It's gotten real bad! Initially I thought the rock is turning brown-red from algae - it actually looked cool until I realized it wasn't algae. Now they're everywhere, I suspect they contributed to the death of my Sandsifting star. This is a 90gal with 30 gal sump and the infestation is also in the sump as well. Cleaning the sump is easy although the plumbing be a another matter. The occupants include 3 Chromis, two Clowns, a Yellow and Blue Tang, and a PJ Cardinal. Other invertebrates include 2 Bristle stars, an Urchin, 3 shrimp, 2 feather dusters, and hermit crabs and snails. I also have nice colony of soft polyps which I suspect how the worms got in.
The idea was to use a combination of Flatworm Exit, physical removal and Six-line Wrasse. But I'm worried that infestation is to huge that it may harm the stock, so I thought I'd transfer the live to a 40g breader I have, and use the FW Exit. This has a challenge how to move and treat the rock that has the polyps? I also have rock in which one of the Bristle stars live.
I can also transfer the fish and invertebrates to a couple of smaller tanks (20g and 10g) temporarily while I treat the main thank but I know how long should the treatment take, plus the stress of moving the live stock.
Alternatively, I can swap the process and keep the fish in the 40g so as to reduce the stress somewhat and use the 20g for live rock treatment.
But there are more questions than answers. For instance, do I keep some of the old water? Am I risking transferring flat worms as well? How do i remove the dead flat worms from the main tank, as they're in the sand?
Anyway, what do you guys think?