AEFW

[Rice Reef]

As I was preparing for my exam tonight I received a call from a fellow refer... " I have some very bad news... your tank may be infested with acropora eating flatworms." I was in shock. Every coral that I put in gets dipped and I have always inspected the dipped water and coral once more before adding the frag or colony to the tank. Somehow, I missed one and now I have flatworms.

My initial reaction was "no... This can't be happening..." at this point I had dropped my books and started to pull out the bottle of revive, the suspected colony and dipped it. Sure enough, flatworms started to release themselves from the coral. I had then pulled out more containers and dipped more frags and colonies...starting with the validas and shortcakes. Whew... Nothing. I dipped more... Now the samentosas... I have three... Two frags and one colony... One of the frag passed but the other and the colony didn't. I broke more colonies off the rocks and dipped them along with other frags... Nothing. Then hair acros were next... Nothing. Why the samentosas and not the validas? The sarmentosa were placed near the infested coral while the others were not so close.

Over the next two and half ours I dipped more and nothing... By then I was too tired and have to get back to the books... A third of the corals are checked but I have another two-thirds to go so it will have to wait to tomorrow night. Before ending, I scraped all the infected acros off the rocks and any suspected pieces I dare not put it back into the tank.

I have contacted another reefer of this and will be contacting others of the same and hope they have dipped before letting corals enter their tank.

I have always been very careful in buying my corals from reputable business and reefers. But somehow I had missed one over the last two-three months from my coral buying sprees. No point trying to figure where it came from as the sole responsibility is in my hands... All I can do is try to destroy all the flatworms and hope that the casualties will be small...

What I intend to do for the next three months... Will be dipping all the corals on a weekly basis and will continue to do so for another month longer even when there are no signs of flatworms. Check all the corals for eggs... They are said to be easily spotted ( brown) and will only be found on dead corals as they do not lay eggs on live coral tissues. I will get a bottle of zeovit flatWorm stop. This helps to strengthen the corals and help to build a slime to protect them from flatworms ( prob the reason why I do not see any on sps that excretes lots of slime). I will also need to get a couple of wrasses from the halichoeres family.

Why am I sharing this with everyone you may ask? Yes, this is what I considered as a reefer's nightmare and I am quite embarassed that this has happened to me but I also need to share with fellow reefers of my experience so that you can learn from this to protect your investment and to have a better experience in this hobby.

It's 5:30am and I must get back to the books... Have an exam to write in 12 hrs...