Fts update: 11/15/2017 - planaria attack!
Hi Guys,
Guess it's been a few months since my last update... so here I go... for those who cares at least lol
My tank was infested with Planaria a few months ago, I figured I must've gotten it from one of my fellow hobbyist when we traded frags as I haven't bought any corals from a store in awhile. I know... I know... rookie mistake, I didn't dip my new corals before putting them in the tank. Anyways, they didn't bother my corals or fish so I didn't bother doing anything about it until it got to the point where there was Planaria EVERYWHERE. They multiplied so much that it covered all of my rock and sand surface, they even filled my sump. Despite their overwhelming numbers, they still didn't bother my corals or fish.
I had some free time during the Thanksgiving long weekend so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to tackle this issue. I used the Flatworm eXit made by Salifert and followed the most of their instructions. The only thing I didn't do as per their instructions was to suck out as many of them out as possible before the treatment. I figured as they die off and float around the tank, i'll suck them out then... that was a very bad decision on my part.
The Flatworm eXit worked very well, within a few hours I had so many dead Planaria that it was impossible for me to suck them all out even after several water changes. Soon after, my skimmer exploded with red guck, my water turned into a light red/brown color, and all the dead Planaria left in my tank was poisoning the water. Eventually my fishes couldn't handle the tank's condition and all died. All but one, some of my corals also died off too mostly my montis. Everything else in my tank was extremely stressed out and pissed off. It looked like there was pretty much nothing in there but rocks, sand, and some coral skeleton. I was pretty sure that this was the end for my beautiful 30 gal shallow cube tank. I even told my gf and my friends that if this tank doesn't recover, I'll be quitting the hobby for good.
During the following week, I continued to do several more water changes and continued to dose the tank with Alk, Calcium, and Seachem Fuel. Very slowly but surely I saw some progress in my tank. Some of my corals were slowly opening up again, my skimmer was pulling out normal coral guck again, and the water was clearing up.
Here is the tank a few months later
