What is the WORST pest in the hobby?

nanonøkk

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hydroids some say oh you can just pull them off the rocks they were on a colony of candy cane i had to throw out because every single time i removed them they came back even when there was a thick layer of super glue right up almost touching the corals flesh.
 

jk1824

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Aptasia is the one I have the most experience with... never had a full blown outbreak like some I have seen but they are definitely a nuisance. A pair of pep shrimp solved that problem in one night. I haven’t had any issues with my peps like others describe but I did witness a murder one night when my cleaner shrimp took one out.

I despise vermitid snails, had an issue with them when tank was fairly new but they finally died off after I glued them all inside their shells. At the same time I found a couple nudibranches eating my zoas but was able to get them out and haven’t seen any since. I haven’t gotten brave enough to try sps yet so no acro pests. I do have bristle worms but rarely see them so thus far have not posed any threat.
 

Jfast

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I would say dinos . And the monti eating bugs sounds nasty but I’ve never had them .
 

Marlyreef

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Aiptasia are barely a problem nowadays, you only ever hear about people putting in work or predators to get rid of them, never really about people restarting their tank or giving up entirely because of them anymore.

All the things you listed just vary in how annoying it is to deal with them, but you can deal with them, so they hardly qualify as the worst.

I'd say a good contender are fish attacking blood sucking isopods, nothing you can really do besides going fallow for a year or more, trying to catch them every night basically forever, or restarting the tank

Maybe coral diseases leading to stunted growth forever
Those blood sucking isopods are still fresh in my memory from ten-twelve years ago when I had a tank with real live rock. I would hunt them down every night for weeks. Awful pests.
 

monkeyCmonkeyDo

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Its cuz everyones sold on these bottle products these days. You think the ocean gets dosed daily with vibrant or mb7 or fritz super buffer? Lol.
Your impacting the chemistry of the water and it has to do something with that ying yang. The water dosent magically clear.
D
 

Marlyreef

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Currently dealing with rust brown planaria/flatworms. They are ugly and a nuisance more than anything. I keep on top of them with siphoning. I bought a springer's damsel to try natural control, as suggested to me by the shop owner, but it shows zero interest. Next step will be flatworm exit, I guess... Though I'm reluctant to try it.
 

brahm

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I literally saw one creep onto a healthy polyp and chow down, pulling it off took relative force.
Unlikely but not impossible, I have a fairy wrasse that eats algae with my tangs out of the clip, I wouldn't say it's the norm.

Also when it comes to this stuff we are horrible at ID, the typical one most of us get are benign.
 

elysics

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IMG_20210314_180053.jpg

Here's a Pic, later on it was clamped down centrally on the polyp

My vague, maybe wrong, ID is Aquilonastra conandae, formerly considered an Asterina sp., still part of Asterinidae
 
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Jfast

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Currently dealing with rust brown planaria/flatworms. They are ugly and a nuisance more than anything. I keep on top of them with siphoning. I bought a springer's damsel to try natural control, as suggested to me by the shop owner, but it shows zero interest. Next step will be flatworm exit, I guess... Though I'm reluctant to try it.
Flatworm exit works nice might half to do it once or twice. Add a good air stone in the system. I added Christmas wrasse and sixline also worked great
 

jacksin

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F49FED3F-95A1-4AC4-BFE1-2ACC39736708.jpeg
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The worst pest for me has been this red encrusting sponge. It is taking over my tank. Every sps is turning white at the tips. The tips turn pink shortly after, which I assume is the sponge growing on the exposed skeleton. ICP test shows everything acceptable. Assuming the sponge is releasing some type of toxin. Recently changed carbon and have been running a poly filter. Nothing has helped as I watch my reef slowly get destroyed.
 

KrisReef

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F49FED3F-95A1-4AC4-BFE1-2ACC39736708.jpeg
The worst pest for me has been this red encrusting sponge. It is taking over my tank. Every sps is turning white at the tips. The tips turn pink shortly after, which I assume is the sponge growing on the exposed skeleton. ICP test shows everything acceptable. Assuming the sponge is releasing some type of toxin. Recently changed carbon and have been running a poly filter. Nothing has helped as I watch my reef slowly get destroyed
This is a challenge. Have you attempted removing a rock and allowing the sponge to experience air contact? That with a hydrogen peroxide exposure might work to control and remove this?

would likely be a lot of work but I wonder if it would cure this scourge?

Your description is that this organism is evil.
 

Sharkbait19

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Captain jerk palys. In all fairness, I did willingly introduce them, but they’re a menace to my LPS frags. Every time I think I eliminated them, they find a way to return. Here’s some pics of a trumpet coral I had that started with one or two attached to it.
10CCCB2D-E7B2-4BAF-B81D-8B9702B677DC.jpeg
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They come back in a matter of weeks. They give me a harder time than any aiptasia or vermetid. Luckily, I think I finally managed to control them. That is until they turn their attention to my new frogspawn....
 
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