AEFW around town?

[chrisaggie]

I have been noticing for more than a year now that the acro eating flat worm (AEFW) have been slowly making there way around town. I had them about 6 month back (maybe more, but that's when I noticed) but was lucky (very very lucky!) to find a fish that ate them. I know several other club members have/had problems with them. I wanted to start this thread for 2 reasons: 1) to educate about these pests & 2) to see how many club members tanks they are in. I think they may pose a serious problem to sps keepers in the future.

The AEFW is not your normal flatworm. You can not kill it with flat worm exit (at least not at normal dosage) & basically nothing but manual removal kills the eggs (this is why they are so tough to get rid of). They are very very very very (very) hard to see!!! Much harder than red bugs. Usually you know you have them because the bottom of some corals with be splotchy and you may see some very small brown egg sacks on the dead acro tissue, usually on the bottom of the coral also. They usually take months and months to get established and you probably won't realize you have them for a long time after they get in your tank.

Anyone have any experience with these guys?

 

[Kewlworm]

Chris, what type of fish eats these nasty pests?

Thanks!
Gary

 

[chrisaggie]

Well, in general no fish have been found to eat them on a regular basis, but I "taught" my Christman wrasse to eat them. I blew them off the corals with a power head for several weeks. The fish gobbled them up in the water collumn. The Christmas wrasse finally learned to eat them off the corals. I have never actually seen him with a flatworm in his mouth, but I have seen him pecking at the acros. Ever since I have seen this I have not found any AEFW or eggs (and I'm pretty good at spotting them).

 

[cschweitzer]

I know melanurus wrasse, aka tailspot or Hoevan's wrasse will eat monti eating nudi's. Would a blue velvet nudi eat them as they do eat the brown FW's?

 

[Rogger Castells]

Chris, As you know, I started treating everything going in my tank for the last few months with Levamisol, which kills the AEFW but not the eggs. I spent 3 hours yesterday aftger you left inspecting all the corals that were loose and did not find any worms or eggs, but I don't discard they could still be there.
I have a large size 6 line wrasse that I constantely see picking on the coral bases, This could be my lucky fish, but, like you, I have never seen him with any worms hanging from his mouth either, he is big, fat and healthy though.
Like you said, it is very hard to spot this critters I have found a threat in RC that has some amazing pics for everyone to understand what you are talking about and hopefully for everyone to start looking for them. here it is
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=756327

 

[chrisaggie]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7921430#post7921430 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cschweitzer
I know melanurus wrasse, aka tailspot or Hoevan's wrasse will eat monti eating nudi's. Would a blue velvet nudi eat them as they do eat the brown FW's?

nope

 

[cschweitzer]

Didn't think so, but thought I'd ask.