Beginning of my battle against SPS pests

[ange062]

After a year of running my tank it was finally getting to the point of being full of the livestock that I really wanted, with everything looking great, colorful, happy, and healthy. I knew it was too good to be true... Sure enough something had to happen to keep me on my toes...

It started with clam pests a few weeks back, check out my thread on that here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2119984

Then I started to notice some funkiness with my SPS. It started with my ORA bellina which used to have beautiful vibrant colors, great PE, and insanely fast growth for an acro. Then it started to pale out, which at first I attributed to light intensity from its position in the tank under my Radion. A few weeks later, I noticed STN from the base upwards, which I attributed to "shading" of the lower parts. Before I knew it, the tissue loss has continued into well lit parts of the colony which left me slightly baffled.

It was at this point that my ORA tricolor valida RTN'd on me while I was at work one day. Left to it looking fine, came back to only 1/2" left at the tips!! Now I had to figure out what was going on... The other 14 SPS colonies were still looking good, vibrant color and great PE, but I needed to figure out what was going on quickly before I had more losses.

I pulled out the valida first. Didn't see any adverse signs but decided to clip off the remaining tips to see if they could be regrown. When I pulled out the bellina, it didn't take long to find the culprit:

AEFW eggmasses:

I hadn't noticed the cause earlier because the eggs weren't there yet, but I guess the AEFW had already been snacking for a while. I'm still unsure if this is what caused the RTN of the valida but I assume so.

I decided to cut my losses on the two affected corals. I cut off and discarded all but healthy tips. All of these tips got a 15-min lugols dip followed by a good "turkey baster blast" before being placed back in the display.

For now I will just be keeping a close eye on the tank and hope for the best since I don't have a QT tank. If I continue to see issues or affected corals, I may have to look into a more widespread solution like levamisole treatment. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[crispyreef]

Marine Melafix worked well when I battled AEFWs. Sorry to hear your news, good luck.

 

[Piper27]

Good luck, I had the same situation myself after I first started. So far I haven't dipped for a few months and everything looks better than ever. Not saying they are gone but... (If I say they are gone they will find a way to come back!) I used Revive and melafix a couple of times.

You can just pull everything out like I did every week and dip and put them back. I used a 20 long half full and could get everything dipped in three rounds.

 

[MammothReefer]

I've been basting / blating with an mj1200 it was working really well for a while I had some tabling acros though that I've been having a hard time getting under neath and missed a few aefw and they managed to propagate on me again this past week before I noticed. I went against my better judgment assuming my efflo that was infected could handle the dip (as they are normally hardy) but over dipped this piece and it's been slowly stn'n for the past week.. luckily it's about 10" across so I'm sure it will stop and heal at some point.. Just have to keep basting and stay away from the dips unless it's short and not to potent, that seems to work best for me as long as I'm diligent on getting every nook and cranny. Good luck, that Zeo snake oil keeps sounding like a better and better long shot.. ha.

 

[Stuginski]

Ange...

I kick off this bastards some months ago. I used melafix baths with pump blasting weekly (5ml per liter)! BUT...I set up some kind of "quarantine" conected to the main tank (just a small aquarium conected to my sump), and put all my acroporas there, for two months (8 baths). After that I returned with all my acros back to my display. I don´t loose any single frag.

I have some pictures and tips of this methods in the post of my reef (Gamma reef sps)

Good luck!!!

Hails from Brazil

D.

 

[ange062]

Thanks for the input everyone, I have been reading up a lot on the MANY possible cures out there. For now, I am going to try to stick with dips, I have the lugols already but may try out melafix, revive, or coralrx to see if I have any luck. So far, I have only seen 2 of 16 SPS colonies affected, and both were smooth skinned and purple in color.

I wanted to start up a thread to document progress on eradication and provide feedback on what I find works or doesn't work.

 

[cFloor]

Good luck ange062, I'm sure you'll win the battle. Quick question, as I'm new to SPS: Can you see these pests on your corals in your display tank, or are they small to the point where you have to remove and inspect your corals to see them? thanks

 

[ange062]

Good luck ange062, I'm sure you'll win the battle. Quick question, as I'm new to SPS: Can you see these pests on your corals in your display tank, or are they small to the point where you have to remove and inspect your corals to see them? thanks

Its hard to spot from the display, but possible. I havent actually seen any flat worms but rather noticed the eggs on the dead skeleton.

 

[ange062]

I picked up a One-Shot of CoralRX as well as a bottle of TLF ReVive yesterday. I also gave all of the colonies an in-depth lookover and it really looks like for now only the valida and bellina were affected. Upon closer inspection of the two infected colonies I can see the tell-tale bite marks from the AEFW. All of the eggs were cut off and removed from the tank.

I did not notice any color loss, eggs, bite marks, or others signs on my other SPS. Will be keeping a close watch and dipping immediately if anything is noticed.

As far as the frags of the two colonies that I have left, they seem to be getting a little color back after the dip and they have PE again. Will probably pull them out and CoralRX dip again tonight just to be on the safe side.

 

[Mike de Leon]

I would dip all of them NOW if I were you.

 

[msp307]

Melafix revive works wonders

 

[ange062]

I would dip all of them NOW if I were you.

That's a little easier said then done in my tank, unfortunately most are fully encrusted onto rock which means either breaking them off (and risking damage by doing that) or completely disassembling my tank to dip whole coral encrusted rocks. Neither of these is really a good solution, so will have to address this tactically as need arises.

Melafix revive works wonders

Melafix or ReVive? I have ReVive and CoralRX but haven't used either yet. Melafix was the 3rd choice on my list for dips, may pick up a bottle of that also.



I also decided to try a natural predation approach. My tank is not suited for a melanurus wrasse (too small, lidless, not enough sand, etc etc), but my LFS happened to have an assortment of flatworm eating nudibranches in stock. They had some orange/black/white and some skyblue/orange/white ones that I couldn't find any info on. Unfortunately no blue velvets which are known voracious flatworm predators. They did have some purple nudibranches which I could find some info on them being viable FW predators, so here is to hoping:

It's been roaming the tank and picking on things after a slow drip acclimation, so fingers crossed!

 

[tokendog]

From what I've read, the purple nudibranches eats primarily one particular type of sponge and rarely lives a past a couple of weeks in a home aquarium...

Not sure what your options are at this point, but it is also said that the nudibranch, when it dies, is known to release harmful toxins in to the aquarium that could possibly crash the entire tank.

Just an FYI. I'm not an expert on that matter by any means and wish you the best of luck either way.

Sad some of the most beautiful things we can add to our tank are also some of the most difficult to maintain...

 

[ange062]

I have read that the purple nudi's are FW eaters, though not as much so as the blue velvet's that I couldn't find locally... Perhaps they are sponge eaters, it's much harder to find info on them then the blue velvet's that's for sure. These have actually been at my LFS for over a month but I avoided them due to the complications of owning one.

I think between the age of my tank and big skimmer + carbon/GFO reactors I will hopefully be safe from a toxin release at death. But hopefully it doesn't end up croaking on me! Hate to see things die. I'm hoping to control the FW population then pass it on to a local reefer with the same issues.

Thanks for the tips, will let you know how it turns out. And agree, sucks that sometimes the most beautiful things are the hardest to keep!!!! My favorite fish are potters angel and blue tail tamarin wrasse, two of the hardest to keep! Ugggh!

 

[ange062]

Well it's been a month since my last post. I don't want to jinx it, but I haven't seen any signs of pests in my tank since adding the nudibranch.

I left the small frags of valida and bellina in the tank as AEFW "lures" and eventually removed them. They started to regain color, definitely had PE, and were starting to grow again, but I just didn't like the look of them in my very limited nano space.

The nudibranch only made it a few weeks, but was cool to look at while it lasted and seemed to do its job (or something completely unrelated happened!). No crash when it died, found it in one of my stylo's being slowly consumed.

At any rate, I haven't seen any signs of AEFW or other SPS pests in a month. Even my smooth skinned turaki acro is showing great color and growth. I note this specifically because it seems the first losses in my tank were smooth skin acros.

As a lesson learned, I have added a couple frags since and have been dipping using TLF Revive in prescribed dosage at the end of drip acclimation for ~10min. I also couple this with a strong turkey basting every other minute or so while the dip is going on. No adverse affects on those corals, the color doesn't change and the PE is back within a couple of hours in the tank. It is AMAZING how much junk falls off, especially on the Bali maricultured piece I added. Won't any anything without a dip first again. And one of these days I will find the space to setup a QT frag tank.

Also, the first step I take is a THOROUGH inspection at the LFS, any sign of necrosis or pests and the piece is automatically ruled out.

So, *fingers crossed* this is my last update on this thread

 

[dzhuo]

The purple nudibranch you have is a Hypselodoris bullocki (slight color variation) and is an exclusive sponge feeder. They don't eat anything else. The blue nudibranch you mention which feeds exclusive on flatworms is Chelidonura varians. Unfortunately, Chelidonura varians only feeds on planaria; not AEFW.

 

[sahin]

Excellent photos. Notice that some of the feckin FW's have left the eggs...the lighter eggs appear to have small holes on them too. The eggs that are darker; I bet the FW's are still inside the egg sack.

I feel for you my friend. I went through these feckers twice. First time I didnt even know what they were and lost my whole SPS collection to these buggers. Second time they made my acros very unhealthy and then I lost all the SPS to a different incident.

I just setup a new tank and I am not buying colonies anymore. I only buy 2 or 3 branched frags. I cut off the frag plus and the base of the coral.
With colonies you can dip, but you cannot see every side of every branch etc for the eggs.

I then dip and inspect every frag. So far this method has worked. I know the tell tale signs to look for etc.

Hopefully that cool looking nudibranch has done the job! Goodluck.

 

[ange062]

The purple nudibranch you have is a Hypselodoris bullocki (slight color variation) and is an exclusive sponge feeder. They don't eat anything else. The blue nudibranch you mention which feeds exclusive on flatworms is Chelidonura varians. Unfortunately, Chelidonura varians only feeds on planaria; not AEFW.

Thanks for the concise and informative post! I had a disclaimer in my last post because I wasn't sure if the nudibranch was actually helping or not and didn't want everybody to go out and buy one!! I guess this answers that question (that something completely unrelated to the nudibranch happened).

Sahin, read a few posts up. It's been a month with no further signs of AEFW in my tank. dzhuo has confirmed that it wasn't the nudibranch that helped though.