere near the stuff.

[Royce7586]

I make flatworm exit dip, drain 10-15g of tank water into 5g buckets make one your dip I usually double the dosage to make sure it wipes out the flatworms, agitate the water with a powerhead for 5 minutes or so, pull the rocks out put them in the other bucket to rinse. odds are you will see tons of dead flatworms in the dip. Rinse the rocks in 2 different buckets if you want to be sure you got all the exit off. If you have problem algae on the rocks you can also combine this with spot treatment peroxide but be careful that your dip bucket doesn't get too much peroxide in it.

This of course doesn't kill all the flatworms in your tank but will make a large dent in there population and you don't risk wiping out your entire tank

[thegrun]

I had to use Flatworm eXit twice over the years. I also used a double dose. The water changes are to remove the toxins released by the flat worms as they die, not to remove the medication. While I would be prepared to make a 50% water change, if you don't have a lot of dead flatworms a 25% water change will likely be enough. I dosed the tank a total of three times waiting 4 days between treatments. As the flatworms start to die, have a net handy to remove them as quickly as possible to reduce the toxins released into your tank. I only made small 10% water changes after the second and third treatments as there were very few dead flatworms after the second treatment and none after the third.

[CT Reefer]

I dosed my tank at 150% of the recommended dose. Left on the skimmer. The FWs started to curl up and die almost immediately. I used a net and gathered as many as I could. After an hour, I did a 50% water change and started running carbon. All my fish are ok and corals are as well. The only reaction from my livestock was that several snails left the sand and started crawling up the tank. They seem fine now. Will repeat the process in a week to ensure I get the eggs. So far I am pleased, not one flatworm visible and no ill side effects!