Preparing For War

[d2mini]

Finished making my weapon of mass destruction this morning.

10' of 1/4" flex line, a piece of rigid pvc riser tubing i found at home depot, and the foot part of a pair of pantyhose I "found" in my wife's dresser drawer (shhhhhh!). At first I tried to melt the riser a little tighter before shoving the 1/4" line inside but that didn't work so i just used a little plastic cement. It was snug but not tight before. Now it's good to go. The pantyhose is just rubber banded on to the end. The rigid tubing is nice and long so that I can keep my hands out of the tank. And I melted the end flat to give me a little more scooping power. The 1/4" line is plenty long enough to put in my sump while I do some vacuuming.

Now i just need to run out and try to find some of that Flatworm eXit. :helm2:

 

[SSalty]

Thats a great idea.

 

[d2mini]

Welllll.... it was a great idea but man those darn worms are hard to get off the rocks! After about 20 minutes of siphoning lots of water but not many worms I gave up and brought out the big guns... the Flatworm eXit.

OMG. I put in the recommended amount of drops and almost instantly all these normally static red specs started freaking out, moving all around and then floating up into the water. After about 10 minutes it looked like someone dumped a container of flake food into my tank. I started running the carbon in my Via Aqua phosban reactor. And then about an hour later I did a 20% water change. Now about 7 hours later everything in my tank is NOT happy. The fish are pretty much hiding. My corals are all devoid of color and closed. I just did a feeding and everyone came out to eat but now they are back in hiding, even my cleaner shrimp. I hope everyone makes it through ok. :(
Think I should do another water change tomorrow?

 

[yote]

Funny how a hobby thats supposed to be relaxing,can turn ANYBODY into a warrior:D

 

[yote]

I would Dennis.
Doc nearly had his tank wiped out while trying to get rid of flatworms.Might think about doing at least a 50% change.Might even do more.

 

[Piggy]

I did a 50% water change the day I treated my tank and kept the charcoal running for two weeks.

 

[d2mini]

Cool, i'm mixing up another 25% now and will do that tomorrow. That's about all i can mix up at one time.
I was about to ask how long to run the carbon. I'll leave it in there for a couple weeks.

I'm not so sure I killed them all either. I can still see some, not sure if they are dead or alive.

 

[Alexander]

There is no set time you have to run carbon for. its always a good thing to have going on anyways. I stopped using it due to some un proven theory involving HLLE and tangs. but at least a couple weeks should be fine. change out the carbon at least once too.

 

[Alexander]

oh and btw good luck with the whole thing. Im sorry you ran into flatworms soooo early into the hobby. that sucks

 

[d2mini]

Meh, I think I'm glad I ran into them now while I don't have as much in my tank to worry about as some of you guys.
Now I'll just hope that this is like the chicken pox where once you get it that's it, no more.

Hey, I can dream, can't I? ;)

 

[Alexander]

its a good thought. hopefully it proves to be a reality

 

[Piggy]

Oh yah don't foget to retreat the tank in a week or so. Give everything time to recover before you do.

 

[SSalty]

That sucks.

Another reason why I dosed my tank when I saw about 100 visible flatworms. I had no issues. Hopefully you and others will learn from your mistake by not waiting so long before taking action.

 

[d2mini]

That sucks.

Another reason why I dosed my tank when I saw about 100 visible flatworms. I had no issues. Hopefully you and others will learn from your mistake by not waiting so long before taking action.

I had no idea.
I've been posting pics here but when i posted the same pic on my local forum that is when someone said something. I thought it was red algae! :shock: It showed up around the same time as my diatoms or just before. So technically I took action within 24 hours of knowing about it. ;-)

BTW, did another 20-25% water change. Looks like so far everyone has made it through, although the fish activity is still down. And my corals are still have closed. Oh except my star looks like he's a goner. Tips of his arms are disintegrating. Need to pull him out. That didn't surprise me though. I wasn't expecting him to live long BEFORE all this went down.

 

[yote]

I've got a box of flatworm exit sitting on the stand next to my tank.If I seen just ONE flat worm,the tank will get treated right then.

 

[d2mini]

Yote, do you do a smaller dosage?

 

[parrotchute]

Yuck! So why are flatworms so bad? Hope the tanks doing beter now!

 

[yote]

Yote, do you do a smaller dosage?

I've not dosed any of it yet Dennis,and hope I never have too.
But NO,If I see a flatworm,I'm giving them a full dose.Flatworms are something you dont play around with.

 

[yote]

Yuck! So why are flatworms so bad? Hope the tanks doing beter now!

Once they use up their food source,they start dieing off,plus sometimes they eat corals.
And when they die,they release toxins into the water.Those toxins can and will kill everything in the tank.

 

[parrotchute]

That's horrible...I hope I don't get any...