AEFW..... Predators is it any ?

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It most be some AEFW predators out there, that will eat this FW with out damaging the Acroporas (SPS) corals . All I read so far looks like is no guarantee chemical treatment for them so far with out killing most of the acros.
We need to find some good predator .
Any one have a fish or any other sea animal in your tank that will eat or kill this AEFW please share your experience. Thank you.

 

[twon8]

i have heard six line wrasses along with other types of wrasses such as leopard`

 

[MSHUR]

I have 2 6-liners and banana wrasses,plus i am doing pro-cure treatment to get rid of those bustards.
so far i am having luck with this combo. also,local reefer recomended a spider crab,but i dunno about it)

 

[jackson6745]

I am told arrow crabs do a great job

 

[Chrisrush]

I picked up a Christmas Wrasse last weekend to hopefully knock down the AEFWs. I doubt that he will get them all, but if he can slow them down, then I might be able to treat the affected corals for a nice 1-2 punch.

Chris

 

[Mchava]

this is just something that I came up with just the other day. What I have notice is the every person that did the redbug treatment got the flatworms. Now check this out, the treatment for redbugs kills the acrocrabs that live inside the acros right. So here is what I think has happened. Since we all wanted to get rid of the redbugs we did not realy care about the acrocrabs but what if the acrocrabs ate the flatworms but now that there are no crabs the flatworms have taken over. I think that the reason most of us did not know that we had flatworms was that the crabs were keeping them at bay. I came up with this theory the other day when I was looking at my across, every single one that did not have a crab had flat worms and all the once that had the crabs did not. I also noticed that on one of my coral that I was 100% sure that had flat worms has not had any since a crab started to live there. Strange right. Sorry for such a long post but I think the we need to find a way of testing this out. Just a thought.
Mario

 

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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7210385#post7210385 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mchava
this is just something that I came up with just the other day. What I have notice is the every person that did the redbug treatment got the flatworms. Now check this out, the treatment for redbugs kills the acrocrabs that live inside the acros right. So here is what I think has happened. Since we all wanted to get rid of the redbugs we did not realy care about the acrocrabs but what if the acrocrabs ate the flatworms but now that there are no crabs the flatworms have taken over. I think that the reason most of us did not know that we had flatworms was that the crabs were keeping them at bay. I came up with this theory the other day when I was looking at my across, every single one that did not have a crab had flat worms and all the once that had the crabs did not. I also noticed that on one of my coral that I was 100% sure that had flat worms has not had any since a crab started to live there. Strange right. Sorry for such a long post but I think the we need to find a way of testing this out. Just a thought.
Mario

I had redbugs and treaded my tank 5 times I need to because i was not using enough interceptor , that was two years a go.
I don't have any FW or AEFW .
Just that lately many reefers have this problem and i try to see if any one come up with something to kill or eat the AEFW .
Thank you for your feed back about the acro crabs, that is good to know , you have no AEFW when is a Acro crab guarding the acropora.
Thank you.

 

[delv]

Arrow crabs? Good to hear Rich...I might get a few.
I also hear Levamisole kills them.

d.

 

[Travis]

Interesting report on the arrow crabs. Has anyone seen them picking FW's off an acro? I have always thought these guys were pretty cool but just needed an excuse to "need" one in my tank. I am treating all my acros in quarantine right now but I want to have a small army of possible predators in the display afterwards "just in case". You can never be too safe.

I don't think the FW's are a result of treating for red bugs and killing acro crabs. I don't doubt one bit that the acro crabs would keep a colony free of the FW's. Buy how many people have colonies with acro crabs? Or how many had them before interceptor? My tank was started with 98% frags, only 2 wild colonies and only one of those had an acro crab. Even tanks with a lot of wild colonies will not have an acro crab in every one as they do not always come with them, and sometimes the crabs disappear/die for no known reason. Acro crabs may help keep one colony FW free but that does nothing for the rest of the colonies in the tank. And I don't think we will ever see a time when acro crabs will be available for sale without having to buy the colony with it, althought this is my dream.

 

[Mchava]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7210949#post7210949 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Travis
And I don't think we will ever see a time when acro crabs will be available for sale without having to buy the colony with it, althought this is my dream.

Tell me about it. Ive gone to about 8 lfs and no one want to sell them . I would be nice to be able to get them.

 

[jackson6745]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7210774#post7210774 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by delv
Arrow crabs? Good to hear Rich...I might get a few.
I also hear Levamisole kills them.

d.

HAHA

Thanks for the tip D

 

[gflat65]

I did notice the AEFW's after a red bug treatment, but have never had an acro crab... It does seem as though there is a tie to the RB treatment, even if it is just coincidental...

 

[ReeferMac]

All my corals were frags, so I never had crabs. Treated for the bugs, got the worms. {shrug}
Maybe the bugs, keep the worms at bay? :lol:

- Mac

 

[DrBDC]

Even if the little bandit acro crabs don't kill the fw's they're a really neat sybiosis. I wish there was a source for them. Someone out there has to be farming them.

 

[MiddletonMark]

Aren't AEFW's reputed to come with/from some ocean aquaculture pieces? [so the rumor goes ...]

Don't these same pieces often have Acro crabs [mine have] ....

Just throwing out the idea.

 

[cfishrun]

I just put something together...

Last I remember reading about the RBs, they would tend to avoid A. mille. Sifting through the 3 major AEFW threads, it has come up that A. mille seems to be one of the primary targets for AEFWs. Could this just be a coincidence?

 

[Travis]

I found AEFW's in my tank for the first time before the tank was ever treated for RB's. Every frag that went into this tank was treated for RB's but so the tank didn't need to be treated. I don't think there is a tie to Interceptor treatments and FW's. JMO

Red bugs have no problem with A. millepora. I've had them on a mille before. They do seem to go after other acros first and hit them harder, but they won't avoid a mille given the chance.

I have a feeling that people may be thinking there is a correlation between the RB's and FW's due to the time frames where these 2 pests were discovered. The RB's came up about 2.5 years ago with the Interceptor treatment popping up about 2 years ago. Since this is an in-tank treatment, all of us have probably treated our tanks by now, or if we set our tanks up after the treatment came out, all of us should be treating all acros for RB's before putting them in the tank. The FW's just came up here in the US about 18 months ago. There were some sparse reports of them before then but a lot of people started noticing them in the last 18 months. So people really weren't aware of the FW's back when we were battling the RB's with no treatment available. I think the FW's have either:
A)always been there and just not noticed becuase they are almost impossible to see
or
B)been common pests that are location specific to an are that we have started importing corals from in the recent past such as possible Bali, Vanuatu, Indonesia, etc.
If you think about it, nobody knew about the red bugs until about 2.5 years ago. That doesn't mean they weren't there all along. I think it is more likely that they were there all along but went under our radars due to their small size.

 

[cfishrun]

I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t think there is necessarily a tie to the Interceptor treatment itself. I just found it interesting that A. mille seems to be last on the preference list for RBs, while it is one of the first to show signs of AEFW damage. So while the tie-in could be a decreased QT practice for A. mille, I find it more plausible that the AEFWs are able to establish themselves on an A. mille while the RBs are busy nesting in other Acros. (Out of curiosity, has anyone found RBs and AEFWs on the same coral? Could the RBs out-compete the AEFWs?) This ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œobservationââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ isnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t limited to our aquariums (which youââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢re right Travis, should be RB free by now), but extends primarily to the aquaculture facilities where both of these pests seem to be originating from. So the bottom line, is there a greater chance of having AEFWs on A. mille; if so, is it related to the RBââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s hosting preference?

 

[cfishrun]

I'd like throw in a little personal experience...

Two weeks ago I realized that my dKH had drifted up from around 9.0 to about 12.0. During this same period, my tank's avg. and max daily temperature had drifted up about 1.5 degrees (my apt. complex hadn't switched over the A/C from heat).

For over a year I had a Bali aquacultured A. mille in my main tank; 3-4 weeks ago, I moved it to my frag tank. The coral's growth had always been extremely slow and had long since lost its vivid color (BRIGHT green -> yellow/brown). It was no longer a "showpiece" but I still didn't want to throw it away, so it went to the frag tank. Anyways, when the dKH and temp creeped up, both pieces (I split it in two to experiment with lighting needs; one was on a high shelf, the other was down low) got RTN. The lower piece (also in an area of much lower flow) got it very bad and was removed from the tank; the higher piece didn't look TOO bad (it was more like STN), so I decided to keep an eye on it. On the same day I noticed another Bali aquacultured piece in my main display had started to get STN.

Within 4-5 days I decided to act upon the coral in the main tank b/c I spotted what appeared to be AEFW eggs! I removed it from the tank and blasted it with a turkey baste. Sure enough, I had 3-4 flatworms pop off (2 types actually - one was completely clear, the other looked more brown like the ones Bigred and weatherson captured here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=756327).

Last night I went Round 2 with chilled SW + Lugol's. 1-2 more small FWs came off the coral that was in the main display, and 9-10 came off the last piece of A. mille. I didn't find any eggs on either piece, but the A. mille was removed and put into a test bowl with the AEFWs for observation.

FWIW, I haven't had any Acro crabs for almost a year, but I do have a Sixline Wrasse in the main display. My only thoughts are these: the fish kept the FWs at bay, but once the A. mille was moved to the frag tank, they were able to populate. Then, the elevated dKH and temp may have stressed the corals, making them easy targets for the AEFWs. Although, it could all just be a coincidence; maybe I inadvertently added the AEFWs here recently after a local trade or frag swap - after which I did QT, but not for 3 months like One Eye has suggested.

HOPEFULLY I've spotted this early enough to do some damage to the AEFW's life cycle. If this is now isolated to the frag tank, do the FWs have the ability to migrate to the main display? I would think that the bodies or eggs would get destroyed by the return pumps (Poseidon T1s).

 

[Travis]

I read a post by One Eye where he stated that the FW's will migrate to different displays sharing the same sump. Our pumps do less damage to this kind of stuff than we think. Small stuff like the FW's and pods flow through with the water rather than being chopped up. Some Dr./scientist did a study on pod survival rate through pumps and found the survival rate to be very high. I would think the survival rates would be similar for the FW's.