Yeah of course - I hope this helps. Sorry for the long post!
This was the hardest decision I had to make since I’ve been in the hobby for 12 years. I noticed my acros were sending out mesenterial filaments and rapidly dying but they weren’t bleaching it ... was like the flesh was being eaten from the bottom up. So I looked at them as closely as I could with a flashlight and eventually saw those tiny black slugs slithering around. I couldn’t find much online about them other than they’re hard to treat and seemingly a newer pest that we’re seeing. I siphoned them off every night but it wasn’t enough - the corals were looking worse and worse. Then I found AEFW on another acro... that’s when I decided I needed to take drastic measures: to break them all off the rocks and treat them aggressively.
I read as much as I could here and decided I’d go with the melafix dip treatment. Folks here have had good success getting rid of the pests without damaging the corals or other residents of the tank. I wasnt comfortable dipping in bayer because I was worried about the residue getting into the display and killing things.
So I picked up a magnetic frag rack, a bottle of melafix marine, and some new frag plugs. I broke all the acros off the rocks and broke off their original plugs and put them on new plugs. This was to get any eggs off the old plugs. I also scraped off any acros that encrusted on the rock. This really sucked and I was regretting not dipping everything before I put them in the tank...
so the plan was to dip them in melafix once or twice a week every week for 2 months. This is a lot of work but I read that it’ll break the lifecycle of the AEFW. I wasn’t sure about the black slugs but I guess time will tell...
I set out 4 bowls: 3 for saltwater and one for RODI. I put one full capful of melafix in a gallon of tank water and let the acros soak for 5 minutes. I’d spray them with a turkey baster for the 5 minutes to get any bugs off. I also put the frag rack in RODI water while the acros were in the dip to kill off anything that may be on the rack. After the 5 minute dip I’d swish them around and then transfer them to saltwater bowl number 2 and give them another nice swish around to rinse it off and hopefully get any clingers off into bowl 2. Then the treated coral would go into saltwater bowl 3 and I’d repeat the rinsing until all the corals made it down the assembly line into the final bowl.
If I wasn’t in quarantine and working from home I’d probably give up on acros to be honest. This has been a nightmare and I really didn’t want to break them off and treat them. It was also a major pain in the behind a month in to keep it up. In hindsight I’m glad I did it though. I didn’t lose a single coral and the one in the worst shape actually made a an amazing turnaround.
Acro being eaten- notice it’s white from the bottom up. This damage was within 2-3 days. I thought it was STN at first and was sure I’d lose it. I only saw the black slugs at night and the small ones are hard to see.
captured slug on a bamboo skewer-they are tiny. The little “pockets” are a close up of a paper towel underneath to give you an idea how small these things are.
The first dip treatment. So much junk was on the bottom of the bowl this first dip.
soaking the frag rack in RODI. Lots of dead stuff in this bowl after the dip too. I accidentally killed a snail too that I didn’t notice underneath the rack. Sorry snail RIP
half way through. Gotta stick with it
remember that first picture? Here’s the same coral midtreatment. You can tell it’s working and it’s getting a chance to recover. The color is coming back and the bottom part looks like it ‘healed up’
End of treatment and they’re all glued back on the rock. The most infested coral made a full recovery and now has its polyps out all the time. Before and after:
Things are looking promising and all the corals have great color now and amazing polyp extension. It’s only been two weeks since I glued them back on the rocks so I’m not letting my guard down and keeping a close eye on them. I think I have acro pest PTSD now
Well done!
