Are these Flatworms

[Reefable]

Hi Guys
So lately I have been watching my valida bonsai colony loosing its color from the base to the top. I was inspecting it closely and found these small brownish thing on one of the colony's stem. Not sure what are these. Can you guys identify IF it's a pest of any kind and what are my treatment options. Thank you.

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[swk]

Hard to be certain with these pics, but yeah, certainly looks like aefw eggs

 

[Piper27]

Looks like a big patch of eggs and lots of bitemarks on the underside of the coral. Only way to tell for sure is to baste it and see if works fly off or try and dip it to see if they are present. If you find them don't freak out and do anything crazy because they are not as bad as most say. That colony looks pretty bad off so I would definitely scrape the eggs and dip any others that look that bad to lower numbers.

 

[reefmutt]

Certainly looks like aefw eggs.. as piper said, don’t freak out.
I’ve had amazing success controlling them with peppermint shrimp. They seek out and eat eggs very aggressively. Adult worms not so much..
Good idea to dip the worse off Corals, if you can..

 

[Reefable]

Thanks guys...i did dipped the colony in the Revive last night and turkey basted it thoroughly...yes i did saw some White Flat Worms falling off the colony and within mins they were dead...The spots which i took the pics of didnt seem like eggs at all..i have heard eggs are usually green in color..i tried to brush and remove them using a plastic card and they would'nt come off seems like bite marks...anyways it was only this coral that i see problem in my tank everything else is doing just great and healthy looking...People freak out and ask you to remove all the colonies and dip etc which i think is a bad way to deal with the situation..We forget that we keep an ecosystem in our glass boxes and an ecosystem has its own pests you just need to control them in a more manageable way....i have a Labout Fairy Wrasse, a Solar Wrasse and will be adding a yellow corris as well..the affected is now in a tank with a corris wrasse so i will see how that goes...thanks for chiming in....

 

[Reefable]

So I removed a healthy piece of valida from the other side of the tank and dipped it in revive and after shaking a bit this are the critters that came off..have a look let me know what you guys think

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[DesertReefT4r]

I see bit marks on those last pics for sure.

 

[Reefable]

I am going to dip my acros for the six weeks until I don't see any on them...do I need to worry abt the softies and lps too


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[Reefable]

So guys what is the right procedure to do this...i was told to take out any acros i have in the tank and place them in a holding tank for 6-8 weeks...maintain the chemistry as per display with high flow, lights etc..Dip them in Revive weekly or biweekly and after the qt period place the corals back in the tank. Also do i have to make seperate revive solution for each individual coral to dip or make a bucket and dip them all in that solution...

OR

instead of taking the acros and holding them in a different tank just take them out of display every week and dip them in Revive and put them back in Display. keep doing it untill you dont see any flat worms falling off acros?

 

[Piper27]

Dip every acro in your display and place it back where it was afterward. No need to dip lps or stylos or birdsnest or anything not acropora. The patch in your first pics looks like eggs, I would glue over them just to make sure.
To get rid of them dip ever 6 or 7 days without fail and without skipping any frags or Colonies no matter what. Use one big tank and dip everything you can at one time. Remember how long each piece has been dipping and then use a wrinse bucket to shake off any worms that are still stuck to the corals. Don't leave coral sit in the wrinse bucket.
There is no need to set up a qt tank, this will only cause instability and you need the tank stable so the corals stay healthy. Infestations happen when you don't know you have had aefw for a long time or your corals are not happy and the aefw take advantage of that.

 

[power boat jim]

It is advisable to cut off any and throw out any branch or area that has eggs on it. Dipping in revive works. However, it does not kill eggs and it may dull the coral or in some cases where its already in a compromised state it may stress it out completly.

If eggs are found under and around the base of the coral scrape and chop away what you can see then dip the bottom of the coral up to the healthy tissue in water mixed with acid for a few seconds, then dip it to the same point in fresh water. That will kill the eggs you may miss. The base of the coral will probably die off but grow back later. Good luck with the process.

 

[TheDeepEnd]

Cut off any dead skeleton and dip every acro in the system weekly for at least a month, 6 weeks is better. Vigorously shake each coral in both the dip and the rinse bucket. If there's any encrusting on the rocks when you take the acros out to dip, cover it up with glue. I've used Bayer to dip before and had good luck.

 

[Jamesmost]

Not fun...

 

[ecam]

Def flatworms.

 

[Reefable]

Thanks guys it's been 2 weeks and I have been dipping them in revive and placing them on the sand bed. I have thrown the colony with the eggs just to be safer. On my week no.2 dip I didn't find any aefw on my acros and they have started colouring up with visible growth signs so thts a good thing. I have added some wrasses as well. So I am approaching this with revive and natural predation both ways...


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