It CAN Happen to you

[phreezee]

Originally Posted by Ephraim

I was just to the point where I was really happy with my tank and the success I have been having with sps, and then i get this kick in the nuts.

This is usually how I feel about the hobby
Good luck!

[Fox]

Speaking for all the newbies that might be reading this, what is AEFW?

[Ephraim]

AEFW = the enbodiment of all that is evil in reefkeeping, Acropora Eating Flat Worms

[Zoaelite]

That really sucks Mark, good luck with them as you said they are hell. Any ideas on how you are going to combat them, chemically or naturally?
Levi

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I have found them two of the past three times I have bought and dipped corals from LFS.

[xtreme]

Seems to be a lot of these going around lately. I'm on the look out thats for sure.

[Drock169]

best thing to do is just toss those infected colonies, usually they are very localized.

[Ephraim]

I've got some reading to do to come up with a treatment plan. I am hoping i can avoid the "move all my acros route and separate qt them for more than a month". As it stands they seem to only be located in a very small area of the tank. And initially i am going to work on the hope/assumption that they have no spread to far. I am going to grab some betadine on the way home from the airport sunday night and start dipping all colonies and frags immediately to drop down the numbers.

Has anyone found any predators for these yet? Green madarin? some kinda wrasse?

[paddyob]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

That really sucks Mark, good luck with them as you said they are hell. Any ideas on how you are going to combat them, chemically or naturally?
Levi

I had flat worms cover my tank. I added a spotted mandarin (as it is natural food) and it literally wiped them out. The terminator. Possible this is a safe route to try. Beats chemical warfare!!!


Patrick

[Chaloupa]

Mandarins work well most of the time for Red Planaria flatworms...but AEFW are way different...and WAY worse. Any fish added that helps is a blessing but it's a tough war against them.

Just a word of caution when using Revive...I did a mass dip with Revive a couple of weekends ago and thought to dip a bit longer than recommended and to date have lost 8 frags....so be careful and don't dip too long.

Good Luck with your battle...if you only have a few or less than 10 colonies...I'd consider taking them all out and trashing them....unless you have a tank big enough to QT them in...another thing that is suggested is adding Camel shrimp to the sump of the Q tank and rotating corals through the sump....put in sump for .5-1 hour and let shrimp pick off eggs and AEFW...them remove and put back in the QT display...watch shrimps closely..once they eat all the nasties they reportedly move on to eating the polyps.