Flatworms eating my torch coral looking for info on lifecycle and eradication

[omykiss001]

Pretty certain this is a polyclad worm. My torch has been closed up a few days. I thought is was due to change in rock work that gave it more light. went to move it last night and noticed these purplish flatworms all over it and their eggs. CoralRx made them let go. I saw one last night on my hammers as well and will be pulling them to dip. What I want to do it get rid of these buggers. Looking for what works to kill in tank, or what the average time to egg hatch and settlment if I have to dip so I might get ahead of their lifecycle. These seem to have a taste for my euphyllias. Can't find them on any of my other LPS corals or SPS.

Info on getting rid of them seems to be hard to come by so figured I'd reach out to the community to see if anyone has delt with these guys before. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[kschweer]

I have no experience with this but I have heard of others making traps for them with food containers (like the ones you get egg salad in). They cut small slits in them and bait them with clams from the grocery store. Hopefully someone with real world experience will chime in for you.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Oh my WORD!

 

[tankstudy]

Those things are gigantic...

 

[kevindo123]

They look like these.

 

[kevindo123]

Not sure but would prazi kill them? Can you give it a try?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

They are indeed polyclads (Phrikoceros mopsus).

 

[omykiss001]

Those things are gigantic...

Ya, couple of them were close to 1 to 1 1/2" long I was shocked and explains why the torch was so unhappy [emoji32]

 

[omykiss001]

Not sure but would prazi kill them? Can you give it a try?

I could don't have any prized feather dusters. Just know I'll probably need to dose a few times as I'm certain there might be eggs in other places but don't know the hatch time and if similar to fish flukes to redose at 7-10 says.

Anyone know if prazi will Kill em' flatworm exit is what I was thinking but looks like it may have little effect on these guys.

 

[stunreefer]

That is unfortunately a highly infected piece, as you know. I find them on newly received maricultured colonies fairly frequently. The species you have appears to be the "Euphyllia lovers", which seem to infest torches more frequently than frogspawn or hammers, but they will stray to the others.

Bayer will knock the hatched flatworms off. I scrape away the eggs manually. Generally I'll come across one to six adults and a couple dozen eggs in one or two patches. If you stay on top of them they can be beat. I do not know the hatch cycle of these things, but do know that Bayer and Revive won't kill them, just stun.

 

[omykiss001]

That is unfortunately a highly infected piece, as you know. I find them on newly received maricultured colonies fairly frequently. The species you have appears to be the "Euphyllia lovers", which seem to infest torches more frequently than frogspawn or hammers, but they will stray to the others.

Bayer will knock the hatched flatworms off. I scrape away the eggs manually. Generally I'll come across one to six adults and a couple dozen eggs in one or two patches. If you stay on top of them they can be beat. I do not know the hatch cycle of these things, but do know that Bayer and Revive won't kill them, just stun.

Thanks that what I thought they seems to be localized to euphyllia, only saw one on each of the hammers last night. coral Rx also stunned them real fast. This is how many came off the torch last night. Moved it to a 10 QT for fish I have set up to monitor. Scrubbing and stunning it will be.

 

[pugcrush]

Jeepers Creepers!

Another pest to add to the watchlist. Never seen a polyclad take on LPS.

 

[evolved]

Bayer will knock the hatched flatworms off. I scrape away the eggs manually.

+1
You've got to scrape off all the eggs you can when dipping.

 

[omykiss001]

+1
You've got to scrape off all the eggs you can when dipping.

That's the plan. It's just hard to see the eggs with my old eyes might need to get a magnifying glass to help that and they blend in on some of my hammers.

At this point I plan to pull them about every 7 days dip, examine, and scrap as well as flashlight them after lights out when the corals are closed up looking for any worms or eggs. Hope after 3-4 rounds of that I'll have them taken care of.

 

[Mihana]

We're dealing with this right now too. Some of these worms were close to 2" long. Started noticing our torch coral receding with no indication as to why, parameters were good, no changes etc. Came home from school and saw one crawling on the glass.... Gave me the creeps.

I pulled it out, and thought, well, maybe this guy is the reason my torch is struggling... It definitely was a part of the bigger problem--My torch was literally crawling with these things, so gross. Don't get me wrong, flatworms are incredible creatures, so adaptable and can regenerate from tiny portions of tissue, but when they're in my tank all clumped together on one of my corals... So gross.

Took the three euphyllia out that I have in my tank, even though only the torch looked infested and dipped them with Bayer. The worms floated off, sending another eeewww chill bump effect through me (I could never be a scientist), then came the rough part... Scraping those dang eggs off.

I think I got them all, but there's no telling for certain, going to be on a weekly dipping schedule for a while it seems. Sorry about the picture quality, I was too grossed out to really focus on documenting like I should. Yuck.

 

[drawman]

@omykiss001 I think your plan is good. You may want to do a solid 6 weeks just to be on the safe side. Let us know your results!

 

[omykiss001]

Haven't looked at this in forever. I was able to get rid of them, but somewhat due to the fact the coral was damaged beyond repair and did not make it so was pulled, but I have not seen them on any other corals for many months now, so I got rid of most of the eggs on the torch prior to it's demise and did not see any on the final dip prior to the corals death. If you catch this early enough I think the dipping scraping will work.