Acropora flatworm?

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Hi,

One small acro frag was gone right after another.

Parameters was good. I picked one of the frags that was almost gone, and dipped it to see what comes out.

I don't have a microscope so I tried using macro lenses of my phone.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

More photo and video macro

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Anyone know if this is acropora eating flatworm?

And I do have mandarin fish, 2 fairy wrasses, dotty back and a coral banded shrimp (in case they might help with keeping it at bay).

Funny enough I've only found one and could find no eggs in the acro I removed...

Wonder if I should do anything ? Fkatworm EXIT or get one more wrasse ?

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Ok I'm pretty sure they are acropora eating flatworm.

Look at the size of this one I removed today.

Already ordered 2 peppermint shrimp, a six line wrasse and acropora exit.

Other than that any tips ? It seems when I turkey blast the affected acros and give the flatworms to my lineatus wrasse he eats them, my clownfishes also eat the small ones.

Also found interesting research paper on biological control for six line wrasse and peppermint shrimp if interests anyone.

https://www.int-res.com/articles/aei2020/12/q012p061.pdf

Any advice is welcome, I have a lot of SPS on the tank but mostly frags, a lot encrusted already.

Only a few small colonies.

 

[chip shop]

I’d take them all out if possible and do repeated dips,doing right thing in blowing them of for wrass to eat also scrape the bases clean were the eggs will be laid,good luck

 

[Troylee]

Those are in fact aefw! Need to pull all acros from display and dip them and quarantine them for several weeks with dips… let your display go fallow for 8 weeks or so or learn to live with them and be vigilant about dips and turkey basting them off.

 

[jackson6745]

They are on other corals in your system, you can be sure of it. Look on the undersides of acros with a flashlight in the dark. You’ll likely see damage. Even if you don’t, they could be too small to see the damages currently. This will change in time. You won’t eradicate these with a fish or shrimp. Being that you have mostly small sps it is doable to remount everything (important step to kill unseen eggs), possibly put everything on a rack so you can dip the whole rack at one time for multiple dips over the next 6 weeks. A QT tank and an Acro free display is the best way to do this.

Besides living with them, which sucks IMO, some guys have had success by draining their tanks down below their lowest acro (fish still in tank), and spraying all of their acros with a kcl solution for 15 minutes which dissolves the worms, then pumping water back into tank. Doing this a few times should kill the lifecycle with future egg hatching etc.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

On top of the biological control, is it possible to treat with Flatworm Exit multiple times and perhaps eradicate them?

Let's say, if I were to use now and kill the existing ones and do a second or third course to kill the ones that will show up from eggs?

I can dip the corals as well every once in a while on top of it, though it's a 150 gallon tank jam packed with acros, my available QT tank can't accommodate all my SPS from display.

Also would they lay eggs just on underside of acro or could it be on rocks too?

Should I dip all acroporas, including digitatas? Should I worry about any other corals ? (Have a few other SPS, LPS and softies not acro).

I wonder how long would I have had them for...

 

[jackson6745]

On top of the biological control, is it possible to treat with Flatworm Exit multiple times and perhaps eradicate them?

Let's say, if I were to use now and kill the existing ones and do a second or third course to kill the ones that will show up from eggs?

I can dip the corals as well every once in a while on top of it, though it's a 150 gallon tank jam packed with acros, my available QT tank can't accommodate all my SPS from display.

Also would they lay eggs just on underside of acro or could it be on rocks too?

Should I dip all acroporas, including digitatas? Should I worry about any other corals ? (Have a few other SPS, LPS and softies not acro).

I wonder how long would I have had them for...

Flatworm exit is for planaria, doesn’t work on Aefw. Potassium chloride is a good dip. My favorite is actually and insecticide named bio advance complete, coral rx or even pazi pro works. Search these and determine what you think would be best. The egg take from 12-20 days to hatch so keep that in mind.

 

[jackson6745]

Eggs are typically right where tissue ends and rock begins.

 

[danreef55]

On top of the biological control, is it possible to treat with Flatworm Exit multiple times and perhaps eradicate them?

Let's say, if I were to use now and kill the existing ones and do a second or third course to kill the ones that will show up from eggs?

I can dip the corals as well every once in a while on top of it, though it's a 150 gallon tank jam packed with acros, my available QT tank can't accommodate all my SPS from display.

Also would they lay eggs just on underside of acro or could it be on rocks too?

Should I dip all acroporas, including digitatas? Should I worry about any other corals ? (Have a few other SPS, LPS and softies not acro).

I wonder how long would I have had them for...

Unfortunately, eggs will not be killed. Here what I suggest:
- Great job with the utility crew! Checked off
- Use a turkey baster to get as many of them that you can
into the water column.
- Dip the acros when possible.
- Use the flatworm exit. Remember the eggs will
eventually hatch so be prepared to repeat.
Best of luck

 

[jackson6745]

Unfortunately, eggs will not be killed. Here what I suggest:
- Great job with the utility crew! Checked off
- Use a turkey baster to get as many of them that you can
into the water column.
- Dip the acros when possible.
- Use the flatworm exit. Remember the eggs will
eventually hatch so be prepared to repeat.
Best of luck

Flatworm exit doesn’t work on Acro flatworms.

 

[danreef55]

Flatworm exit doesn’t work on Acro flatworms.

It certainly worked in the past. I am out of the loop for a long time so perhaps there are other posts regarding this.

 

[jackson6745]

It certainly worked in the past. I am out of the loop for a long time so perhaps there are other posts regarding this.

It didn’t work since I’ve been fighting them (became aware of them) since 2005. Flatworm exit is effective against those red ones that you see crawling on the rock and glass (planaria). The ones that eat acros are a different species not really visible until they peel off the coral tissue.

 

[danreef55]

Thank you very much for the information.
I stand corrected on flatworm exit statement. I was thinking of planaria. Sorry to be misleading

 

[jackson6745]

Thank you very much for the information.
I stand corrected on flatworm exit statement. I was thinking of planaria. Sorry to be misleading

All good brother. I just got off a summer of quarantining all the corals in a 200g so it’s fresh in my mind lol.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Oh man. What a pain... This terrible evil creature haha.

I was thinking of setting up a frag tank. Maybe my best course of action will be quarantine everything there.

Though I have a few encrusted acros on the back glass which I will have to think what to do about.

Has anyone had success in eradicating without major tear downs in their tanks ?

Will the temporary management will be able to keep it at bay while I don't have the energy and setup to do the colossal tasks ahead ?

I can't believe there's so little scientific evidence on the treatment of these infernal pests.

 

[billyocean]

The good news is they look like the regular aefw and not the newer kind. As previously mentioned you could put all of them on racks and dip the racks once a week for 8-10 weeks. It's important that you leave no encrusted parts on the rock for them to live on during this process. Some have had some.success with the drain and spray then refill method also.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

The good news is they look like the regular aefw and not the newer kind. As previously mentioned you could put all of them on racks and dip the racks once a week for 8-10 weeks. It's important that you leave no encrusted parts on the rock for them to live on during this process. Some have had some.success with the drain and spray then refill method also.

Does it only eat acropora? What about other SPS such as:

-montiporas
-digitatas
-leptoseris
-pavona
-cyphastrea

My colossal task/plan below, if anyone has suggestions to it, more than welcome.

I have an aqua one 150 that's empty, a few spare equipment as well I will set it up in the garage and put some of those egg crate racks, might be able to make it into an SPS frag tank.

Once I get that tank setup I will tear up all Acropora from my display and move them there, add all of them into frag plugs and mount them on these egg crates.

Maybe I fill the tank with peppermint shrimps and do the dips.

From what I've read the experiment with the peppermint shrimp in small tank they actually rid of 60% of the flatworms in one day, but the good thing is they also ate the eggs.

Maybe this will be the start of a separate acro and shrimp tank lol .

Now the expense on that $ dang...

 

[jackson6745]

Just make sure you keep the qt tank stable or that will likely be the death of the corals. Some rock/biomedia and or sand from display will help. Keep your alk stable and your nutrients from bottoming out. IMO the shrimp thing is a waste of money. The series of dips will kill all of the worms, and rebasing everything will eliminate eggs.
I went through this over the summer.
I used a rolling cart and 2 flat Rubbermaid totes to dip into bio-advance for 20 minutes, then into clean water for a rinse, then back into the QT tank.