Acro Flat worms! Help!!

[akaimal]

Recently I noticed that a few of my sps colonies bleaching from the base up. It already wiped out 5 beautiful Fiji & bali colonies! I took a few of the corals out and dipped it in iodine and found the following:

Is Flat Worm Exit effective against these? My richordia and xenia disappeared a few months ago. Wondering whether the same ate them up. Whats the best way to treat them. Lot of my colonies are huge and encrusted on to the rocks. So its almost impossible to take them out and dip.

I have been reading up a lot about flatworms for the last few days and was not able to find anything specific. Not sure whether this is the same as what I have.
http://www.reefs.org/forums/topic110818.html

This is terrible . I just finished my red bug treatment to find that I have another beast to tackle! Almost feel like giving up

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

I know this doesn't help you out right now but a qt tank will go a long way. Personally, I treat new acros naturally with a leopard wrasse. AEFW stand no chance with a flat worm eating wrasse. That's one option for you but not sure if it is the best one in this situation.

Levamisole HCL works great but it can get a little bit tough to find. It is a pig dewormer and tractor supply co used to carry it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levamisole

 

[chuckreef]

Revive at 2x the lable dose for thirty minutes, and Coral Rx work.
TMPCC works to but is harsh like levamsole.

Usually need three treatments.

Many say chop off the bases, but I feel if you really dip, dip, dip, then I question why this is necessary as long as you wait a few weeks after the 3rd weekly dip and then don't see any eggs or worms, I think you can skip the chopping for bigger pieces. For new small frags, its so little loss I'd say, yes, chop.

 

[murphreef]

ahhhh that picture makes me wana scream

AEFW's are a biatch only thing you can do now is dip treat and pray... you can keep try to get most out but chances are you may never fully be rid of them with dipping close monitoring and some baster blasting you can remove most and keep them under control

good luck looks like you have quite a few to deal with

 

[moo0o]

nvm

 

[LifeAquatic]

Judging by the pics and size of the AEFW your acros must really look bad. If you found that many full size AEFW I would honsetly scrap all the Acros you have. Those AEFW will lay eggs like crazy and it will be almost impossible to break the life cycle with basting and dips. You can try and QT all your acros but it will take a few months to get rid of those worms. So ask yourself if the time and effort to treat is worth saving the Acros.

 

[murphreef]

^ word

I totally agree if I ever seen that many AEFW's id go crazy!

I think as well as poster above that with that much of an infestation take some frags of what you have quarantine and scrap the rest Id most likely either get new sand and rock or at least let the tank be acro free for a few months that way all remainders die ... hopefully by then the ones you have quarantined will have healed and be able to place back in the tank

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

IMO a natural predator is best when you have plague portions like this.

 

[LifeAquatic]

I missed the part that your acros are large and encrusted to the rocks. You might try a wrasse and see if that helps. Using a wrasse is going to be a 50/50 shot though. Usually the wrasse will just eat the floating worms you blow off by basting the coral. AEFW are a real PITA. It's rare to have a nice looking tank that is infested with AEFW. So you can spend months trying to band aid the problem or save what you can and just start fresh. It's a hard decision. Good luck.

 

[akaimal]

Thanks for the advice guys.. I bought a Yellow Coris, radiant, melanurus, Elegant coris wrasse & a mandarin goby to take care of the situation. I already dipped all the corals that I can take out.
Will try and get a leopard wrasse this week..
Are there any other natural predators that I can try?

Would flat worm exit work for the entire tank?
Thanks!

 

[LifeAquatic]

Flatworm exit is not made for AEFW and will not work.

 

[akaimal]

Picture of my tank taken yesterday. Flat worms fortunately didn't affect the long haired ones.

 

[Alex T.]

Wow. I'm really sorry to hear about your problem. You mentioned that these were Bali and Fiji corals. I'm assuming that these were either wild or maricultured colonies? If so you can almost bank on them having flatworms and redbugs. I spotted flatworms a few years back and didn't do anything about it until I saw the damage they were doing. I bought a sixline wrasse and never had the problem again. For about 4 months I never saw him at feeding time but he was always fat. After those four months he was eating mysis and pellet with everyone else. To this day I catch him swimming under the acros and looking for something but I never seen him peck at anything anymore. Be careful with the dips as well. Follow direction to the letter. If you decide to pull and treat do it sooner rather than later. Many SPS too stressed from the pest will reach a point of no return and a dip could send them over the edge.

Good luck, and keep us posted.