What corals do AEFW chomp on?

[beerking]

I noticed some AEFW in my tank attacking a sunset milli and a blue acro. I was looking for some clarification as to what they'll eat. Below are some corals that I have that I'm unsure of. I want to do dips on these corals with bayer and also wanna know how often should I dip. If I kill the flatworms, I want to kill the new hatchlings before they reproduce.

Birdsnest
Green slimer
Orange digi
Blue Tort
Stylophora
Rainbow monti.

 

[dunc101]

Unfortunately, I have heard of incidents of them attacking pretty much every kind of SPS. If it's an SPS, you'll need to treat it. As far as how often and what to use, I would look at the bayer dip thread which is pretty long. It should have everything you need to know about getting rid of the flatworms and a good dipping schedule in it for you.

 

[dunc101]

Here is a good thread on bayer and AEFW. You can find quite a few of them around besides just the one below too.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2263491

 

[dg3147]

Rumor has it they affect Acroporia ONLY. Can someone confirm for the OP.

 

[Duna_]

In my tank a seriatopora was attacked at the lower parts, but I can't confirm it was the AEFW or the asterinas.

I found AEFW eggs and adults in:
- Acropora humilis (green).
- Acropora sp (blue).
- Acropora millepora.
- Acropora sp "tricolor".

They seem to love milleporas. I found 12 flatworms attached to a small millepora frag. But it was aparently in perfect health. The humilis had the eggs and was bleached. Some eggs were also found in the bigger millepora.

With Reef Dip (iodine) every single worm "run" off the acros in ten minutes dip, then I cleaned them and discarded the humilis with the eggs.

I have dipped again all acros everyweek, but no AEFW has been seen again ... I'll keep a closer look.
The acros have recovered their bright colors.

 

[footballdude2k3]

In my tank a seriatopora was attacked at the lower parts, but I can't confirm it was the AEFW or the asterinas.

I found AEFW eggs and adults in:
- Acropora humilis (green).
- Acropora sp (blue).
- Acropora millepora.
- Acropora sp "tricolor".

They seem to love milleporas. I found 12 flatworms attached to a small millepora frag. But it was aparently in perfect health. The humilis had the eggs and was bleached. Some eggs were also found in the bigger millepora.

With Reef Dip (iodine) every single worm "run" off the acros in ten minutes dip, then I cleaned them and discarded the humilis with the eggs.

I have dipped again all acros everyweek, but no AEFW has been seen again ... I'll keep a closer look.
The acros have recovered their bright colors.

This is pretty crazy, I actually came into here to post the complete opposite, I have seen them attack everything and leave the millepora alone, never touching it. IME they seem to prefer smoother acros, deepwater stuff. But that seems like it again just depends on the exact ones you have in your system. Good luck!

 

[Piper27]

ACROPORA eating flatworms. They don't eat birdsnest or stylos or montis, ect... Just because a coral ends in "pora" doesn't mean it's an acro.

 

[Duna_]

This is pretty crazy, I actually came into here to post the complete opposite, I have seen them attack everything and leave the millepora alone, never touching it. IME they seem to prefer smoother acros, deepwater stuff. But that seems like it again just depends on the exact ones you have in your system. Good luck!

Yes, I was also surprised because I had read the same, that they prefered short polip acros, but in my tank, the millepora were obviously attacked (pity not having taken pics).

The small millepora frag (finger size), which had 12 flatworms was aparently perfect, in fact I didn't want to dip it, it was looking nice, polips extended ... but when I dipped it, wow ... instantly the flat worms moved and fell and they are almost invisible, it was imposible to see them in the acro.
The bigger millepora had lost color and had parts of the skeleton at the base exposed and the eggs were clearly visible, as well as in the green humilis.

 

[MammothReefer]

They only eat acropora. They tend to go for some species first or only stick to those species when available (in my experience). It could be regional ie AEFW from Bali some how are more of aware of AEFW from bali, it could be that some acros are easy to eat, who knows really. I personally never saw AEFW go for Milipora as long as I had efflos, valida, or nana's in the tank. I don't think it's convenience as I've seen them go the distance passing over some acros to get to specific species.

 

[dowtish]

I completely agree that they will not eat anything but Acropora species. I pulled all acros out of my tank but left all other SPS like birdsnest, digitata, setosa, monti caps, and encrusting montis in, and they never touched them through the 12 week period where I was treating the acros in a separate tank.

I did find that for whatever reason they did not touch some of my acros. As I would dip and inspect each species for worms and eggs after each dip. They never were on my green slimer, my $500 efflo(which surprised me), or my red planet. My millies were covered with worms but they did not show bite marks. The smoothskins are very easy to see the damage done, but they will get on others and feed, it's just harder to see the bite marks when the coralite structure is very full as in a milliepora.

 

[MammothReefer]

I have a feeling and this is 100% speculation that there are different varieties of AEFW that may be regional which is why people see different patterns of behavior. In my tank for example I never saw a single one on any milipora and I had them in my system for close to 3 years however my efflos. Every time I dipped they were there (500 included). In an older tank that I had them in they were much more aggressive as well and did go for milis.

 

[Allmost]

my experience : Only Acros. they seem to love millies and "deep water" acros.

 

[AquariumService]

They attacked my blue and pink millie hard,... They where on yellow millie but didn't seem to harm it...same as red planet.... They left green slimmer alone.... Every other acro in my tank they hit hard...
No harm to stylopora, digitata, pociliapora, birds nest