Acro Eating Flat Worms

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
I have AEFW’s – a true curse of this hobby. Here are my option plans, followed by as much detail as I can bear to describe at this time.

Option 1: Just deal with it in incremental waves, which will surly lead to 100% loss of my acro’s over time. After the inevitable, I can go an extended period without acros, to later rebuild and move forward. In this effort, I bought flatworm Stop (ZEO-VIT) and would (theory) make the corals stronger so they can better withstand the every 5 day out of tank dips for 6-7 weeks. I would cut back all my acros’s to manageable small colonies, losing many years worth of growth in the process. So maybe, just maybe I can dip, inspect, and break the cycle to have some survive. I’m doubtful, the more I read, the more I’m disheartened I become. I think this option would take roughly 1-2 hours a day, for probably 2 months.

Option 2: Set up a complete standalone setup. More than likely have it up and running for at least a week or two before moving all my acro’s. Yea, this initially sounds like cool, get a new tank, but believe me – I’ve never been so turned off by spending money and time towards the hobby. What I hate about this plan is to think how stable, and spot on, a reef needs to be in order to have acro’s survive, let alone fight dips and a parasite to survive while in a new environment, with different flow and lighting. My concern besides the $, is what I would need in order to keep everything stable, and not sure how many hours a day I’d have to add to option 1, to pull this off.

Option 3: was option 1, and it already failed. I dosed garlic (Allicin 6000), in hopes of doing an in tank treatment, with 100% water changes every 5 days. http://wamas.org/forums/topic/33942-lanmans-acropora-eating-flatworm-aefw-thread/ (post 9) 1/2 Tablet/liter of water is what I did – and all the SPS didn’t survive two days in the QT tank. I lost several corals that were already showing major signs of base up STN.

What are AEFW’s, see here. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1730682&highlight=aefw

If you ever bought coral from me, and I haven’t sold any for a few months, be forewarned – I honestly don’t know how long I’ve had this, just don’t know, and I’m sorry if I somehow contributed to this PITA situation for anyone.

Do I dip. Yes, 98% of the time - I can think of only 4 examples where I didn’t dip, and only once it was with acro’s. In the cases I didn’t dip, they were from tanks I know well, and in one case (acro) with someone I respect with a lot of hobby knowledge – about a year ago, still this is 100% on me, no doubt. Do I QT? depends. If getting a lot of coral (DBTC meetings) or only if during visually inspecting the coral does something not look right, I see any eggs, or I find anything dead from the dip (besides pods or other known good things). My QT is a 10 gallon, and like I said in option 2 I worry about the conditions. After this is all said and done, I will have a more extensive QT setup.

What I’ll do for dipping now will most likely be what Smiley describes with Bayer. http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?15944-Advanced-Dip-for-Reef-Pests&highlight=aefw - I’ve read most who did beat this, and there aren’t many, did so most successfully with Bayer.

//Dave
 

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
Acro Eating Flat Worms

How many fish do you have and how hard would they be to catch. Thought its you could set up qt for fish. And dose bear to the whole system. I know it's probably pita but just another thought for you.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
22 fish, even if I caught all them, what path or treatment are you thinking of? I've spend many hours in the last few days reading and seems no in tank options even exist. Please share any experience or links if you can. I'd also like to avoid the risk of nuking everything.
 

FinsUp

According to my watch, the time is now.
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
Oh man! This blows. So sorry to hear it. I know from experience just how frustrating it can be to get an infestation like this. You've got one of the most amazing tanks I've seen yet, so I'd hate to see you exit the hobby entirely. Just thinking about you losing portions of your corals is enough to make me feel a little sick to my stomach. If there's anything we can do to help, please don't hesitate to let us know.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
I don't have any wrasses since they tend to jump out of the tank (from a few that wanted to explore the kitchen floor in the past). I think this is worth exploring since I am strongly leading towards option 1.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Thanks Mike. BTW, I have both blue and purple hornets now, I just fraged the blues the other day, when they heal, they have your name on it (ya might want to dip Lol). The red hornets you gave me are doing great.

Cindy, Thanks, I'm not even close to throwing in the towel. I am a bit depressed about my carlessness, but I'll get thought this -
 

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
Acro Eating Flat Worms

Well dosing bear will kill fish all inverts. Even live rock. However you can run carbon to remove and reseed with pods and bacteria. Your corals however would survive the treatment. There are a few threads in chemistry forum as I don't have links on me. Smiley was that one that turned me on to bear he may have more info.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
I think bayer is only an out of tank dip . I read where a few brave tried to use it in tank and it wipped ended up nuking they system - is bassically a poison and wiped out pods, and other benificical things that make a reef tick like a clock. One of my links has Smiley's thread, a lot of good info there for sure.
 

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
Acro Eating Flat Worms

I agree the it could be ruff just wanted to help give another option. I think it would take large volume water changes and aggressive carbon. But with diligence and knowledge could be done. I have heard you have an amazing tank and I want to see it stay that way.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
I'm going to start looking into fish, the wrass idea was something I overlooked... so besides the yellow, it seems Six Line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia) and Scarlet Pin Stripe Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus evanidus) are good too. Hmmm.
 

ValG

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#13
Hey Dave I have had really good experience with Six Line wrasse when i had a flat worm problem, they were not AEFW though. The wrasse ended up jumping out of the tank in the end but not before it took care of the issue.
You do have an amazing setup! Best of luck in keeping it that way!
 

sethsolomon

Hammerhead Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#15
My suggested wrasses are and all live well together:

leopard wrasse
yellow coris wrasse
green coris wrasse
red coris wrasse
six line wrasse
cleaner wrasse
possum wrasses
lineatus wrasse
mystery wrasse
and some of the flashers will eat flat worms

if you have a decent sand bed there is almost no such thing as too many wrasses :p
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
Awesome, thanks for the wrasse list. Although I have a DSB, I have too many fish already so will add 2-3 at most. I'll read up for sure.
 

sethsolomon

Hammerhead Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#18
There are also some others that will eat flatworms but are more on the risky side due to a higher chance of eating hermits. If you don't mind replacing hermits once in awhile I suggest:

black backend wrasse
banana wrasse - possibility of eating shrimp
christmas wrasse - mine went ape s--t for flatworms :p
dusky wrasse
hoeven's wrasse (melanurus wrasse)
Neon Wrasse

Just as a rule of thumb anything with a genus name of "Coris", "Halichoeres", "Macropharyngodon", or "Pseudocheilinus" will eat flatworms :p
 

jagermeister

Blenny
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
As far as wrasses go any of the leopards or any from the genus Halichoeres would be good options. Halichoeres wrasses are much easier to come by locally with the melanarus being particularly good for pest defense. I just lost my melanarus but whenever I had put new anything (rock, corals, frags) into the tank, the melanarus was the first one there sniffing and eating whatever he found.

I've read threads on RC of people getting good results by simply blowing off the flatworms with a strong power head (apparently they don't cling well?), getting them into the water column and the wrasses do the rest, so to speak.

Good luck with your fight!
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#20
sethsolomon;249797 said:
My suggested wrasses are and all live well together:

leopard wrasse
yellow coris wrasse
green coris wrasse
red coris wrasse
six line wrasse
cleaner wrasse
possum wrasses
lineatus wrasse
mystery wrasse
and some of the flashers will eat flat worms

if you have a decent sand bed there is almost no such thing as too many wrasses :p
This a great list. I personally watched a AEFW colony get lowered into a LFS tank with 2 potters leopard wrasses and they were eating the flat worms within about 3 minutes. There used to be a youtube video of some yellow coris doing the same thing.

Also, suck them out with a siphon hose, or use some tweezers, if you can.
 
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