fml flatworms

[Proteus]

Ok.
So I have been loosing acros for a month now looking like stn. I thought originally it was stn
Dipped a piece today and yep Flatworms.

Now what?

I.have flatworm exit but read it doesn't work on aefw
Should I dip all my corals or are the worms on rock too

I dip everything and haven't bought coral in months

[Rice Reef]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Ok.
So I have been loosing acros for a month now looking like stn. I thought originally it was stn
Dipped a piece today and yep Flatworms.

Now what?

I.have flatworm exit but read it doesn't work on aefw
Should I dip all my corals or are the worms on rock too

I dip everything and haven't bought coral in months

Sorry to hear of this. I can relate well with you as I had them a yr ago. Do you have a spare tank that you can set up? If possible, cut the corals off your rock work and after dipping place them in the new tank. For the DT, remove the remaining acro off the rock work ( if you can't, use glue on the remaining acro).
Eggs may be in your rock work however, without acro the fw will eventually starve to death. I would continue to run your DT for at least three mths ( I cooked my rocks for 5 mths) before introducing any acros back to your tank. For the surviving pieces, continue to dip every few days and check for eggs. You should see improvement over time.

In the future discard any rocks and plugs that came with the frag or colony as dipping does not kill eggs.

Good luck in destroying all the fw.

[Proteus]

I took.all acros out and dipped only three pieces had visible flatworms on it I put back in tank as it'll take a day to get tank going.
Blew off rocks also.
Been reading lots so I know now I'll have to be dilligent

[Proteus]

Ok I am going to set up a QT tank but I was wondering

My tank is small. 30g BB. I am able to remove all rock. Would it be ok to cook rock in a bin and use dt to treat fw

[asylumdown]

Is cooking the rocks really required? I thought AEFW always laid their eggs on the skeleton of the coral they were munching on, I didn't think they would go out in to the rock work to lay eggs? Baby AEFW would need to be very close to a food source when they hatched, so laying eggs out in a desert (relative to something as small as a newly hatched flatworm) seems like a behaviour evolution would have nipped in the bud pretty early on.

I suppose it's better safe than sorry, but separating your corals from their life-support system for that long seems like a situation where the cure can be worse than the disease.

You definitely need to inspect the corals you do have very carefully though, all that work will be for naught if you missed a teeny tiny cluster of eggs wedged in the crook of a branch. Even half of a mm of exposed skeleton is enough for them to lay eggs on.

[Craigdillman]

Yea not sure cooking is required if you can QT all the corals and just leave the Main fallow of Acros for a bit they should die out. Feel for you man that really sucks

[Craigdillman]

Plus if you take all the rocks out you may run into a problem if you still have fish and a bio load

[Spyd]

With such a small tank, I would just put the sps back in and dip them once a week. Once u see no signs of flatworms, you are good to go. You can also use KZ flatworm Stop. It doesnt kill the flatworms but coats your sps so that the flatworms dont eat them. Dose it daily for 3 months.

[Proteus]

Thanks peeps for the help.
I'm.not.sure about eggs on rockwork I've read yes and no. I dont see why they wouldn't as I see eggs on frag plugs
Either way I set up a qt. The eggs hatch in 21 days and mature flatworms die in 5 without food so I'm looking at a month.

Question though.
I've cut clean frags from what was salvageable am I ok to put these on frag plugs.
Also.
Should I treat the qt tank or remove the corals and dip weekly

[Proteus]

Also did pick up flatworm stop. But that's a little late now lol