Acro Eating Flatworms

[Maxx]

I thought I'd post up some (kinda bad, but informative non the less) pics of some Acro Eating Flatworms (AEF's from here on out since I'm lazy) I had to deal with in my tank.

I obtained two small frags of A.albrohensis, from a local reefer who propagates SPS. He told he had been dealing with the common red photosynthetic flatworms, and to treat the frags with Salifert's Flatworm Exit, (FE from here after). He also mentioned he'd recently had some problems with some other flatworms but was sure he'd eradicated them from his systems.

Once I got home, I placed the frags in a small 10 gallon tank and did a triple dose of FE and some interceptor to treat any possible redbug hitchhikers as well. A few small red planaria, (red photosynthetic flatworms) fell off and died. Nothing else was affected. My friend called me on the phone and explained he'd found more of the strange new flatworms on some of his other frags from the same tank after I'd left. He told me what to look for and to really eyeball my new frags for any of these.

I found one on the larger of the two albrohensis frags.

Here is a pic of it in QT. The AEF is on the lower 3rd of the coral, in between the two nubs starting to branch off. Its the strange whitish blob looking thing more towards the left nub...

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I was able to blow it off with a turkey baster and I removed it from the QT tank. I was never able to see any others on either corals.

I was in a hurry and didnt have time to play with it to find out more about it, so I just dumped it down the toilet. Jim had told me what they looked like and stated they ate corals so I wasnt exactly interested in keeping them in my tank.

I didnt think any more of the flatworm for a few months. Then I noticed the smaller of the two albrohensis frags was not extending its polyps anymore. It was closed and looked unhappy. I kept watching to see if it would get any better or not. After a week, I couldnt figure it out. The larger of the two was fine, the smaller one was dying.

After some really close looking, I saw an off color blob on the smaller frag.

I immediately removed the frag and placed into another container filled with tank water. I used the turkey baster and was horrified to see 3 AEF's come tumbling off in the current. I immediately sucked them out of the container and put them in a small glass filled with tank water.

I then went back to the frags and got very aggressive with the turkey baster. I wound up removing somewhere around 25-ish small AEF's from this one small frag. after 10 or so, I quit putting them in the glass for observation and instead just dumped them down the sink.

Here are pics of them in the glass....

These arent the greatest pics, but basically if its an off white blob, its an AEF.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I started out doing a standard dose of FE in an attempt to kill these things. After 10 minutes, I saw no effect. SO I doubled the dose. After 10 minutes, I saw no effect. So I again doubled the dose, (4 x reccomended dosage now). After another 10 minutes, I saw no effect, (30 minutes total).

I decided to add iodine to the mix. I used Julian Sprung's Reef Formula Iodine Concentrate by Two Little Fishes, (because I had it on hand...I doubt that any other iodine brand would have different results.) I added just enough to make the water of the glass slightly tea colored. I think I might have used about a capful.

The effect was immediate. The AEF's started dying right away, and within 5 minutes, they were starting to dissolve.

Of course, I took pics.

Topshot. The AEF's are visible in the top portion of the picture....

Bottom looking up.....these pics were taking within a minute or two of dosing iodine.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I decided to put the frags in an identical small glass filed with tank water and add iodine to it. The corals closed up and slimed. Some hiddens pods died as did some micro brittle stars, but I did not see any AEF's come off the frags.

Again, I just added enough iodine to make the water a light tea color. I left the frags in the iodine water for approximately 10 minutes. Afterwards, I placed them right back in the tank.

The small frag didnt look any different than before the iodine dip. In fact, this is how it was looking in the tank while it had the AEF infestation.

Within 30 minutes the larger frag had opened its polyps again. The smaller one opened up the next day.

Here are both corals in my tank right as of 5 minutes ago.

 

[Maxx]

Things to keep in mind.

This was not scientific by any stretch of the imagination. I guesstimated the doses of iodine, I didnt isolate the AEF's after attempting the FE treatments. I didnt move the AEF's from the FE treated water prior to adding the iodine, etc, etc, etc.....

One thing I did find interesting was the fact that the AEF's never moved the inch and a half over to the larger of the albrohensis frags. Dont know what thats worth...but its interesting to note.

Basically, the purpose of sharing this with you is to possibly aid you in spotting these types of AEF's and a potential treatment for them.

If you have anything to add, your own experiances etc...please do so.

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

Great thread Nick thanks!!


MIke

 

[Electrokate]

Thanks for pointing this out. Sounds like a combo FE/Iodine dip is the way to go.
What I find impressive is how much and fast that larger frag grew while being eaten!
Kate

 

[Krish]

Good info Nick...Thanks for sharing...

 

[Elmo18]

Nice one Nick!

I think it also goes to show that acroporas can withstand more stress than people think...

Iodine will kill almost anything if left too long

- Ilham

 

[CarlaW]

Thanx Nick, gotta bookmark this one!!!!

 

[NaH2O]

Good thread Nick. The Acro eating flatworms have me concerned because they are difficult to see on the coral. I'm curious as to why the one on your acro is so obvious. Do they take on the color of the coral they are eating? If so, then that would explain the more obvious flatworm on the coral....perhaps it came from another coral? Not sure....I need to do some more reading.

I pulled these images from dgasmd's/Alberto's thread to post here:

And here is the blurb dgasmd had to say about them: (I included the part about the Monit eating nudis because the dip mentioned is also being used for the acro eating flatworms):

Montipora eating nudibranchs:

These are some nasty pests to get. Many people like myself have lost entire collections of montiporas to them. They are very easy to get and nearly impossible to get rid of. The only "in-tank" treatment known so far is 2 fish that have had mixed results. One is the pencil wrasse and the other the yellow cori wrasse. Neither is a sure thing, but some people have had great success with them.

The other treatment I call somewhat experiemental because it is not very well known and not very widely used yet. Mitch Carl, the director of the Omaha Zoo had been playing with different dosages of different medication to dip affected corals in. He came up with a dosage with the medication known as Levimasole Hydrochloride that he claims he has been successfull at killing the nudibranchs AS A DIP AND NOT FOR TANK TREATMENT!! He claims that a dip for 5-6 hours at 40 ppm of the medication will kill them. One need to blast the colony with a turkey baster to make sure any nudis dead como off the coral. It is not known if it affects the eggs, so you may have to re-dip the coral within a week to erradicate any young ones that may have hatched since the last treatment.

The way you come up with 40 ppm is as he described in the RC thread linked below:

To calculate drug dose use the following formula for 100% active drug according to Mitch Carl:

volume in liters of tank x ppm (drug dosage) / 1000mg/g=#of grams required of the drug

For drugs that have less than 100% active drug, you take the percentage of the active drug (Levamisole hydrochloride is 80% active w/ 20% inert ingredients) and multiply the percentage to the 1000mg/g. So...

volume in L x ppm / 800mg/g = grams of drug

So if your treating a 10 gal tank w/ 40ppm Levamisole its:

37.8L x 40ppm / 800mg/g= 1.89g of Levamisole

Not many people have used this dip treatment, but I suspect it is due to lack of spread of the word. However, he claims he has been very successfull with it several times. My best guess is that the use of this dip to treat all present and new incoming montis combined with the use of the fish is the best alternative.

Acropora eating flatworms:

Now, this is the last round of nasty pests hittimg the tanks near you. Very easy to spread, nearly impossible to see from simple observation of the corals even close by, and sure to kill each acro it touches. I personally have now lost 45-50 acros to these flatworms. I inspected a few corals before and did not see them until I did it again yesterday.

"In-tank" treatment is described as fairly good, but no guaranties either. Some people like Mike Paletta report 100% erradication of these parasites twice in his large 1200g tank using the Chelidonura varians nudibranchs. They eat exclussively flatworms and he claims in 2 weeks his tank was clear of them. These nudibranchs are not the easiest thing to find, but they are not rare either. Liveaquaria has them for $23.99 each, but you'll need "a few". He used 1 per 100g in his tank as a reference. They have a ver short life cycle of approximately a month or so, and seem to be thrill seekers attracted to pump intakes and overflows.

The other treatment is a dip in the same proportions and dosage/duration as the one above for the monti eating nudibranchs. I ahve personally ordered some levimasole and will be dipping as many corals as I can. I will also add about 16 nudibranchs to my tank in hopes that they eat what is left. I will also beging to dip all new corals in Interceptor as above and this medication as well.

I don't advocate anyone of you go and do any of these treatments, but I wanteds to put all this info in one place to make it easier to find. It took me quiet a bit to find it all, so it should make your life much easier. Below are a few links to read more about the last 2 and the proposed treatment/dip.

Velve varians nudibranchs

Thrreat on RC about acro eating flatworms

Where to get Levimasole hydrochloride

Montipora eating nudibranchs thread in RC

Good luck and may the Dips be with you!

From the thread A 750g SPS system is born

 

[Maxx]

Thanks for pointing this out. Sounds like a combo FE/Iodine dip is the way to go.
What I find impressive is how much and fast that larger frag grew while being eaten!
Kate

Kate,
The larger frag wasnt being eaten, thats one of the things I found so odd about this.....
And the main reason it grew faster than the other is because it has an axial coralite, (coral growth tip) and the other doesnt. I really think that alot of the other corals energy went to repairing/surviving the AEF's attack that it didnt have any leftover to grow an axial coralite.

I also dont "feel" that the FE had any effect on this guys at all, and I would be surprised if FE and Iodine had any sort of combied effect. Iodine is present in marine environments anyway, and Habib (Salifert's owner) is a SERIOUS chemist...he and Randy Holmes Farley, (and Boomer) have long and detailed conversations in english, that I am unable to follow. So I would bet that Habib would not have made a product that could possibly combine with iodine in the water column and turn lethal....
I just think that iodine all by itself in those concentrations is enough to kill them........but, I didnt run this in a scientific manner, so I cant state that iodine alone is enough to kill them. Hope that makes sense.....
Alberto, (Dgasmd here on the board and elsewhere) has heard of some AEF's not being killed off by iodine.....

Nikki,
Those pictures are much better, (clearer, more detailed, better...) than mine, but those appear to be the same AEF's that I was dealing with. I suspect that the reason the one in my first picture appeared so obviously is that the coral it was on is a very "furry" coral in appearance. It has long polyps and any flat spot on the coral is immediately visible. I suspect the AEF was stressed from being moved from its normal environment, (my friends tank) and placed into my QT tank...I didnt notice the numerous AEF's on the one little frag at all, until I really stared at the tank...and you saw where my tank was located and how often I would mess with it..... I'm a pretty observant person, (with the tank......laundry, my wife will tell you is a whole different story, but I know whats going on with my tank!).

Nick