SDguy's AEFW adventure

[SDguy]

Well, since I have a pretty open-book policy about my tank, I figured I'd post this too. I officially have Acro Eating Flat Worms (AEFW). For all my dips, and scrubs, and whatever, I still got them. I was just so sick of my tricolors not looking their best lately, even with the vodka dosing. So this morning I was doing my standard looking-with-the-flashlight-before-light-on search, and noticed a couple tell tale bitemarks on one branch. My heart sank. I decided to make 100% sure, so I warmed some fresh water to 80F, and dipped the coral in it for 60 seconds. Well, then my heart broke.






I dipped some other corals, and saw nothing, so they *appear* to be only on the tricolors, which is very common from what I've read on RC. Luckily, I have sold VERY few tricolor frags. Nonetheless, if anyone has received acropora frags from me in the last 6 months or so, please carefully inspect the coral. Search around the base of the branches, looking for the bitemarks (you won't be able so see the AEFW themselves as they are brown and slightly transparent, making them virtually invisible when on the coral itself).

Some pics to give you an idea of the difficulty in seeing these:
#1 is the AEFW itself, #2 obviously the eggs. These photos were taken by Bigred on RC and the whole thread can be found here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...l&pagenumber=1

[Bogg]

Yea!. j/k I had luck years ago by just blasting them off the corals (pumps off) and syphioning them out. The absolute worst creepy experience in reefing for me ever!.

[SDguy]

?? Are you thinking of the red planaria??

[Bogg]

The rust browns no.

[Bogg]

I only had a few in my frag tank so I blew as many off as I could and manualy removed them. Lucky thats all.

[pnguy3n]

Whoa, thanks for sharing Peter. I was just reading RC's April TOTM and the owner had the same problems with AEFW too. Hopefully you can treat it, he dipped his colonies in Pro-Coral Cure (Tropic Marin).

[SDguy]

Very lucky Ryan. Thanks Paul. I'm reading up on treatment options now. I think levamisol dips and QT tank will be the route I go. Nothing else seems to actually *kill* them....

Honestly, I'm gonna stew on this for a while, since I'm not going to do anything until I get back from Spain. I may just scrap the whole acro idea altogether. I'm sick of the constant attention....

[iwantone]

I have had this happen to a garf banzai many many years ago. It would grow to a really big size and then deteriorate similar to the pictures above. I would frag the healthy tips and start over again, and then a year later after it was pretty big it would start the same process over. NOne of my other acros where ever affected. I wouldn't stress about it. Break off the tips, make some plugs and enjoy Spain.

[Technoviking]

First in line for your acros?

So sorry to hear that Peter, it's so sad that one of our most beautiful tanks has so many problems. Mind if I stick this?

[SDguy]

Not at all, go right ahead. I have quite a plan of action forming in my head already, so this will definitely be a lengthy thread, eventually.

[SolRo]

Sdguy, are you sure those just aren't worms that look and act exactly like AEFW, but are completely harmless?

Good luck fighting them, and thanks for telling the community

[SDguy]

LOL, good one Stan! And Happy Bday, BTW! OMG, are you really that young?!

[Redeye]

you can bring them over, they can join my flatworm farm

[SDguy]

Nice...it'll be a convention!

[MFR]

experienced the toll of these monsters. I too always dip & encourage others to do so as well but, they ma hav ebeen there for a long time. A few Tri-colors & Millies were hit hard in my tank. I read tons of stuff & found per melev & others on RC that the best "dip" is fluke-tabs (2 tabs in two gallons of water for 20 mins.). I have tried them a few times with awesome results (no deaths , no color loss). Scrape the eggs & dips your SPS. I was lucky to catch them in time before they spread to all my SPS. I dipped almost all of them & really found them only on a few corals. A couple of tri-color bases were trashed after fragging the tips because there were too many eggs to get out. Next, I got a melanarus (there is one at PK right now if your interested) & a green wrasse - both of which are reported to be FW killers and they seem to be history based on re-dipping & baster-blowing. I really believe that these are more common than people realize & would not be surprised if most people have them to some extent. Different biological agents may keep them in check & thus we don't "notice" them right away. As Sanjay on RC says- "you become THEIR predator"..... Don't give up!


MFR