Help! I think I have some sort of pest!

[jdeb101]

Last night I noticed my wellsi had a path right down the middle with all its flesh gone. As I stared at it I noticed a sandy mucus looking substance was in that path that was gone. I took the frag out and it appeared that mucus crap was attached to a hole in the LR the frag was on. I did some browsing on reef pests last night and came across some worms that look like this however Melevsreef.com says they are reef safe so I'm confused. Could Melevs be wrong? Maybe I got the ID wrong?

You can see what I'm talking about in the fourth pic here: http://www.melevsreef.com/id/crawls.html

It's also worth mentioning I notice some small aptasia on the same frag, however they are tiny and along the outer edges of the wellsi. Seeing how the sandy mucus like substance was located on thee direct path of where the dead spots were and not on the outside edges, it leads me to believe the aptasia was not the cause.

 

[jdeb101]

Just one last request to see if anyone has thoughts on this...

 

[diverbh4]

Any pictures?

 

[jdeb101]

no. what will be helpful? pic of the coral?

 

[dz6t]

Last week I saw a large bristle worm attaching a lobo brain. I took out the worm.

 

[cstmpprl]

Yes actual pics of the coral and the damage...

 

[jdeb101]

k I will try to get a pic tonight. Thanks guys!

 

[DisplacedInTranslation]

Hi Jdeb,

After you leave your tank undisturbed for a while, if you look closely at the bottom of your rockwork, under shelfs, and under coral, do you see pairs of little one-inch antennae waving around? If you tip your wellsi or any other colony upside down do see little cylindrical trails of sand tubes? Have you added any new coral, rockwork, or snails in the past few weeks?

If so, my girlfriend and I had these worms about two years ago courtesy of another reefer we bought coral from - they are call spionid worms. They're a PITA and unfortunately there is no 100% effective way to remove them as they travel in the sand and build those little tunnels to travel through.

The two antennae you see are there feeding tendrils (they're filter feeders) and they are technically "reef safe" as they don't sting or prey on anything. BUT they cause corals stress which kills them since their little antennae constantly strike the coral while they feed. We lost quite a few chalices and SPS to ours back in the day.

Even B at Unique Aquaria (back in their Southie location) wasn't sure about what to do with them. His suggestions were trying Flatworm Exit and wrasses. Flatworm exit is usually used to kill out acro flatworms or the little red non acro-eating buggers but it kills them all and risks nuking your tank due to the shear volume of die-off and some of the worms can release toxins when they die. We opted out of that route and decided to add more wrasses at the time.

Leopard, Pygmy, and Six-Line wrasses do a great job of keeping worms under control but again, there is no 100% way to remove them. We actually had to nuke our live rock, toss all the sand, and triple-dip all our corals for our new setup to finally be rid of them.

Hopefully this helps and if these are the worms you have.
-Adam

Edit: They also only bloom in population with excessively high levels of nutrients in the water. If you drop to bare minimum tank feeding for a week or two, do some considerable water changes, and have some worm-eating predators you should be able to permanently keep them in-check. I also advise checking under coral colonies a few times a week to scrape off the worm tunnels. It won't get rid of them but it will keep that coral safe until they re-form the tunnels.

 

[jdeb101]

Nothing new has been added to the tank for quite some time. When I saw the sand tube I didn't notice any tentacles, but I suppose its possible it retracted before I caught it. I'll try taking a closer look soon to see if I catch anything.

I just did a quick google on spionid worms and came across this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2054909
This scares the crap out of me!

I'm pretty sure I got some sort of pest in the tank. Within the past year I've had some other corals not looking so great and/or die off. Not to mention at one point I had almost my entire zoa colonies vanish on me in what seemed like a week of time!

 

[DisplacedInTranslation]

And when you say nothing new, this includes not adding any clean up crew snails and such right? They can ride on shells, although its 99% likely they didn't get in this way if you do in-fact have spionid worms.

I suggest not disturbing anything for the rest of the day. After the lights are off for a while take a bright flash light and look VERY closely at the bottom of your rockwork and around the bottom-edges of your coral. Look for small pairs of antennae - they'll be little V's about an inch long. They will just be waving around like shrimp feelers.

Spionid worms like to root themselves under flat surfaces or rock shelves. Bear in mind they are mobile and can run back to the sand - leaving their little tunnels behind. The actual snails are about the size of a ballpoint pen tip.

 

[jdeb101]

Correct, nothing at all. I'll try your flashlight trick and report back my findings. I appreciate your help!

 

[delta]

It is very possible the tissue died from other causes and what you think is an offending critter is actually just cleaning up a mess.

 

[jdeb101]

It is very possible the tissue died from other causes and what you think is an offending critter is actually just cleaning up a mess.

That's a good point, I did not consider that. :/

 

[DisplacedInTranslation]

Agreed. If you had spionid snails (the ones you originally referenced as picture #4) you'd likely know by now. You'd see the V-antennae as they're impossible to miss, and they'd be in quite a few places. More importantly, you'd see the sand tunnels under your colonies in/near the sane.

Is it possible you saw a bristleworm that was simply eating dead tissue and retreated to the live rock?

 

[jdeb101]

So I just inspected for a few and didn't notice any v shape antenna. I've seen bristle worm before as I used to have a lot of them but this was more just like a tube made out of mucus& sand. I can't say for sure if it was hollow or not but I didn't catch any actual live worm or anything. It basically looked like the tube came from a hole in my LR to the fleshy op of the wellsi. I guess all I can prob do at this point is keep a close eye out.