This is going to be a difficult post for me to write, bear with me.
Last night after 3 days of research, discussion with other reefers, testing treatments under a microscope, and bringing myself to actually do it; I tore down my Acro tank. Not a hurt acro tank, but a beautiful growing acro tank that had been up for approximately 8 months with acros and 2 years total. I chopped up all my encrusted frags and colonies and basically chucked them in the trash keeping a tiny 1-2" frag of the healthiest corals to not loose the bloodlines.
It all started about two weeks ago when I noticed my alkalinity staying stable for once, which is weird for my tank. It's always going low because my tank was transitioning from its "bunch of frags stage" to the "every frag is taking off into a colony stage". I noticed I didn't have to make my weekly adjustment dose and then up my daily dose and I noticed a few corals looking like the edges of the encrusting part where white and maybe beginning to STN. I didnt think much about it and attributed it to no water changes for 3 months. While parameters were perfect I figured my trace elements were getting out of wack finally. So I did two 20g water changes back to back in my 90g tank with 30g frag tank.
A few days later I noticed 3 of my Acros where now actually STNing. That day another more experienced SPS reefer swung by my house to get some stuff and saw my tank. He immediately told me something was very wrong. And that my issue wasn't water parameters, trace elements, low phosphates, etc. He said something was attacking them. My first thought was AEFW. I started researching and decided to let them stay in the tank and try out the KZ Flatwork Stop and Wrasse Technique. I figured those corals were stressed from something else or a combination of things and well I basically didnt know what was going on. I have been dosing KZ Coral Booster for a while and several people told me with that product, corals can actually withstand a AEFW infestation and you wont see it, you'll just see bite marks here and there and you'll see growth slow, colors fade, etc.
So I posted to SPS Junkies on facebook group a picture of my STNing RR Pink Floyd and a guy from California immediately messaged me saying, "Im sorry to say this but I'm 99% sure you have black bugs, the absolutely worst Acro pest" I called him up and we talked thru IDing them. I pulled the Pink Floyd out and dipped it in 2 cap fulls of Revive in 16oz of water which is approximately 4x strength. Immediately a bunch of little black bugs emerged from the coral.
At this point everything is spiraling downward incredibly quickly. In the course of a week I went from a few sick corals to loosing thousands of dollars worth of Acros. A whole section of frags on a frag rack are obviously being eaten alive by these bugs and it all hits me, HOLY CRAP I gotta do something NOW. Basically the lower half of the tank along with the frag racks where all STN/RTNing. Since I can't see them with the naked eye, I bust out my camera and macro lens and start taking pictures so I can zoom in on them and inspect which corals need to be cut out first.. Thats when I discover I ALSO HAVE AEFW when I see their bite marks on some corals. Double Whammy. The crazy part is that no new corals had been added to the tank since RAP in April.
In my research I found that most people do not beat them. Lots of people didn't even want to discuss it with me. One guy even told me, kiss your tank good bye. A few others had experimented with extreme dipping methods. It seemed a few people had success with cutting bases off corals, dipping at 4x dose revive for 5 minutes.. Every week for 8 weeks and leaving the tank fallow of acros for 4-6 months to destroy the entire lifecycle before replanting frags. I experimented with Bayer, even super concentrated did nothing to them at all.
So thats what Im doing at the moment. Experimenting and dipping. But I had to tear down the tank.
I'm not sure I will revisit sticks again after this. Thank god I'm single and young, no wife/no kids. No wife would stand for the amount of money I spent on frags this past year and then deal with loosing 75% of them.
The death toll is serious:
RR Ultimate Orange Passion
RR Angry Birds
RR Lion King
RR Equinox
RR Diesel
RR Pink Venom
RR Badger
RR Inferno
RR WM Fusion
RR Red Velvet
RR Strawberry Fields
Vivid Confetti
PC Rainbow
SC Orange Passion
CB Beast Mode Acro
CB Gumdrop Acro
CB Wet Dreams
CB Miami Orchid
CB Sick Nasty
CB Fruity Pebbles
CB Birthday Cake
CB Rainbow Treasure
CB Valhalla
CB Big Papi
DJ Skitty's FHRITP
TCK Rainbow Matrix
TCK Candy Crush
TCK Mardi Gras
I managed to save:
Big R Walt Disney
JF Fox Flame
JF Homewrecker
RRC OG Jawdropper
RR Aussie Gold Tort
RR Rainbow Loom
HSF Leviathan Acro
CB Flaming Unicorn
CB Versace Acro
CB Icecap Acro
BC Bubblebath Unicorn (maybe, its hurt bad)
GARF Bonsai
One more note, I think these are rare. I think there are more than one kind, and I think each kind eats certain types of Acros. The one I have seems to eat acros with textured skin and passes on smooth skin acros. Not proven, just from observation.
I made this post so everyone can see what they look like. Discuss experiences, and be aware. These things make AEFW seem fun.
Jusg FYI... I just had 5 corals come in from WWC. I dipped. I looked under a microscope and saw this small black bug... Never heards of black bugs... So, I look them up - and here we are. Only SPS in the lot was a $5 birds nest... Must have come off of that. Also found an astarina starfish munching on the Galxia in the bag. Hmmm. You spend good money on a drag the size of a Nickle from a very reputable place... BAM. Black bugs and Astarina. dang. I'm not very happy. Glad they went into QT... Going out to buy Bayer Insecticide. dang. Can't believe they came in like this.
