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Flatworm Exit Use (1 Viewer)

BeerNut

BeerNut

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So I got flatworms (Red Planeria) and absolutely hate them. I've dosed in the past but never totally gotten rid of them. Over the spring/summer the darn things took over again so I decided to dose it again. All I can say is HOLY FRICKEN COW!!

If you ever chose to use Flatworm Exit (and it works), here is my advice to you, Close your eyes, hold your breath, and then drop in the appropriate number of drops of FW Exit. Be ready to do about a 25% water change within the hour attempting to suck out all the dead worms floating around and empty your skimmer hourly. Every living thing in your tank is going to go nuts and you're going to swear you killed your whole tank. Hopefully everything will survive for me but we'll see in a day or two. I've yet to lose anything by dosing but this stuff knocks your tank for a serious loop.

Good Luck;

Don:beerchug:
 
Did this once. Had a similar experience as you have described. It was amazing. Sucked out as many as I could and then ran carbon and kept up with skimmer maintenance. It all worked out but I can see why people freak out about all that dead material in their tank.
 
Yeah the red planeria are almost impossible to avoid in your reefing lifetime. You'd have to do some hardcore quarantining to do so.

The key is to do what Adam said. Suck as many as you can find over a couple weeks out. It's the flatworm that's toxic not the Flatworm Exit. You'll still be amazed by the hundreds/thousands that float up after your weeks of work.

Run Carbon and water change as much as you can.

Scream America, drink a beer and revel in your glory. Then do it all over again in a week or two for good measure.
 
UGH - stories like this is why I have yet to use any sort of chemical in my tank

Thus far I have been lucky - I have been able to combat issues outside of chemicals

Good Luck dude~!!!!
 
yup, my tank almost crashed when I used it, and now I need to do it again. I hate those little buggers.

Ken
 
Use my lunar wrasse fish. Warranty he will eat all flatworm in 3 days. No more worry about fw. He is reef safe. Just lmk Whoever want to borrow it. Dont use fw exit because when large amount of fw died will produce large amount of chemical that will kill living corals. Feel free to pm me
 
Yeah get a wrasse. I had a melaurus wrass that obliterated them in just a few weeks, then I kept him for another month or two. He grew like an inch in that time and was fun to watch, but my tank is way overstocked and he had to go to a new home. I'm still flatworm free.
 
I have used it a few times without any issues at all. Perhaps the level of flatworms was low enough and the water volume high enough. The first treatment, I did have a lot of them floating around, but just ran the skimmer wet and ran carbon for a few hours. I only ran the carbon because I had to leave, and didn't want things to go bad while I wasn't there. None of my livestock seemed to notice except for my mini brittle stars...they were not happy.

I haven't seen another one in my DT since, but I can't seem to kill them all from my fuge (55 gallons of basically solid cheato). I take the fuge offline and hit it with 2-3 times the dosage recommended, and it kills the few I can see, but within a day or two, I will see a baby on the glass. I've resigned myself that I may have to just live with it, and dose once a month to keep the population as small as possible.
 
I had a Melanarus Wrasse which did a great job... flatworms were gone until he jumped out of the tank.... Now they back.
 
BeerNut said:
If you ever chose to use Flatworm Exit (and it works), here is my advice to you, Close your eyes, hold your breath, and then drop in the appropriate number of drops of FW Exit. Be ready to do about a 25% water change within the hour attempting to suck out all the dead worms floating around and empty your skimmer hourly. Good Luck;

Don:beerchug:
Click to expand...

In addition make sure there's someone to help count the drops so you dont accidentally overdose
 
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I have treated my tank twice with FWE and they still come back. The first time I followed 1x the dosage and they were gone. Couple of weeks later there were some more. So I dosaged again at double the dosage and they still came back. Set up is 40 br with 20 sump & SRO1000sss skimmer. Am i not using the stuff correctly? I also went and bought a melanrus wrasse a couple of days ago and hope it takes care of most of them so I can dose FWE to kill whatever still remains.
 
yell0w said:
I have treated my tank twice with FWE and they still come back. The first time I followed 1x the dosage and they were gone. Couple of weeks later there were some more. So I dosaged again at double the dosage and they still came back. Set up is 40 br with 20 sump & SRO1000sss skimmer. Am i not using the stuff correctly? I also went and bought a melanrus wrasse a couple of days ago and hope it takes care of most of them so I can dose FWE to kill whatever still remains.
Click to expand...
You need to do multiple treatments in a row. One of the means of reproduction for planaria is laying eggs. You need to continue treatments until you think that anything that died couldn't have laid eggs. Usually 2-3 treatments one week after another.

Taklu said:
In addition make sure there's someone to help count the drops so you dont accidentally overdose
Click to expand...
You can't overdose on the flatwork exit from everything I've read. At least not in the quantities people treat with. I've read anything from 2X-6X times the amount on the bottle. Even the instructions talk about increasing the dose. They suggest removing some from your system and testing the amount it requires to dose. It's believe they build up a tolerance. It's not the FE that is toxic, it's the planaria when they die that become toxic. They have neurotoxins inside them and when they die this comes out into the tank.
 
agent462 said:
You need to do multiple treatments in a row. One of the means of reproduction for planaria is laying eggs. You need to continue treatments until you think that anything that died couldn't have laid eggs. Usually 2-3 treatments one week after another.


You can't overdose on the flatwork exit from everything I've read. At least not in the quantities people treat with. I've read anything from 2X-6X times the amount on the bottle. Even the instructions talk about increasing the dose. They suggest removing some from your system and testing the amount it requires to dose. It's believe they build up a tolerance. It's not the FE that is toxic, it's the planaria when they die that become toxic. They have neurotoxins inside them and when they die this comes out into the tank.
Click to expand...

So, if FWE were to be dosed in a tank with no or very very few Flat worms....there should really be NO affect on the livestock regardless of how much is dosed?
 
If you have NO flatworms:
At least not in the quantities people treat with. I've read anything from 2X-6X times the amount on the bottle. Even the instructions talk about increasing the dose.
Click to expand...

If you have any flatworms, you always run the risk of the neurotoxins impacting something.


Here are the instructions I could find which talk about increasing the dose. I also thought they included instructions that said to test outside the tank how much it would take to kill some. I can't find those, I may have been wrong.
Read all the above text before commencing with the treatment!

- 1 drop for every 4 liters or 1 gallon.
The dropper contains approx. 300 drops (10 ml). The dropper cap holds approx. 90 drops.
So 1 cap full is good for 360 liters or 90 gallons.

Add it in a high flow area of the tank. If you want to treat a refugium only and if it’s volume is too small for using a powerhead then mixing should be done manually.

- It should start to work within 30 minutes.

- If within 45 minutes no visible death of flatworms occurs add 50% more.

- As soon as the flatworms start to die commence with the activated carbon to take out any toxic body fluids. Also see the above given important remarks.

- After an hour or so you can turn any UV or ozone on again.
Click to expand...

When it comes down to it, follow the instructions. If it doesn't kill them, follow the directions of many fellow reefers who have dosed at X times the does.
 
I have a box of FWE at home... I will check the instructions.

Oh, anybody needing FWE, I think the one I have is new.. coz I never used FWE in any of my tanks.... its yours for free. the date on it would say its "expired"
 
It all depends on your system size and the number of dead flatworms. A system of 300 gallons could see absolutely no affect on the livestock while a 75 may have a catastrophic crash with the same number of the buggers.

I was worried the first time I dosed. When I dose now, I don't even sweat it...I just turn the fuge back on and let the water flow through the system. There simple aren't enough dying to impact the water quality. The only downside to me is that I need a whole box just to treat at 1x the normal dose, so each treatment is expensive!

Taklu...I'll take the box of FWE if you can hold it for me for a few days...
 
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