Acro flatworms (AEFW) in San Diego

[MrKrispy]

yes, they have arrived. I kept thinking several of my acros were getting poor flow and starting to die off. I treated for red bugs and tried super glue. After pouring thru a ridiculous amount of posts on RC, I believe I have an infestation of acro eating flatworms. If you have heard of them you have an idea of how unpleasant they are. If you have not, check out the SPS forum on RC.

Here is the kicker: all corals I have bought in the last 6 months have been from local sellers/traders. I had these corals in my QT/Frag tank for several months and they were fine. All of a sudden I noticed some pieces not doing so well, including established corals I have been working to prop. After a couple of months (and losing some corals) I finally recognized I might have the acro flatworms. After that long in QT and no symptoms, I think I kind of give up on quarantining corals (I said that after I treated again for red bugs) for more than a few weeks. It is pointless now with so many people trading frags and the length of time it may take for red bugs or AEFW to appear - unless you want to run a second tank that is prisitine enough for acros. I don't.

So if you have any strange necrosis or tissue death on your acros I highly recommend you consider the flatworms. If one local seller/reseller has them, many many many of us will also.

I have already spoken to a few people locally that have also had them. I am going to attempt a Levamisole treatment.

[BigAir]

Thanks for the heads up, as I am upgrading to MH so I can keep acros and the like. Is there something that can be done prior to putting them in a tank.
Similar to freshwater dip for fish, only a chem treatment for the corals?

[ConUSsd]

ughhh, another predator to watch out for. now you have me thinking about a few pieces i lost.......hey alex, do you have the exact link to the thread? figure out what to do for treatment and what to look for.

[Dakota]

can you see these guys?

[BigAir]

Here, I think this is it.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=756327

[MrKrispy]

i posted a thread trying to get someone to post a protocol. Hoepfully I get a response soon. From going over the 2 monster threads it appears the only definite treatment has been with Levamisole. The whole thing is very reminiscent of when treatments for red bugs were being tested.

Here is another big thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=688833

Here is a more recent:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=811441

[chin_monster]

I've decided I have had enough of the blue stick sps. Pretty much gave up on them. There's just that razor's edge difference between purdy glowing blue stick and a white one and some colorful explictives. Red bugs, acro flats, monti nudi's and what not . . . . BAH!!!!! I've had enough of this bag of tricks/ house of cards -pissed away enough time and money on them.

Found something new, blue and $$$ to mess around with anyway.

So much better than a blue stick.

<<<<< Besides I've that thing over yonder (EDIT: up top rather) that's got way better coloration and tolerates so much more abuse. Hell -Jess (Trey) hasn't even managed to kill it (that's saying sumpthin').

The whole sps thing has gotten to be way more trouble than it's worth w/ all the new nasty ******* parasite/ diseases that keep popping (on top of their less than sturdy constitutions to begin with). Then again the whole thing is an awful big PITA.

Ah well . . . .

[MrKrispy]

wow that is a motivation killer coming from ya Charles...but nice frog!

My next tank may not be SPS-oriented either.....but then again...

[MrKrispy]

Here is a link to the thread I started on RC.

Someone posted a protocol, and it has the link where I was able to get the medicine:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=816535

[481824]

just want to understand what you wrote in the first post. you QT corals before you introduce to main display right? Are you saying that the AEFW infested your QT tank? OR Are you saying that you QT corals for months with no signs and when you transfer they still end up in your display tank? This topic is very interesting to me as I was planning on setting up a QT tank. Keeping SPS is hopeless if quarantining corals and running interceptor/levamisole in the QT tank does not ensure you will not get AEFW or red bugs in your main display.

[MrKrispy]

sorry for the confusion.

The infected corals are all in my frag tank, which is also my QT. I hadn't moved any of them to the main tank yet, mainly because I haven't had time to aquascape. However, in that time I had moved a few older frags in to my main tank, which have since been moved back. I had to treat the QT for red bugs so I moved all the acros from my main tank to the QT just to be safe.
Nothing new had been put in the main tank in all that time.

What I am getting at is your can put corals in quarantine for months and months and not see any symptoms of infestation.

[wsonner]

Acro Flatworms?? When Harry Potter wants something to come to him doesn't he say "Acro ..."? Hmmm...

[kim92111]

I've decided I have had enough of the blue stick sps. Pretty much gave up on them. There's just that razor's edge difference between purdy glowing blue stick and a white one and some colorful explictives. Red bugs, acro flats, monti nudi's and what not . . . . BAH!!!!! I've had enough of this bag of tricks/ house of cards -pissed away enough time and money on them.

Found something new, blue and $$$ to mess around with anyway.

So much better than a blue stick.

<<<<< Besides I've that thing over yonder (EDIT: up top rather) that's got way better coloration and tolerates so much more abuse. Hell -Jess (Trey) hasn't even managed to kill it (that's saying sumpthin').

The whole sps thing has gotten to be way more trouble than it's worth w/ all the new nasty ******* parasite/ diseases that keep popping (on top of their less than sturdy constitutions to begin with). Then again the whole thing is an awful big PITA.

Ah well . . . .

And here I was thinking of putting some water back in my tank. Thanks for talking me out of it.

[Flamehawk]

come on, kim. Is not that bad. Just don't go to chin monster's level, you will be ok.

[crazyhorse]

We have done this Qt treatment and had very good luck but you will need to do it at least 2 times since it does not kill the eggs. These little buggers are very hard to see to. We were able to find the medication at TSC tracktor supply company. The one thing we found is you will need to shake the heck out of the coral after the treatment to make sure you get them all off. The corals did look pretty bad for about 2 days after treatment but then came back just make sure they have good flow.