Acro Eating Flat Worms , it's on.

[jhale]

This thread is the start of my battle with some of the toughest reef nasties we have found yet. don't let this happen to your tank!

Out of 6 acros dipped today three had aewf's on them and two of them had eggs.

 

[jhale]

flat worms

up close , note you will never see them like this in your tank.
on the coral they are just about invisible.

 

[jhale]

next to a dime for size comparison

 

[jhale]

some of the first signs, bite marks

 

[jhale]

out of the water, look close

nature did a great job with the camouflage job

 

[jhale]

not the kind of eggs you want to find in your tank !

the scary part is these eggs were not visible till after the coral was taken out of the dip. that's how good a job the worms do hiding.

 

[jhale]

insert Jaws music here...

run acropora, run!

 

[jhale]

My Treatment So Far

Tropic Marine Pro Coral Cure

1ml / 200 ml of tank water.
Leave in dip for 15 to 20 minutes.
After about a minute if there are worms on the coral they will
begin to peel off. By the end of the 20 minutes they will be dissolved.

The eggs are not that easy to get rid of.
It's better to cut the base off and frag to coral rather then try to scrape the eggs off. By that point the tissue is gone and the coral would have a tough time making it anyway.

another argument for Quarantining all incoming frags and colonies!

 

[alrha]

my gosh, Jon, those guys are mean. at least the dip can take care of them, but that will only help for those corals you can easily remove and dip.

why is there a need to QT frags and colonies? wouldnt it be enough to just dip them before adding to the tank?

 

[masterswimmer]

Jon, that's unbelievable. I had to really study that pic with the AEFW on the coral itself before I saw it. What do you do with colonies encrusted on rocks the size of footballs? Or even tougher, colonies the size of footballs on rocks the size of basketballs?

Good luck on your mission. I hope you're successful. Kill them ba$tards!

swimmer

 

[jhale]

my gosh, Jon, those guys are mean. at least the dip can take care of them, but that will only help for those corals you can easily remove and dip.

why is there a need to QT frags and colonies? wouldnt it be enough to just dip them before adding to the tank?

the problem is that eggs may be on the new colonies, not so much on frags.
from my reading the dip will do nothing to the eggs. so it is best to qt the colonies for at least a few weeks to give any eggs time to hatch.

I would dip once when you get the colony, then qt and dip again to make sure.

 

[jhale]

Russ, you buy a lot of pro coral cure, and dip in a large bucket.

I forgot to mention I rinsed the coral as best I could in tank water to remove the dip before putting it back in the tank. the less dip residue, the less iodine gets in the tank.

 

[masterswimmer]

the problem is that eggs may be on the new colonies, not so much on frags.
from my reading the dip will do nothing to the eggs. so it is best to qt the colonies for at least a few weeks to give any eggs time to hatch.

I would dip once when you get the colony, then qt and dip again to make sure.

Understood Jon. At what stage can the newly hatched AEFW lay new eggs? I'd hate to dip upon receipt of the frag/colony. QT it. Dip it again, but the hatched FW has now laid more new eggs. :banghead:

swimmer

 

[Pedro]

J,

That is an excellent illustration. So glad you took the pics to show us. Looking at the eggs, they were getting ready to unleash some more fury! Good thing you decided to battle them now. Hope you win the war.

Any chance that the eggs are laid on the bare rock, and not on the coral? What happens then?

This is the stressful side of this hobby. Now we need to setup QT tanks for fish and corals. Grrrr!

 

[jhale]

Understood Jon. At what stage can the newly hatched AEFW lay new eggs? I'd hate to dip upon receipt of the frag/colony. QT it. Dip it again, but the hatched FW has now laid more new eggs. :banghead:

swimmer

I'm not sure Russ. It is recomended to dip once a week for a minimum of three weeks. I'll get the info and post it here.

At this point I'm trying to decide if I'm going to dip every acro in my tank.

 

[jhale]

J,

That is an excellent illustration. So glad you took the pics to show us. Looking at the eggs, they were getting ready to unleash some more fury! Hope you win the battle.

Any chance that the eggs are laid on the bare rock that is not treated?

this is being debated, from the threads I read the prevailing belief is that the eggs are laid on the food source in the protected nooks of the acro's bases.

which is a good reason to chop off aquacultured colonies bases.

 

[Dace]

jon, i feel for ya. if you need help taking tank apart and dipping please let me know

 

[jhale]

thanks Dave, so far I'm out two colonies.

But the other acros show no signs of worms.
I will be dipping more next week.

 

[cali_reef]

Cool pics, more reason to get only fresh cut frags so you can dip and glue. I think wild colonies are how these were introduced into the hobby.

 

[spykes]

heh john sorry for the bad news but you seem to handle the situation. You gotta dip all of them> frags with too many eggs arent even worth the dip just throw them away