OP
OP
I can’t believe they get into LPS. Gezz.
They’re in every single acro I have. Some are stunted because they’re in the skeleton, but others are ok because they’re just in the base.
Coral Boring Spionid Worms- Anybody Killed them?
- Thread starter Reefahholic
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They’re in every single acro I have. Some are stunted because they’re in the skeleton, but others are ok because they’re just in the base.
buruskeee
Well-Known Member
So they spread in your tank pretty quickly? Should I toss the hammer frag I got to avoid infestation?
fendanto
Community Member
Interesting note however, I left the torches in my frag tank while setting up a QT and the sexy shrimp I've got in there has been meticulously walking around picking at and eating from the skeleton for the past 7 hours. I had to move the torch to the back so I can't get a good look right now at whether he's been able to get at the worms but he's definitely trying.
I'll forgive his sins of popping some of my hammers in the DT if he's able to flush out some of these little jerks. Heck, I'll build him a little shrimp castle. He can have all the cyclops he wants til the end of his days!
I'll forgive his sins of popping some of my hammers in the DT if he's able to flush out some of these little jerks. Heck, I'll build him a little shrimp castle. He can have all the cyclops he wants til the end of his days!
OP
OP
If they’re in that, they’re probably already in there. I think a lot of people have them, but don’t know it. I saw them in Jake Adams tanks and ReefBum. ReefBum’s tank is growing pretty amazingly, but they were still able to stunt some corals in there. My corals are growing well too, but some of the smaller frags that have them are stunted. I have a Walt Disney frag with them and it’s doing nothing while every other corals in the tank as doubled in size. Larger mini colonies tolerate them better. When they bore into the skeletons, they form little tunnels which basically start to kill the skeletons from the inside. After it gets worse, the coral slows down in growth and “appears” to be happy, but will never grow at the same rate or reach colony size. It doesn’t happen to all of them, but the corals that get them bad are done. Your best bet is get some liquid ivermectin and start experimenting for us. I’ll be doing my experiment soon. However, this will not help encrusted colonies on the rocks. Only corals that are able to be removed from the system.
fendanto
Community Member
Interesting. My assumption, considering the rate at which they appear to multiply, even on a larger time scale, is fairly slow (not within 72 hours, at least). Would be surprising to me for them to be reproducing that quickly and outside of the host skeleton they've been found on.
buruskeee
Well-Known Member
I’m not sure they like to move in the water column and I’ve read they don’t really lay eggs on the exterior, though I’m not sure if that’s true. I placed the frag on plug in the middle of the sand and that’s when I first noticed. I couldn’t see the, at the LFS with the lighting there. There was like no hitchhikers too after I dipped in RX.
I think I’m still early in introducing it to be able to remove the coral and not have it leave any worms.
OP
OP
I’m not sure how they move around the tank. I’d love to know that. Although in the right conditions they absolutely explode. I’m assuming they’re laying eggs or divide. Who knows.
OP
OP
Reefkeepers Archive
2500 Club Member
I picked up a platygyra with one in it, dosent seem to bother the coral, it just encrusted over the tube, unfortunately that worm spawned in my tank, thank goodness its the only one in my system, probably wolnt see more popping up. I should also mention that there's two dead ones in my wilsoniThese turds have survived Bayer, Coral RX Pro, KCI, and Exodus dip.
They apparently retract into their tubes, and back into the coral skeleton where they apparently are safe from the medications.
Below I will post some pictures for reference. The first pic is mine, but the others are just random pics I found so forgive me if this is one of your pictures. I would give photo credit, but I do not remember where I got them. I am still unsure exactly what these are, but the picture that has the red circle is for sure what I have in a few corals. I’m not completely sure that all these pics have the same exact species, but it looks pretty close. When I first noticed mine, they were at the base of the coral in the first pic. They formed several like brown spikes or tubes. I broke them all off, and instantly dipped that coral in Bayer and Coral RX. Thought for sure I got them only to see them come out 3-5 days later. So I fragged the LT branch off that frag and remounted it. So far so good and it’s encrusting the rock. Has good color. Hoping I fragged it high enough.
If you know a medication or treatment that will smoke these guys, please post up. Some of my corals basically started to grow slower, and will probably quit progressing all together. I believe they basically stunt the growth over time and in some cases kill the host coral. Likely a slow death and one of those corals that sits and just doesn’t grow or do well.
They appear to put out the two tentacles as filter feeders. IDK. Anyway, I have that first frag on the plug to test with so let me know.
Depends a bit on the species, but:
Yeah, they actively bore into the coral/rock for at least part of the tunneling process (see the links below*). If I recall correctly, they use chemicals and their specialized chaetae (their bristles) to tunnel.
I can’t remember the paper I read discussing their reproduction at the moment, but, if I recall correctly, at least a few species actually do reproduce in the tunnels and the young dig their way out, exacerbating the damage to the rock/coral. I’ll try to post the reference and it if I can find it again.
* The links:
Bioeroding (boring) polychaete species (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Aegean Sea (eastern Mediterranean) | Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom | Cambridge Core
Bioeroding (boring) polychaete species (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Aegean Sea (eastern Mediterranean) - Volume 101 Issue 2www.cambridge.org
I don’t know if this is the one I read before or a different one, but I found one:
Reproduction, larval development and functional relationships of the burrowing, spionid polychaete Dipolydora armata with the calcareous hydrozoan Millepora complanata - Marine Biology
Dipolydora armata (Langerhans, 1880) is a small (4 to 5 mm) spionid polychaete found burrowing in the calcareous hydrozoan Millepora complanata Lamarck, 1816, on coral reefs at Barbados, West Indies. It excavates complex networks of interconnecting burrows and forms aggregations of worms in...link.springer.com
buruskeee
Well-Known Member
Hmm, so is it safe to say that if the skeleton of the coral is not touching anything around, the worms will stay on the specific coral only?
Probably not - I'd imagine that once the coral starts getting too crowded, some of the worms will leave to colonize other places/corals.
buruskeee
Well-Known Member
So they can swim in the water column? Or would they crawl through the substrate and climb the rocks? It seems they never want to leave their holes.
At least some species can swim - I imagine most would prefer to stay protected by the substrate/rocks though. If they run out of space in the coral, though, then I'd personally expect some to leave to find new places to colonize (be it through swimming or crawling).
buruskeee
Well-Known Member
I tried to find what I can on that species. It might be something different as the pictures (very few) I was able to come across don’t show these having the antenna.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-regenerating-lost-parts-after_fig4_248716434
fendanto
Community Member
Pretty much all of the literature that I have come across related to boring spionids tends to describe them as reproducing sexually or asexually. They gestate with eggs but most species hold onto their eggs until they're ready to hatch. Some, like in the links above will deposit their eggs in their tunnel wall and I haven't seen any described as letting loose their eggs in the water column. The larvae appear to be very weak and so they tend to brood with their young in the tunnel as they can protect them by quickly producing large amounts of mucus. So the female would have to get over to a new coral to start breeding. This isn't true of all tunneling species but it is the predominant reproduction method. They have huge spawning events but again, because of the tendency to brood, one would believe that they do not spread to other substrates very quickly.
Also: spawning appears to be triggered in the spring and fall with changes in water temperature. This has at least been noted with species found typically in mollusc hatcheries.
OP
OP
Not sure…but rapidly!
OP
OP
They will not stay in one coral. They multiply everywhere in the tank and are in 90% of my corals. Some only at the base. They have a significant impact when they begin to bore into the Skelton. They also get on the edges of rocks. Even in the middle of the rocks, but more at the edges. My corals in the middle of the scape were less likely to get them, but some still got them.
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