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flatworms


powdertang05

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ok i just got some corals and i noticed small i mean small brown flatworms now this is going to sound silly but this is my first flatworm since i began this hobby about 5 years ago now is this the bad one or not? i check on reefcentral and they are all brown and all flippin brown. so what i did was with the one coral that was infected i jetted it in a tank with nothing in it too see what they were for observation. now second question who's got flatworm exit???????? scratch that idea got tmpcc at coral reef thanks jason

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If one of your SPS frags has AEFW, others do too. AEFW are usually brown in color or they change color to match the coral they are eating. They have the exact same pattern on them that the flesh of the coral has. They are darn near impossible to see on the coral itself. One way to see them is to let the coral sit out of the tank for about 10 min to dry out some. The FW will still appear wet after that. Another way is to hold the coral in front of a powerhead to blast them off the coral.

 

I have never seen a normal FW on any SPS corals. They might travel around the base, but they almost never climb onto the actual coral.

 

If it was an AEFW, you aren't out of the woods yet i'm sorry to say.

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well i found two differernt ones i found the aefw on frags and also the normal algea ones on the base of the frag eating at some algea and when i blasted them off the ones on the bottom instantly went to the glass and went after some algea the others that were more invisable were ate by a pair of sixlines well some atleast i blasted them both off into a tank with no other frag just that pair i was just wanting to study them. most are died now in total about 15 off the frag and about 8 or so of the algea ones no visable problems with the death of them but did a small water change for good measure.

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as a side note i think most of us this this is really really scary but to tell you the truth this is kinda fun to me i like playing with corals and seeing them happy after we do dips, if know what i mean like having a coral that all pissed off turning brown then RTNing then after you find them through investigating you treat them see the death and pain of the buggers then see that coral instantly happy and fully out with in hours or days it kinda has a really good feeling. was about the same fun as the first time i had red bug on a acro colony. kinda wierd but still alot of fun.

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as a side note i think most of us this this is really really scary but to tell you the truth this is kinda fun to me i like playing with corals and seeing them happy after we do dips' date=' if know what i mean like having a coral that all pissed off turning brown then RTNing then after you find them through investigating you treat them see the death and pain of the buggers then see that coral instantly happy and fully out with in hours or days it kinda has a really good feeling. was about the same fun as the first time i had red bug on a acro colony. kinda wierd but still alot of fun.[/quote']

 

I know exactly what you mean- to see my favorite coral, bleached and getting overtaken by algae was too much. But then to take some action to help them recover and be successful is a lot of fun.

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  • 2 months later...

so maybe i'm extremely lucky or something, but i've given up on trying to get all the brown acoel worms out of my reef tank. I've been living with them for over a year now with no reprocussions to the heath of the coral. They've never been on the coral itself, just around them, and don't seem to bother anything. Am i crazy??? Or can you acheive a "healthy" reef tank with aceol worms coexisting with the other animals?

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here is one of our tanks that has been running for 18 months with brown acoel flatworms. The coral thus far have never seemingly been affected in any way. Normal growth, and asexual reproduction in some of the coral has not been impeded. maybe a bit lucky, but the only time i have ever seen them directly on the coral is when there was existing dead tissue spots on them. Otherwise they just hang around the base.

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Now thats a lot of FW! I wonder if there is really enough food for all of them? I'd think eventually their population would crash as their numbers get out of hand.

 

unfortunatly no they are photosynthetic so as long as theres light theyll keep growing a replacing those that die off.

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I notice that you would do not have any sps corals pictured. Those flatworms dont generally bother anything but sps. Drop an Sps frag in there and see how long it lasts. My guess would be not long.

 

Well the acro slimer, acro milli, acro nasuto, pocillopora, Turbinaria, and three colour morphs of digitata that are in the tank would beg to differ, but they are in a higher area of the tank where the flow is greater, and not as many flatworms hang out there, but they are still there.

 

It sounds like you had a run in with these little buggers, i feel your pain man, but maybe you had the predatory flatworms.? Dunno. (scratch)

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Yes I have had a run in with these buggers well in the past before I knew what they were. They are one of the reasons we do not take in corals from local people. I have had customers of mine that have picked these nice little critters that they have picked up from other stores in town that shall remain nameless. Then they started having problems with mysterious sps colony death. Colonies just bleaching overnight and once they treated with flatworm exit and killed the little buggers the problem stopped. Maybe you haven't had any problems as of yet but it will happen I can only hope that you don't decide to trade anything in that tank with any one else and spread that plague. Ohh and by the way Turbinaria is an LPS coral.

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Yes I have had a run in with these buggers well in the past before I knew what they were. They are one of the reasons we do not take in corals from local people. I have had customers of mine that have picked these nice little critters that they have picked up from other stores in town that shall remain nameless. Then they started having problems with mysterious sps colony death. Colonies just bleaching overnight and once they treated with flatworm exit and killed the little buggers the problem stopped. Maybe you haven't had any problems as of yet but it will happen I can only hope that you don't decide to trade anything in that tank with any one else and spread that plague. Ohh and by the way Turbinaria is an LPS coral.

 

not to step on toes but those flat worms do not eat acro's and ill say one more time there photo synthetic ,acro flatworms live on acro's you will not see them on your sand bed or rock work and flatworm exit does not kill them, so if you had these type they were not the cause of your sps death unless you had both at same time and if flat worm exit got rid of one type you still have the others.

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I did not say acropora in general and I do know the difference between aefw and regular flatworms and I have never had aefw just regular flatworms and that was several years ago. I got them from local people bringing in corals and that is the reason why I do not do that any more. I know your opinion that they are photosynthetic but I can tell you that I have talked to a lot of people that have had sps death due to Red Flatworms not aefw. We are talking deaths in Hydnophora, Montipora, and other SPS varieties. Even if you do not believe that they are eating sps they are a dangerous parasite that if they die will cause problems in your aquarium. Parasites are the number one reason why captive raised corals are probably a long way from becoming common place in the aquarium trade. The kind of don't care attitude that I have seen from many people and the lack of proper quarantine procedures contribute to this. These parasites will kill sps corals regardless of what you think.

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all your parisites as you say came from the wild they just didnt show up in aqauculture facilty's so you should chreat any coral be it cultured or not this way and thats up to you if you dont want to take in outside corals.If preventive measure are taken you should never have prob's but things will slip by even you cant quarantee your stock is parasite free if you do ill laugh.Also these flat worms propagate by devision they dont lay eggs so are easy to eradicate with flatworm exit if proper percaustions are taken when doing so acro eating flat worms lay eggs wich do not get killed by tmpcc dip so you either have to scrap off or frag above same goes with montipora eating nudis also i dont doubt that these flatworms can kill sps corals but the only way is by iffestations being so bad they are covering corals to hinder there light.

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