New acro worm parasite

I couldn't help not to reply back to you on this.It's more than Acro's they like.On my LPS tank I've scene these same worms where they eat away at my Elegance coral Brain, Echinophyllia's.On all my LPS stuff,they seem to chew away out the other edges,and work there way to the center of LPS coral.Leaving totally dead tissue as they move on.

Now here is the real kicker.I tried Coral dips,at strong ratios.It seems to stop for awhile,then the cork screw worms appear again.I've even tried a dip, massive cuts ahead of the dead tissue here.Then Super glue the fresh cuts.No luck there.
Just trying to say here,they like LPS and SPS corals.And Coral dip doesn't kill them.

And in the long run trying to figure this out.All of these corals are dead skeltons now.

I'm sure more folks will chime in here also,after seeing your photo's like me.At least they aren't in my SPS.Keep us posted what they might be.And what to use as a dip?
 
I recently special ordered an ORA fuzzy yellow Marshall Islands acro and I could not figure out what was wrong with it. I thought some sort of STN. On closer inspection I have found some worms. My LFS did not open the bag it was shipped to them in, as I picked it up less than an hour after it arrived. So it came directly from the source in my case. I am going to try a quick 10 to 15 second RO dip. Hope I don't kill the acro, but I don't want it to spread.
 
I tossed the acro chunks back into the isolation tank to save for another day of fun, but I still had 2 worms in the microscope dish. Indeed they were corkscrewing away....although not getting very far. Before calling it a night, I figured I might as well throw some stuff in there to see if I can shut them down.

I tried a couple bamboo skewer dips of Kent Super Buffer. The thought being that about 2 weeks ago I inadvertantly left the co2 off on my reactor, ultimately dropping the tank down to about 5-6dKH. I hadn't noticed the roughness on the stag before then, but it was probably just coincidence. Bumping up the alk did nothing, they kept twisting away.

Next I tried a skewer dip of SeaChem Reef Dip, swirling the iodine soaked stick around the twisting worms - no change.....so I did it again a minute later. This time I actually touched the worms with the Dip dipped skewer and that finished them off. Hold on.....yeah, they haven't flinched in the last 10 minutes or since since the second Reef Dip hit.

Reefflections - What did you use and what was your unfortunately unsuccessful protocal with your dip treatement?
 
rharr21 - Funny you should mention that. I got a Mashall Fuzzy Yellow Acro direct from ORA about a month ago......and it's the only coral from that order that isn't doing well....STNing. I did Reef Dip it on the way in. I think I know who's going under the scope tomorrow.
 
I used Sea Chem like you mentioned.And left the coral in the solutions about 5 minutes longer.To get Max. method out of the dip.I've done it numerous times with this method.Like I said it seem to work for awhile,but reappeared again:mad: The tank has a sand bed being it's a LPS tank.Possible living in the sand or rock also?If you use RO dip especially if it's and acro,you could smoke the frag right in from of your eyes.
I hope this post doesn't turn out like the Acro Flatworm nightmare.Which I was able to beat.
 
Yeah right, like I was going to wait til tomorrow...

Here's the ORA Fuzzy Yellow:
IMG_2302a.jpg


IMG_2301a.jpg

Needless to say, he's in the isolation tank now too. Question now becomes, what to do about the rest of the 80 some odd stony corals in the tank.....
 
What's bad about this is ORA sells to just about every reef store in the U.S. And if the frags sit in these stores,chance are they hitch hike a ride to the other corals also.
Do you have any LPS corals with your SPS?Like I said this is where mine are found.Keep a close eye on any LPS corals you might have in there?They surely like the ones with a meaty flesh to them like I mentioned on previous page.It probably should be posted in the LPS forum also,because they aren't limited to just acros.
 
Do you know anyone without an ora coral?

So I assume these worms come out at all times during the day or night?
 
Tagging along, this is some crazy stuff! Hope more people can chime in and provide more info because these worms sound pretty serious. Hopefully more info will come out about them and what to do.

Mike
 
Thank god I'm not going crazy! I have had them on my torch, then favia, and they are killing my elegance. I dipped them all and the torch and favia are recovering, the elegance I am pretty sure is lost. I don't have a camera like the one you used so no one knew what I was talking about. I have no idea what to do. It is obviously in the system and treating individually isn't working. I will be setting up a new tank soon and planned to move everything over but now I think not. Tagging along to hopefully get an answer.:mad2:
 
I'm trying to educate myself on mesenterial filaments as that pic above looks exactly like what I'm seeing only I don't have any huge clusters like that.
From: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1927&articleid=2954

"Mesenterial Filaments: In addition to sweeper tentacles, several hard coral species can produce mesenterial filaments (also termed mesenteric filaments) from their stomachs. Corals of the genera Favia, Favites, Scolymia, Pavona, and Cynarina all have this capacity (Chadwich, 1987). These filaments can kill or devour other coral polyps through a process similar to digestion. Some corals even have the capacity to produce both sweeper tentacles and mesenterial filaments, enabling them to fight a battle on several fronts (Wallace, 1984)."

My ORA Fuzzy yellow was originally doing fine - nice poylps, fuzzy indeed. Then it fell head first on top of a large green favia. I recall finiding it in the morning so it is possible that it was there for a while. It looked ok other than a burn spot on one of the sections that was touching the favia. I put it back and a day later it fell again. At this point, it's once fuzzy poylps were tiny and tissue started to recede from the base and other shaded parts of the acro. I moved it to a new location away from the favia where it would be more stable but it's never really recovered.

I'm wondering if the acro was fine until it fell on the favia which triggered the favia to attack with mesenteric filaments. These filaments may have blown around the tank and happened upon an opportunity to lodge in the stag acro that I originally found the "infection" on. This opportunity may have been present on account of my accidental Ca and Alk drop stressing out other corals.

This point from the above description looks exactly like what I saw under the scope on the stag:

"These filaments can kill or devour other coral polyps through a process similar to digestion."

I put a post on Borneman's Marine Depot forum. I'll report back if I get any good info.
 
Scratch that above link, it's not consistent. Here's the pic and description I wanted:
normal_Horoszowski_CELL_01.jpg

Mesenterial filaments of the Scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata (x40) ©Horoszowski

Scleractinian corals use a modified element of the mesentery, the mesenterial filament of the gastrovascular cavity, to defend against territorial invesion by conspecifics or coelenterates of other species. Mesanterial filaments can be extruded through temporary openings of the body wall and from the polyp mouth. I observed the penetration of a branch of Stylophora pistillata by a Lithophaga bivalve under a microscope. During this observation I noticed the extrusion of the mesanterial filament from the body
 
Thank you jbundas for the amazing photos and your diligent research. This is an excellent thread. I have seen mesenterial filaments, but never so up close and personal. :)
I hope your corals recover.
 
Mesenterial filaments = coral guts. A particularly nasty way to fight a war, I would think, puking your guts and digestive juices onto someone, but seems pretty effective. I think it's really odd that they can come out of other parts of the polyp rather than just out of the mouth. Do you think that polyps can voluntarily open up holes in other places and close them off again when they don't need them?
 
My biggest question is this: Can the mesenterial filaments still "squirm" after being detached from the coral? I would think not but may be wrong... if they cannot move independantly then how would we explain jbundas seeing the "worms" move while separated from the coral?
 
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