Is this AEFW or Black Bugs or something else???

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Crossposted here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/please-id-this-sob.454284/
Haaaalp! I recently had a very large acro colony stop showing its polyps and eventually started to STN on the underside and in the middle some. I assumed it was a flow issue or starvation, so I moved it to better flow and turned off the biodenitrator (nitrates were always undetectable but now I've got them up to about .5ppm) and upped my feeding and dosing of Reef Energy A and B.
Losses spread to a few other colonies and I started to freak out. I inspected as carefully as I could for AEFW and never could spot any. but I am afraid I either have that or the dreaded "Black Bugs" whatever they are... So far have not successfully found what I thought were the telltale egg clusters but I have also noticed on some of the dead skeleton this tiny, 1mm worm looking creatures that move kind of like leaches. Too small for a photo unfortunately... There are a few on the underside of my red dragon frag plugs and that is one of the corals affected. But I did finally get a picture of something that look pretty darned suspicious...

Can anyone give me a positive ID on this (close up is for ID, the other photo is for size reference). I am eagerly awaiting (dreading) your responses!

Ranjib · Sep 10, 2018

AEFW, do you have any wrasse in your tank? Try dipping the affected sticks in bayers (or even revive) and see what comes out
#reefsquad

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Is that a 100% AEFW you think?

I will try it now. I have Bayer and Coral RX, no Revive

29bonsaireef · Sep 10, 2018

I dont know... doesn't look like FW to me.

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

I have a flasher wrasse in my QT I can put in there. But no other wrasses. My LFS has a sixline I could add. Or is there a better hunter?

I have really looked hard for AEFWs and their eggs and I agree this is slightly off... the body looks segmented almost

Battlecorals · Sep 10, 2018

the critter in the pic on the right is definitely not an acro eater

29bonsaireef · Sep 10, 2018

There's so much micro life in an established aquarium that will feed on decaying corals. I'm fairly sure that is not an AEFW. Had them more times then I would have liked. Wrasse will help if you suspect pests. Anything else go wrong that could have led to TN?

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Well like I said, I originally suspected the issue was coral starvation or flow. I have had a few incidents along the way where my alk spiked after a kalk overdose, but those were corrected fairly rapidly (over a few days max) and the main coral in question survived and thrived afterwards. Since then, my alk has been pretty steady between 7 and 8. I use a calcium reactor controlled by my Apex and a Carbondoser, and I add kalk to my ATO (which is where the overdose came from).

The large colony (Shades of Fall, 12X12X6) actually darkened quite a bit, and at the same time stopped showing PE, and then STN'd and RTN'd in a few places. I broke up that colony and fragged it, and those frags and mini colonies are still alive in the three people's tanks who have them. I have informed them of my fears but so far so good with them.

In the meantime, I lost a Red Dragon colony and some unnamed pale brown acro. Other corals in my tank seem to be doing fine with good PE and color. FYI, the tank is fairly new (about 4.5 mos), although it was started with fully cycled live rock.

Current parameters are:
PO4: .06 ppm (hanna ULR)
NO3: 1ppm (salifert)
Alk: 8.15 (red sea pro)
Ca: 515 ppm (Salifert)
Mg: 1325 (Salifert)

Other recent things I did was I started adding a tiny dose of Pohl's Extra Special every day, and also did a few small doses of Vibrant to take care of a little GHA.

Other than that I skim pretty heavily, use a calcium reactor and kalk, and run about a 1/2 cup of GFO and 2 cups of GAC in a dual reactor. The tank gets tons of flow via two MP40s and a Gyre 250 and a pair of coralife wave makers (it's a 45 g frag tank with a 30 gallon fuge and a 30 gallon sump, 100+ lbs of LR)

I also dose reef energy A and B every morning.

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

29bonsaireef said:
There's so much micro life in an established aquarium that will feed on decaying corals. I'm fairly sure that is not an AEFW. Had them more times then I would have liked. Wrasse will help if you suspect pests. Anything else go wrong that could have led to TN?

Yeah that's what I was wondering - I am looking as closely as I possibly can and I see no animals on the living flesh of any of the corals. Just on the dead parts. Can't find any signs of what I would think AEFW would look like based on the numerous pictures I've looked at.

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Battlecorals said:
the critter in the pic on the right is definitely not an acro eater

Well that is a total relief! Although totally contradictory to the first response LOL. Any other thoughts?

29bonsaireef · Sep 10, 2018

Honestly, I would suspect exactly what you're thinking at this point. Coral starvation, from low nutrients. It is a newish system as well, the alk spike too.. Things seem to be pointing towards parameters rather than pest. Not that I would completely rule it out, but I don't think you have anything eating your living corals.

Reef Pets · Sep 10, 2018

Not an AEFW. I’ve seen these bugs many times and they seem to eat on dead flesh or any acro that is diseased or dying off.
I would recommend a dip and place the colony so it gets flow on the underside.
If it continues to recede, I personally would Frag it and cut into the live tissue in attempt to safe what you can.

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Ok, so I think I am liking what I'm hearing so far.... here are the results of the Bayer dip I just did a minute ago using 10ml per 4 Oz. on 5 frags that have all been exhibiting little or not PE lately. Hardly anything came off and I had to struggle to get these pics. Whatever they are they are teeny tiny (shot with the tweezers for perspective). Do these look like anything bad?

jessezm · Sep 10, 2018

Also, I didn't take these frags off their plugs, so whatever came off could have also been on the plug not the coral itself...

Ranjib · Sep 11, 2018

I think these are planaria or flatworms :-/
But I am not an expert in this. I would rely on collective minds input

jessezm · Sep 11, 2018

They do have that look about them, but they are much much smaller than any planaria I've seen in a tank. They just look like dots to the naked eye - I took the photo on full zoom with my iphone and then zoomed in more on the photo and took a screen grab... With the typical planaria I've seen, they are big enough to make out the shape without any help from a lens. Not that they couldn't be some smaller type...

zack801 · Sep 11, 2018

Those do look like planaria to me with the forked tails.

jessezm · Sep 11, 2018

If they are Planaria or Acole my guess is that they are not what's doing the harm... I do have some FWE on the way that I may try out.

jessezm · Sep 11, 2018

Any other thoughts? I inspected the tank a few hours after lights out and didn't see any buys on any of the unhappy-looking frags. Maybe the few bugs I'm seeing are just clean up crews and the real problem is with tank parameters? Struggling for answers here!