Coral Pests (thoughts)

[jovreef]

Well I would post this for one of the experts on RC but since they are not there...

Just curous, do you think the increased number of coral pests, such as red bugs, acro eating flatworms, Monti nudies, leather nudies, Zoa nudies, spiders, and snails (whew thats alot!) Do you think the increase can be contributed to the water temps raising & the polution going up as well. They say thats the reason for the huge boom of jellie's ... so could the same be for these pests?

I remeber when I started this hobby no one even herd of such things! It seems like all these pests started showing up as of 2004 and on. Could it be that there just was not that many pests being imported with corals? Or just our arrogance & not knowing about them that no one saw them in their tanks for all these years and blamed their colony loss on the unknown?

I'd really like to get a discussion going on this & the thoughts of everyone else so please join me

 

[~Flighty~]

I'm not in favor of them.

Seriously, I don't think it is a dramatic increase in the actual critters, just a dramatic increase in the info about them with the internet and sites like this. Also there is a big increase in the modes of transmission with so many more people now able to have reef tanks and trade corals. Same as there was more cholera and bubonic plague in cities.

 

[NateHanson]

I'm with Cindy. I think we're more aware of them, and as we get better at keeping corals, we also become more suspicious when they decolor, or die. In the past that was just part of the game, and now we are looking into it more because it's not par for the course to have stuff die randomly. We expect success and when it fails we look for the culprit.

It would certainly be hard to DIS-prove a link to global warming or polution, but that's putting the cart before the horse. (You need to see evidence FOR the hypothesis before it becomes necessary to disprove that hypothesis.)

Jellyfish are becoming a problem because nutrient increases, from things like fertilizer run-off in the Missisippi delta and GOMexico, are fertilizing algal and bacterial blooms, which quickly consume oxygen in vast areas of waterscape. The Jellyfish thrive in the resulting lower-oxygen environment, and shrimp and other competitors for the same foods suffer in that environment and from the increased competition.

(If this sounds familiar, it's not because you've been reading my expert forum on RC, it's because you went to the same exhibit at NEAq that I did. Oh, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. )

 

[Liam]

there is a lot more coral being cultured/imported also.According to Mr Borneman cities stated an increase of 30%

 

[jovreef]

Lol...I was trying to keep the jelly part simple but yes thats exactly what I was talking about Nate & yes I went the the aquarium exibit (just to add to your explanation- the warmer temps cause the algea and bacteria to go nuts too), thats what got me thinking that maybe the warmer waters are helping them reproduce quicker than their natural predators can catch them & the polution causing the corals to become weaker and more vunarable to the pests.

I know it would be close to...if not impossible to prove or DIS prove any of this.

 

[RichConley]

could some of it also be attributed to more people having corals these days, and more people sending them across the country? IE more people swapping corals leads to higher risk of parasite movement.

 

[redpaulhus]

I think its the massive explosion of reefer trading over the past few years and the co-current explosion of "un-safe swapping".

I think a huge % of these are STP's - Swap Transmitted Pests - that get passed on when one or both partners are unaware that they have an STP and when neither takes precautions.

Once a pest gets into captivity, it just needs to survive long enough to make it to the tank of an 'unsafe swapper' -- then its ensured a nice wide population base.
Lets say that 10 corals or 'pieces' of LR were (wild) collected in 2002 with a certain pest-dujour (FW, bugs, etc). If one of those got into a tank and was un-noticed, and the person had corals that flourished - they may get swapped and spread. Say that person gives 10 frags out that year, and those people give out 10 frags, and those people give out 10 frags...

Now imagine one of those people brings a frag to his friendly neighborhood LFS to trade for some fishfood (or a bunch of frags). How many frags get infested in the store ? How many tanks do they affect ?

I got FW from some "used LR" I bought of off a fellow BRS member a few years ago.
I assume that somewhere in the chain of hands, he got them in with a frag he got (and I suspect he didn't even know, since he was selling alot of LR to fellow reefers).

 

[redpaulhus]

-eeek - got interupted in mid-post by work, and Rich beat me to it

 

[RichConley]

I think a huge % of these are STP's - Swap Transmitted Pests - that get passed on when one or both partners are unaware that they have an STP and when neither takes precautions.

Once a pest gets into captivity, it just needs to survive long enough to make it to the tank of an 'unsafe swapper' -- then its ensured a nice wide population base.

I was going to make an analogy to STDs, but couldnt come up with a good one. I think like paul said, its a combination of people just realizing they have them now, and an increased amount of possible transmission vectors.

 

[Mini4x]

I guess I wouldn't even know what to look for.. time to hit the books.

 

[ReeferMedic]

I think it's a combination of most things said here already. There is certainly a heightened awareness recently to these "STPs". Kind of like AIDs, it is believed to have been around as early as 1926, and we heard nothing of it until the late 70s/early 80s(not sure of the exact year on this). I'm sure alot of corals perished in the past because of these pests and people just took it with a grain of salt and some what expected them to only live for a certain amount of time. I didn't even know corals actually grew until I became a part of BRS! Also, I never heard about any of them from any LFS that I went to prior to BRS(None of our sponsors were on my list then). I think it also has alot to do with "unsafe swaps" also. They are the STDs of the reefing world.

 

[Chuck Spyropulos]

I have a theory on the acro flatworm infestation. I read that the colonies out of Bali aquaculture were infested. Aquaculture tends to be done close to shore, in shallow waters, where the coral frags are brought from reefs with lots of water motion. Closer to shore there tends to be less water motion especially in the shallows. Maybe the decreased water motion coupled with a different ecological structure close to shore (no or less acro fw predators) caused the plague?

I know for a fact that these pests can't cling to colonies that are blasted with strong bursts of water (I have been using this method to get rid of them for over 6 months and they are finally dissappearing). On a reef perhaps the worms are continuously dislodged and fed upon by fish and this keeps them in check. At the aquaculture farms near shore this synergy may not exist ? Just guessing here.... Perhaps this is the reason they have evolved to the point that they breed so early and prolifically in their development stage. They need to breed quickly and prolifically before they are dislodged by the water hitting the reef and eaten up by hungry little fishies....