AEFW and Acropora Bugs in my tank?

[Nico_I99]

Hello,
I'm (once again) struggling with poor PE and some tissue loss on my Acropora.

First of all my tank parameters and my setup:

430L Tank Volume

Very recent ICP:

Fauna Marin Lab

high-level ICP, IP and titration water analysis

lab.faunamarin.de

KH, CA and Po4 are fairly stable and I measure about the same as the ICP does.
What I'm dosing:

5 drops of Fauna Marin MinS,
3ml of Fauna Marin Amin

Fauna Marin balling light:
220ml KH,
30ml Ca,
10ml

Temp:
25°C

Light:
ATI Hybrid with 2x Blue Plus and 2x Coral Plus. The T5 is running at 100%, the LED clusters at 75%. Light is on for 10h30, with the last 2 hours being my blue light phase. The Acropora are sitting at ~350 PAR.

Skimmer:
Bubble Magus Curve A8

Flow:
2x Tunze 6095,
1x Jebao MLW 30

Fish List:
1x Siganus vulpinus,
1x Centropyge bispinosa,
1x Salarias fasciatus,
1x Pseudocheilinus hexataenia,
2x Pterapogon kauderni,
5x chromis viridis

I'm also running Carbon and UVC 24/7


So, it all started quite a few months back where one of my Acropora started to lighten up and the PE got worse and worse. It is still growing but not as fast though. Here are some pictures of that happening and a video of some kind of critter moving around on the Acropora at night (don't mind the tissue loss around the basal disc, that happend because I misplaced a pocillopora):

Here are some Pictures (how it currently looks and how it did look a week or so ago) and a Video of a Millepora frag during nighttime to highlight the spots I've seen on it:

And here are two pictures of one of the Flatworms(perhaps AEFW) I've found on the Coral (or the plug, who knows) in my dip after dipping the Frag. They also linger around on the Rockwork and the Glass, I can't see a lot of them though:



Not all Acropora seem to be doing bad though, here are some more Pictures:


And a full tank shot (yup, looks messy - fighting with Derbesia sp.):


What I'm currently doing is dipping the Acropora i can actually grab out of the tank every 14 days and use a turkey baster on the ones i can't take out easily. I've never actually blew flatworms directly out of the coral as far as i can tell but i usually get a few off of the rockwork. I've also never seen any egg clusters, neither on the rockwork nor on the coral themselves.

So, could anyone with more experience than me help me out with my current issue? Does this look like AEFW and/or Bugs to you guys? I'd greatly appreciate any advice given. I'm starting to worry about my Acros

If I'm missing any kind of information let me know, I'll provide whatever necessary!


Kind regards and thanks in advance,
Nico

 

[DDenny]

Bump for you to keep it up top. Someone will answer it sure.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello,
I'm (once again) struggling with poor PE and some tissue loss on my Acropora.

First of all my tank parameters and my setup:

430L Tank Volume

Very recent ICP:

Fauna Marin Lab

high-level ICP, IP and titration water analysis

lab.faunamarin.de

KH, CA and Po4 are fairly stable and I measure about the same as the ICP does.
What I'm dosing:

5 drops of Fauna Marin MinS,
3ml of Fauna Marin Amin

Fauna Marin balling light:
220ml KH,
30ml Ca,
10ml

Temp:
25°C

Light:
ATI Hybrid with 2x Blue Plus and 2x Coral Plus. The T5 is running at 100%, the LED clusters at 75%. Light is on for 10h30, with the last 2 hours being my blue light phase. The Acropora are sitting at ~350 PAR.

Skimmer:
Bubble Magus Curve A8

Flow:
2x Tunze 6095,
1x Jebao MLW 30

Fish List:
1x Siganus vulpinus,
1x Centropyge bispinosa,
1x Salarias fasciatus,
1x Pseudocheilinus hexataenia,
2x Pterapogon kauderni,
5x chromis viridis

I'm also running Carbon and UVC 24/7


So, it all started quite a few months back where one of my Acropora started to lighten up and the PE got worse and worse. It is still growing but not as fast though. Here are some pictures of that happening and a video of some kind of critter moving around on the Acropora at night (don't mind the tissue loss around the basal disc, that happend because I misplaced a pocillopora):

Here are some Pictures (how it currently looks and how it did look a week or so ago) and a Video of a Millepora frag during nighttime to highlight the spots I've seen on it:

And here are two pictures of one of the Flatworms(perhaps AEFW) I've found on the Coral (or the plug, who knows) in my dip after dipping the Frag. They also linger around on the Rockwork and the Glass, I can't see a lot of them though:



Not all Acropora seem to be doing bad though, here are some more Pictures:


And a full tank shot (yup, looks messy - fighting with Derbesia sp.):


What I'm currently doing is dipping the Acropora i can actually grab out of the tank every 14 days and use a turkey baster on the ones i can't take out easily. I've never actually blew flatworms directly out of the coral as far as i can tell but i usually get a few off of the rockwork. I've also never seen any egg clusters, neither on the rockwork nor on the coral themselves.

So, could anyone with more experience than me help me out with my current issue? Does this look like AEFW and/or Bugs to you guys? I'd greatly appreciate any advice given. I'm starting to worry about my Acros

If I'm missing any kind of information let me know, I'll provide whatever necessary!


Kind regards and thanks in advance,
Nico

One is acro and the other looks like polyclad flatworm and I also see the gray or white bugs on the coral. For the flatworms, they in numbers can smother bases of coral and block the needed light for production of zooxanthellae which is their energy source.
Removal can be accomplished by siphoning them with a 3/8" tubing into a nylon stocking and discard
OR
Add a wrasse such as Yellow coris, 6 line, lunare or malanurus OR even a springieri damsel which will eat them

With the number you have, for the next 2 weeks you will have to look for eggs and scrape off as there is likely some and would be future acoels. Eggs are really tiny
For the acro bugs, most effective is dipping or using interceptor pills crushed which is often a solution to knocking them down.
Do realize interceptor can and will likely kill inverts, crabs-shrimps-pods and I therefore recommend removing all inverts OR treat the coral in a separate tank without inverts and will also reduce amount of the interceptor needed.
Treat 3 times a week for 3 weeks at 25mg per 20 gallons of water. Each pill needs to be ground up with a hammer and should treat about 400 gal. Do application initially. About 8 hours later, add another. Then blow the coral GENTLY with a turkey baster and 8 hours later add another dosage. DO NOT repeat until day 7 doing another 3 treaments every 8 hours.
REMOVE CARBON AND TURN OFF ANY UV STERILIZERS AND SKIMMER UNITS.
Each 7 day periods, do a water change and siphon surfaces.

1. You need the 51-100lb (23mg) plain interceptor (not plus)
2. 1 pill per 100g at a minimum
3. Treat every week for 3 weeks

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

a video of some kind of critter moving around on the Acropora at night

The video there has me thinking it may be black bugs.

Yeah, white bugs, red bugs, black bugs, etc. (coral-parasitic pods) will almost exclusively be found on their host corals. For more info on these and for some closer up pics/drawings:

Aquarium Corals: Stony Coral Parasites: Red and Black Bugs: Identification Guide, Preventive Measures, and a Review of Treatment Protocols

This article is but a small tool for use by serious hobbyists in answering many questions.

reefs.com

Aquarium Corals: Stony Coral Parasites, Part Two: Copepods: Family Xarifiidae

Dana continues last month's discussion about copepods.

reefs.com

https://av.tib.eu/media/55499

And here are two pictures of one of the Flatworms(perhaps AEFW)

I'm inclined to think these are Waminoa flatworms (which are only harmful in large numbers), as they're not the right color for AEFW.

Looks like it may be a Waminoa sp. - they are known to feed on the coral mucus rather than the coral itself of corals in the family Euphylliidae, as well as mushroom corals. Theoretically, in large numbers these guys could cause problems for corals like stated in the quote* below:
"Apparently, acoels can harm corals by smothering them, which may hinder their respiration, feeding and sediment shedding capacities."

*The link the quote was taken from:

Tissue loss in corals infested by acoelomorph flatworms (Waminoa sp.) - Coral Reefs

link.springer.com

The only confirmed effective method of removal that I'm aware of is a repeated dip and cleaning method (pull any infected corals from the tank, dip them, scrape off any worms/eggs that stay on through the dip, repeat as needed). It may be more effective if you can to dip, scrape, and then put the corals in a different, uninfected tank to wait out the starvation of any eggs/worms in the infected tank, but this may not be possible. The link below has some other ideas you can explore if you'd prefer, but I have no idea if they're effective or not:

EEFW infestation (euphyllia eating flatworms)

Dip them using coral revive. They peel off in seconds using it. I’ve tried other stuff but nothing works even close as good as revive. They spaz right out in seconds and come off the torches Flatworm exit doesn’t work on these at all...

www.reef2reef.com

Edit: Also, here's a link that shows some more known host corals (I would assume these will host on just about any coral they can get too to be honest).

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Photographs-of-Waminoa-specimens-and-their-hosts-a-Specimen-18-host-Echinophyllia-sp_fig2_324516348

 

[Nico_I99]

The video there has me thinking it may be black bugs.


I'm inclined to think these are Waminoa flatworms (which are only harmful in large numbers), as they're not the right color for AEFW.

Those were some very interesting articles, thanks for sharing them! I'll try to take out the acropora and treat them outside of the tank and see if that helps, in-tank treatment would be very hard for me to pull off. I have a lot of crustaceans and let's just say that I wasn't stingy with the mortar on my scale, haha.
Too bad the author didn't test the Dip I have available right now, thought.

Or perhaps I'll just upgrade sometime soon and quarantine my corals before moving, though I'd likely loose some acropora if I did that, as I never moved a system before and I can imagine it to be quite the struggle when you can't really re-use any of your old rock. I've never tried keeping acropora in a fresh system and I honestly don't think I want to try doing so as well.

As for the flatworms - https://www.researchgate.net/figure...Micrograph-of-A-pulchra-with-a_fig2_260527976

Apparently AEFW can match their colour to match their host and camouflage themselves. And the flatworm in picture c in that article kinda looks what I have under the microscope, doesn't it?

However, what bothers me more is that I have never ever seen any eggs that would indicate AEFW being around, no matter how hard I've been looking.

Oh, and I most definitely had waminoa flatworms at one point, they were sitting on my Gonio and Alveopora. I haven't seen them on there since I've dipped them, though.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

As for the flatworms - https://www.researchgate.net/figure...Micrograph-of-A-pulchra-with-a_fig2_260527976

Apparently AEFW can match their colour to match their host and camouflage themselves. And the flatworm in picture c in that article kinda looks what I have under the microscope, doesn't it?

However, what bothers me more is that I have never ever seen any eggs that would indicate AEFW being around, no matter how hard I've been looking.

Cool - I haven't looked too in depth into these yet, so I didn't know that. Regardless of what kind for sure, though, the flatworms will need treated either way (one just a lot sooner than the other).