phys
Community Member
Hi all, not new here, but first thread start. I just noticed yesterday something I've dealt with before and so here is what I saw leading up to finding acro eating flatworms, how I identified the issue, and how I have intially dealt with it.
The last few weeks I've noticed some of my acros starting to appear to bleach. It was a slow issue so initally i thought it was parameters, water change issues, or lighting... I raised my lights, changed the water, and checked parameters. No change. Things KIND OF grew, but not as quickly and the branches were much thinner. I started looking closer and noticed the tell tale sign of small circular marks on the corals..... AEFW were munching them. Not noticable at first since the munching occurred at the base of the branches. In time they became apparent as they moved onto the branches.
I have had to deal with these before. Last night i was out of coral dip and it was late. I sacrificed a colony to see if my ID was right... i dipped it in cold fresh water and within 10 seconds, flat worms started falling off. Confirmed.
In the past, several years ago, i found that Revive by two little fishes worked to kill the worms. I purchased some today at my LFS and went to work. I removed every single SPS colony and dipped them one by one. It takes about 5 minutes for the worms to begin to fall off and die. Shaking the coral as they do will help remove them. 10 minute minimum for dipping to make sure theyre all snagged from the crevices.
As i was waiting for a bit longer, I would closely inspect the corals for small reddish blotches of egg sacs. It's vital to get these as they'll just hatch in a week or two and re-infect your tank. I'm confident i was able to get all of them as they'll be laid primarily on the corals themselves in shaded areas. One acro was covered underneath with them. I decided that one wasn't safe to try to keep so it went in the bin. The eggs can be scraped off in a very rough manner so they would be destroyed and not allowed to transport though contamination.
The corals would be dipped and then rinsed in a separate bin while being shaken to make sure no others were still attached. They remained in another bin until i would put them back in. Each coral dipping would be with new tank water and new revive... 4 caps per gallon.
I tested a hypothesis that the worms are primarily on the corals and not on rocks so i dipped several rocks and none were found on those. I also dipped a few other non-acro, hard corals and none were found on those.
I used tank water for the dipping of all the corals to help maintain some parameters and so i could perform a water change immediately after finishing the dip process. Also changed out my carbon to help pull any leftover dip and any other pollutants from things dying on the rocks during the dips that didnt get washed off.
I used this process with my last bout and never had an issue afterwards (until now of course but no corals are the same)... i hope this is the case once again but i am ready at least to do a repeat in a week if i see any other signs and will dip a couple test corals over the next few weeks to double check.
Hope this helps with others having similar issues!
The last few weeks I've noticed some of my acros starting to appear to bleach. It was a slow issue so initally i thought it was parameters, water change issues, or lighting... I raised my lights, changed the water, and checked parameters. No change. Things KIND OF grew, but not as quickly and the branches were much thinner. I started looking closer and noticed the tell tale sign of small circular marks on the corals..... AEFW were munching them. Not noticable at first since the munching occurred at the base of the branches. In time they became apparent as they moved onto the branches.
I have had to deal with these before. Last night i was out of coral dip and it was late. I sacrificed a colony to see if my ID was right... i dipped it in cold fresh water and within 10 seconds, flat worms started falling off. Confirmed.
In the past, several years ago, i found that Revive by two little fishes worked to kill the worms. I purchased some today at my LFS and went to work. I removed every single SPS colony and dipped them one by one. It takes about 5 minutes for the worms to begin to fall off and die. Shaking the coral as they do will help remove them. 10 minute minimum for dipping to make sure theyre all snagged from the crevices.
As i was waiting for a bit longer, I would closely inspect the corals for small reddish blotches of egg sacs. It's vital to get these as they'll just hatch in a week or two and re-infect your tank. I'm confident i was able to get all of them as they'll be laid primarily on the corals themselves in shaded areas. One acro was covered underneath with them. I decided that one wasn't safe to try to keep so it went in the bin. The eggs can be scraped off in a very rough manner so they would be destroyed and not allowed to transport though contamination.
The corals would be dipped and then rinsed in a separate bin while being shaken to make sure no others were still attached. They remained in another bin until i would put them back in. Each coral dipping would be with new tank water and new revive... 4 caps per gallon.
I tested a hypothesis that the worms are primarily on the corals and not on rocks so i dipped several rocks and none were found on those. I also dipped a few other non-acro, hard corals and none were found on those.
I used tank water for the dipping of all the corals to help maintain some parameters and so i could perform a water change immediately after finishing the dip process. Also changed out my carbon to help pull any leftover dip and any other pollutants from things dying on the rocks during the dips that didnt get washed off.
I used this process with my last bout and never had an issue afterwards (until now of course but no corals are the same)... i hope this is the case once again but i am ready at least to do a repeat in a week if i see any other signs and will dip a couple test corals over the next few weeks to double check.
Hope this helps with others having similar issues!
