Hammer coral covered with slugs

[marietrg]

My hammer coral is covered with small 5 mm x 2 mm flat pink slug looking things. It looks like they have a symbiotic relationship but I'm a little concerned the coral is infested. At the same time the coral appears healthy. I will try to post a picture later. Is this something I should be concerned about?

A few of the "slugs" crawl on the glass but the concentrate on the specific hammer coral.

 

[BIG_KAHUNA]

pictures please!

 

[BIG_KAHUNA]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2031970

look anything like the first picture?

 

[Javeo]

If they are flat Id say they are probably flatworms. My hammer was infested with them as well, a freshwater dip or coralRX dip will get rid of them. My hammer opened up better once I had gotten rid of them, I think they are parasitic.

 

[kingfisher62]

Hard to tell with out a pic but I am guessing flatworms also.
or possibly some sort of nudibranch.

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

If its an infestation.. I would say flatworms.. Get rid of them ASAP. They will smother the coral

 

[thegrun]

If they are flat Id say they are probably flatworms. My hammer was infested with them as well, a freshwater dip or coralRX dip will get rid of them. My hammer opened up better once I had gotten rid of them, I think they are parasitic.

If you confirm they are flatworms, a simple dip will not kill the FW eggs, only the adult worms. You should dip the coral, but will almost certainly need to treat the entire tank with Flatworm eXit or a similar medication. There are several threads on RC describing in detail the treatment process.

 

[Javeo]

My experiance has been that the freshwater dip killed all the fw, I only ever saw one after that which I manually removed. That was almost a year ago and no new flatworms have been seen. Im not a fan of treating the entire tank with killing chemicals.

 

[marietrg]

Here is the picture - not that clear but you can see flat slug looking things hanging off the tops of the hammer coral

 

[marietrg]

Yeah they look like some kind of flat worm looking at the pics around the internet. So I just put the hammer coral in RO/DI water briefly and they fall off??

 

[marietrg]

Wow... Dipped the coral in RO/DI water and hundreds of worms fell off. Here is the result:

 

[Lynnmw1208]

eep! :eek1: you may have to dip again once your coral recovers from this. be sure to dip all new corals before adding them to your tank! I use coral Rx. you just never know what you are going to get.

 

[89Foxbody]

Gross. I had a horrible flatworm infestation in my reef and I took to siphoning them out with a piece of air tubing. It works awesome. You siphon out barely any water but are able to get tons of the worms out and the tiny hose produces a very strong pinpoint siphon which removes them easily. Plus you can reach into all the small areas. I probably have 1/20th of the worms I used to have. I siphon them out every few days.

 

[tkeracer619]

You are going to need to treat your entire system for flatworms.

READ a ton on treatment.

FOLLOW the instructions to a T.

Siphon them out for a week or two before doing the treatment to reduce the numbers as they release toxins that can nuke tanks as they die.

 

[mrstihl]

Looks like red planaria. Of all the pests you can have these are pretty harmless, just a little annoying. If you are still aquiring fish, most wrasse species will make short work of themm

 

[marietrg]

The thing is they were only on the hammer coral. I'd see them occasionally on the glass but 99% were on the coral alone. It was like they had a symbiotic relationship. As you can see from the picture the hammer coral looked pretty healthy. These guys were on the tops of the hammers. We will see what happens...

 

[Javeo]

Mine were all on one hammer as well, even though I have 5 different hammer colonies they all stayed on the Aussie hammer. I got the same flatworm stew when I dipped my coral. Be very careful with RO dips, make sure the temp and pH are matched to your tank.

 

[scapes]

The thing is they were only on the hammer coral. I'd see them occasionally on the glass but 99% were on the coral alone. It was like they had a symbiotic relationship. As you can see from the picture the hammer coral looked pretty healthy. These guys were on the tops of the hammers. We will see what happens...

trust us, they're everywhere in your tank. they hide in places youll never see

 

[tylernt]

Be very careful with RO dips, make sure the temp and pH are matched to your tank.

How do you bring RO up to a pH of 8.0?

 

[Javeo]

pH buffer!