Flatworm are now acropora killer!

[stephane]

I found those baster on tricolor the coral was not looking good so I decide to have a close look at it. My thank is full with SPS and all other are doing well this try color is in this tank since about 9 month

it moove prety fast when I toutch it but dont seem to spread realy well over the entire tank as none of the other coral have it

I have try 1 hour a bath of tetra marin Oomed on one piece,and
Salifert flatworm exit on another peace. Add small dose and ecrease to about 30x time recomended dosage without any succed

Any Id of wath it is wath it does and how to kill this baster

thank!







here are the eggs of those **** at the base of the tricolor



anyone have experience with them?

[zhenya]

Scorry to hear about this, Stephan.

I think the best course of action would be to determine what species exactly this buggers are, perhaps than you can find proper medication to kill them. I would recommend posting your querry in Ask Dr.Ron forum over on Reef Central.

What changes have you noticed in the condition of affected coral? Loss of coloration, tissue appeared grazed upon?

[SueT]

Stephane, sadly I have had experience with these critters. They do mostly attack tri-color acropora for some reason. I have 2 tri-color acropora pieces and both ended up with these. What killed them for me was SeaChems Reef Dip. It is an iodine based dip.

I dipped both and have thankfully been able to save both pieces. I am still not sure exactly where, and how they got into my tank but I'm free of them now. I did end up having to frag one piece down some but it has healed fine and is finally getting color back.

What I first noticed was a major coloration loss and after lookiing at the 2 effected frags, 1 ORA and the other Bali and seeing these same flatworms. It seems like they suck the color right out of the tissue.

I loved seeing them die off in that iodine dip. They curled up and died, they are bad. Good luck....

[stephane]

Yes Sue I have an tricolor afected by douzen of those.

On the tricolor they was easy to find after the coral was out for a couple of minute and begin to dry. I take many picture of it and inspect many other colony but it was the only one where i found those. But today I deceide to realy look further and give a couple of coral reefdip from secheam. I give 3x the recomended bath dosage, wait 10 minute and then shake the coral in the water....to my surpise those baster folow down in the water on the botom of the bol. On those coral the worm was totaly invisible. those coral was still growing but slow they where lighten :eek1:

After a lot of reseach they are all around the world. German and Europeen french already know them well as they cause many pain up there. they atack almost any kind of acropora but seem to be easiere to see on tricolor

here is some other picture from a germain post

before the dip


After a couple of minute and a dipp






here are a coral afted canot seem them!




here are the original german post you could find more picture
by changing page click on "Zur nächsten Seite" at the botom of the page
http://www.ratgeberteich.de/merfa_strudel.html

[Poseidon]

Wow Stephane excellent post and excellent pictures! I am glad to hear you were successful in ridding yourself of the nasty little buggers!

Oh Ya, WELCOME TO REEFLAND!

[kevinpo]

Planaria type worms cannot tolerate fresh water dips. Has anyone tried to freshwater dip the infected corals?

Regards,
Kevin

[stephane]

Hi Poseidon thank for the welcom ho Im member since 2002

Hi Kevin

Problem with fresh dip is an already stressed coral have very hard time recoverd from it.

Another problem is the egg would not be kill by any dipp

But the biggest problem in my case is to get all coral colonie out to dipp them. I have dipp some smal colonie an frag but most of the older one are incrusted in rock and will be a pain to get out. Best would find a reefsafe cure or a natural predator. As for now flatworm exit and Oomed is inactive and the only ting seem to bother them is a seachem reef dipp, it dont kill them but made them easy to fall off the coral

[SueT]

Stephane, mine dropped off the affected frag just like yours did. Are you seeing any distress from other corals than the tri-color?? Those 2 were the only ones showing signs of color loss. My entire 120g tank is full of sps corals and frags and the 2 tri-colors were and are all that was affected. I dipped them and now everything including color are coming back.

Kevin, I actually didn't think of a freshwater dip. My 2 frags were quite stressed by color loss when I saw what was going on. I had recieved a small SeaChem package from another forum I'm on and it contained the Reef Dip and I made good use of that stuff.

Stephane, let me know how it goes for you...

[Ninong]

Planaria type worms cannot tolerate fresh water dips. Has anyone tried to freshwater dip the infected corals?

Regards,
Kevin

Kevin,

I have never heard of dipping corals in freshwater. Have you ever tried that? I didn't think they would survive???

[kevinpo]

I have dipped Euphyllia ancora and E. glabrescens for 10-15 seconds gently swishing them to remove flatworms.
Some Acropora species that are out of water at low tide must be exposed to freshwater during tropical downpours.

I will try a couple of Acropora frags today and see what happens.

Regards,
Kevin

[Ninong]

Some Acropora species that are out of water at low tide must be exposed to freshwater during tropical downpours.

Yes, but they are slimed over when they are exposed at low tide and that probably offers protection from the rainwater. Also, they wouldn't be immersed in freshwater in their natural habitat. The rainwater would mix with the seawater. Granted corals in shallow lagoons do tolerate wide swings in salinity during monsoonal rains but I just have a feeling that holding them in freshwater for any period of time might cause irreversible damage???