PraziPro - Time to Kill Polyclads

[Haggisman14]

Hey everyone, I did my first treatment of PraziPro last night to kill the polyclads that have been attacking my torch and was just curious...about how long does it take for them to actually kill those little buggers!

I treated last night around 8PM, and this morning when I looked at my tank 6AM (with a flashlight) I still saw them crawling all over the torch. I know I read that the PraziPro stays in the water column for about 24-48 hours...so I'm assuming it takes 1-2 days to kill off these guys.

Just curious what your past experiences have been.

Thanks!

 

[ihavecrabs]

I have a funny (not so funny) story about these... I have a buddy at work that has a polyclad infestation on his torches (lost quite a few before he realized what the problem was) and I talked him through using bayer dips weekly for 6 weeks to break the lifecycle (kill adults and juveniles and not allowing additional eggs to be laid) while continuously addressing new egg hatchlings for 6 weeks. We believe we know where the infestation came from and I happened to go to that LFS after work yesterday and they had just received a shipment of torches and hammers in. They fragged a colony, put them in their tank for sale, and when I notified them that they had about 30 polyclad flatworms in their tank, they said they were going to add prazipro to take care of it (and that they had already dipped with coralrx). AHHH

Based on my buddies infestation, this is probably a similar approach to having fish in lower amounts of copper... stops customers from seeing the infestation, but does not protect them once eggs hatch.

Moving on... The 6 week dip protocol is backed by other reefers experience and we are attempting this trial now. I am unaware if this process is backed scientifically (yet).

I haven't attempted Prazipro, but if administered, it would also have to address eggs hatching (therefore multiple dips or dosing to the tank which the latter I do not recommend)

#Reefsquad any polyclad worm experts?

 

[Haggisman14]

Thanks for the response! I definitely know I got these on a hitchhiker from my second torch that I added to my system.

Per the PraziPro protocol, I"ll be doing the second dose next Tuesday AM (5 days out), and then I"ll be moving the tank on Wednesday PM. I figured the timing works out perfectly as the tank will be able to sit for over 24 hours with the PP to kill any hatchlings, and then it'll get a nice water change!

 

[ihavecrabs]

Sounds good.

The only thing I would be concerned with is that a 5-7 day stretch may not account for any eggs that didn't hatch during that period. I'm unsure how long these eggs can remain unhatched and viable for. You may want to follow up with another dose.

 

[tastyfish]

I've never had them (thank god) but when researching previously, I couldn't find a single instance of in-tank treatments such as prazi or flatworm exit working.

I found a couple of research papers which suggested that the only effective way to kill them was to radically lower salinity (ie use a freshwater dip) for 21-30 minutes. Fairly obviously, this caused the coral to die within 10 days.

I think you may be best doing frequent dips, say once every 3-4 days, squirting the corals with a turkey baster whilst doing so. And employ the services of a couple of voracious wrasse to pick off newly hatched or mouth sized versions. (reef safe species of halichoeres - such as a pair of H. Chrysus or macropharyngodon - such as M. bipartitus).

I believe that most marine flatworm eggs have a 3-7 day gestation period, but I can't find the reference and most studies are very vague on this, so I would plan on continuing for a couple of weeks perhaps.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I believe that most marine flatworm eggs have a 3-7 day gestation period, but I can't find the reference and most studies are very vague on this, so I would plan on continuing for a couple of weeks perhaps.

If you find a decent article on this, I'd love to get a link to it.

I agree that in-tank treatments are likely to be flawed. I've also heard that most of these dips just temporarily upset them and get them to fall off until the treatment subsides in-which they go on the hunt for that same coral again. This is why out-of-the-tank dips are better. You don't have to kill them, just get them to drop off of the coral.

 

[tastyfish]

If you find a decent article on this, I'd love to get a link to it.

I agree that in-tank treatments are likely to be flawed. I've also heard that most of these dips just temporarily upset them and get them to fall off until the treatment subsides in-which they go on the hunt for that same coral again. This is why out-of-the-tank dips are better. You don't have to kill them, just get them to drop off of the coral.

I've hunted for it, but can't find it. It was 3 years ago or so that I found it. It appears that one of the reasons is that scientists have a real problem cultivating polyclads in the lab... I think they should take up reef keeping!

The other real pain in the backside point is that contrary to what most believe, the eggs do not hatch into little flatworms, who crawl out and start munching.. They hatch into planktonic larvae which swim in the water column. Hopefully something like prazi would take care of these? (https://evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-9139-5-9)

My hopes were lifted when I just stumbled upon this... https://experiment.com/projects/the-life-cycle-of-a-coral-killer-the-acropora-eating-flatworm Maybe you can find a link to the conclusions which may help?

 

[andrewkw]

Wouldn't flatworm exit be a more effective treatment? I used to have polyclads a long time ago. I think I just manually removed them, close to 10 years since I've seen one.

 

[tastyfish]

Wouldn't flatworm exit be a more effective treatment? I used to have polyclads a long time ago. I think I just manually removed them, close to 10 years since I've seen one.

They laugh at flatworm exit. I can't remember which form it was (either here or RC), but someone dropped a polyclad into a solution of flatworm exit at 4+ times maximum dose... He was still happily crawling around hours later.

Manual removal is best for the adults I think

 

[andrewkw]

They laugh at flatworm exit. I can't remember which form it was (either here or RC), but someone dropped a polyclad into a solution of flatworm exit at 4+ times maximum dose... He was still happily crawling around hours later.

Manual removal is best for the adults I think

Oh yeah I remember the post on RC now...

 

[saltyhog]

Are we sure it's polyclad flatworms? I thought they were only predators of clams and snails, not coral? Any pictures?

 

[lakereef]

Prazi kills them quickly. For proof, once you catch one, put it in a separate container and add some prazi to it. You'll see them dissolve before your eyes within minutes. If you're choosing to do an in tank treatment you will need to treat again after a week or so, to kill what has hatched from the eggs. I wouldn't recommend the in tank treatment if you have sensitive corals or obviously decorative worms that you care about.

 

[tastyfish]

Are we sure it's polyclad flatworms? I thought they were only predators of clams and snails, not coral? Any pictures?

There's a few species of polycladia, they are all awesome predators, but some really like coral and are often found on torches. The well known one, the leopard polyclad is the normal big clam predator and grows the largest.

 

[saltyhog]

There's a few species of polycladia, they are all awesome predators, but some really like coral and are often found on torches. The well known one, the leopard polyclad is the normal big clam predator and grows the largest.

Thanks! That's the one I had a few of as hitch hikers.

 

[Haggisman14]

So a quick update. Per the bottle, my tank is 30 gallons, so I did 7.5 ml treatment on Thursday night when I got home. Tank inhabitants are all fine, however, the polyclads are still all alive and well. There's still a good 3-5 constantly at the base of the flesh of the torch, and I keep see them scooting across the mouth of the torch too. I understand intank treatments aren't as efficient as if I were to take the coral out and dip it....but shouldn't some of these have died already...or is it a slow death for them?

I'll be doing treatment #2 tomorrow night, and I'm wondering if I should up the dosage from 7.5 mL to 10mL.

I will be doing the treatment tomorrow night (Tuesday), and then doing a tank move on Wednesday evening at which time I'll also be doing a 10 gallon water change which is why i'm thinking maybe a slightly stronger does won't be an issue.

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks!

 

[kireek]

No personal experience with the issue.I did find out that the manual scrapping of the eggs is recommended.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/f...ifecycle-and-eradication.232329/#post-2704814

 

[Haggisman14]

Wow...they were infested BAD! Mine don't look that big, or that infested...but you never know!

Doing a second treatment tonight. This time around I'm going to put the PraziPro in a cup, and use my turkey baster to blast the torch, hopefully the immediate contact will working on killing those buggers.

Got my tank move coming up tomorrow night. Once I'm settled in the new house, I might do a final dip by actually pulling the torch out of the tank doing a solid dip!

As others stated, it's not touching anything but the torch (my hammer - knock on wood) is totally fine.

 

[Haggisman14]

those rat b@stards! I'm looking in my tank today and noticed that the one head of my torch is not expanded. Upon closer examination I noticed that the polyclad worms are back! I don't know what to do! I'm not going to treat the whole tank again, as after my last treatment I lost 2 acro's, and the third got some pretty bad RTN. I'm thinking I'm going to make a prazipro solution, place that iin a container, remoe the torch frag and then turkey baste the heck out of it.

Other than that I don't know what to do. If the torch is fully removed from the tank, will the polyclad worms just die off? This is extremely frustrating!

 

[Haggisman14]

So new order of corals arrive tomorrow from WWC, and tomorrow night i'll be taking out the torch, dipping it in prazi pro, and then taking a hard bristle toothbrush and scrapping the hell out of the skeleton. I'm hoping this does the job, b/c I won't be doing another in tank treatment as the last time it almost killed the one SPS I had.

Fingers crossed this does the trick!

 

[Haggisman14]

UPDATE - POLY CLADS ARE BACK!

So long story short, after having down 2 treatments "in tank" with PraziPro, and then doing another treatment directly to my only torch coral in it's own dip, and scraping the entire skeleton, there are adult Polyclads all over my torch coral again.

Once again, the polyclads are ONLY on the torch, and are not affecting my two hammers on the other side of my tank. Since it seems they only like the torch, if I removed the torch completely, do you think any remaining polyclads/eggs would make their way over to the hammers, or if I remove the torch from the tank, should it end up killing the polyclads and any remaining eggs as they will have nothing left to feed on.

Any help would be appreciated as I have no idea what else to do.

Thanks!