It CAN Happen to you

[Ephraim]

i will post a ton pics on sunday night of the damage, people need to know exactly what this looks like so they can catch it early. Bites are very small, less that a mm long, slightly oval in shape, appearing in clusters around base areas and armpits of branches.

Acro crabs - I use a plastic chop stick to chase them out of acros, also works well for stabbing and skooshing the bad crabs.

[Reefer Rob]

I caught one of these buggers on a frag from the LFS. Luckily it was in quarantine so I only had to treat one coral instead of my whole tank. I used Tropic Marin Pro Dip, and I could watch it (the one I could see) eventually disolve in the bottom of the dish.

[Drock169]

they say that a lot of wrasse work, a lot of halichores wrasses are supposed to eat them. Although I dont really believe this information, there are a few isolated cases were they may have but usually they are referring to other flatworms and not acro eating flatworms. A good example is the blue velvet headshield, it only eats flatworms but wont touch acro eating flatworms.

[my2rotties]

Would this be a contributing factor to STN? I do dip all corals in Revive, but maybe hubby takes them out too soon. I always see critters in the solution, but they always look like little pods and such...

Originally Posted by Ephraim

i will post a ton pics on sunday night of the damage, people need to know exactly what this looks like so they can catch it early. Bites are very small, less that a mm long, slightly oval in shape, appearing in clusters around base areas and armpits of branches.

Acro crabs - I use a plastic chop stick to chase them out of acros, also works well for stabbing and skooshing the bad crabs.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Ontop of dipping new corals, I would recommend breaking the base off. I usually drill into the base and under the coral and just kind of pop it off. The reason is that the eggs are almost always at the base and are not killed by dipping. You can usually see the eggs but I have seen a some clutches that are TINY.

[my2rotties]

That is actually an awesome idea. I hate the bases on aqua cultured corals and they almost never fit where you want them to go. How long do you dip for afterwards?

I have reef epoxy and an entire evening of drilling and re dipping in my near future

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

Ontop of dipping new corals, I would recommend breaking the base off. I usually drill into the base and under the coral and just kind of pop it off. The reason is that the eggs are almost always at the base and are not killed by dipping. You can usually see the eggs but I have seen a some clutches that are TINY.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by my2rotties

That is actually an awesome idea. I hate the bases on aqua cultured corals and they almost never fit where you want them to go. How long do you dip for afterwards?

I have reef epoxy and an entire evening of drilling and re dipping in my near future

Me too I hate the aquaculture bases!

I dip for a good 5-8 minutes in Revive. I wouldn`t dip as long in other dips though unless directed. I just know revive is very easy on the corals even though it smells like pine sol! I usually see polyp extension hours after dipping and no fading.

The nice thing about chopping off the base too is that you can superglue gel the coral to a piece of smaller rubble and then epoxy that to your LR. So much more natural looking.

What I actually do though is glue it to rubble and then glue an acrylic rod underneath. My LR has holes drilled all through out and I then just place the rods on the bottom of the corals in the holes. I can move stuff all over if needed. Can`t see the acrylic.

[Ephraim]

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

Ontop of dipping new corals, I would recommend breaking the base off. I usually drill into the base and under the coral and just kind of pop it off. The reason is that the eggs are almost always at the base and are not killed by dipping. You can usually see the eggs but I have seen a some clutches that are TINY.

that is a fantastic idea, i hate those ugly aquaculture bases anyways

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Ephraim

that is a fantastic idea, i hate those ugly aquaculture bases anyways

I used to hate to do it because you loose some of the encrusting but a healthy coral is going to encrust within a week or so anyways.

One tip with the Bali corals with the blue plastic bottle cap looking thing in the bottom is to drill all around that thing to loosen up the concrete and then you can carefully pop the coral right out. You then don`t have to break the base at all.

Or you can just chop it right off!

[my2rotties]

Wish I knew this prior to all the aqua scaping... next time around when we some day build the 400g, if I ever have the cash.

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

Me too I hate the aquaculture bases!

I dip for a good 5-8 minutes in Revive. I wouldn`t dip as long in other dips though unless directed. I just know revive is very easy on the corals even though it smells like pine sol! I usually see polyp extension hours after dipping and no fading.

The nice thing about chopping off the base too is that you can superglue gel the coral to a piece of smaller rubble and then epoxy that to your LR. So much more natural looking.

What I actually do though is glue it to rubble and then glue an acrylic rod underneath. My LR has holes drilled all through out and I then just place the rods on the bottom of the corals in the holes. I can move stuff all over if needed. Can`t see the acrylic.