Acro Eating Flatworm

[Ibn]

Picked up some corals yesterday and encountered this beauty on a Wet Thumbs Fireball frag from CRC. The frag came out of the tank with the $10/20 SPS frags. FW came off with the dip in Bayer, but still managed to survive.

Close up of the frag where you can see the damage to the tissue as well as the bite marks.

Called Matt up to let him know about it after I got back to the office and discovered the flatworm in the dip. Got a "cool" for the call. Spoke to Anthony today in regards to it and he told me that he usually dips frags that comes into the system. The frags have been in the tank for over a month and there's still flatworms in the system. I suggest that they dip twice a week instead, so we'll see if that happens.

 

[Coral reefer]

Good catch! So what do you do with the frag now? Chuck it? Keep and hope for no eggs?

 

[iCon]

I vote chuck it... I was at CRC a while back and pointed out their flatworm issue as it was getting out of hand. The response I got was similar to yours, though in person - more or less, "yeah, whatever". Seems like no action was taken or perhaps just too little too late.

The frags I bought are doing well but I chopped off the bases and dipped the heck out of them. No frag is worth keeping at risk of infecting your display tank...

 

[tankguy]

not exactly what I'd like to hear.

 

[Ibn]

It's not in the display for sure. Not worth the risk of introducing it when there's even a 1% chance. I have it in the 3.5G QT tank and seeing if it survives. There's quite a bit of tissue damage/lost, so I'm not optimistic that it'll survive.

The saddening part was that when I called and spoke with Anthony, I asked if I could bring the frag back in with the flatworm and get a replacement. He offered a generous 50% credit seeing that it's been sitting around (went from the 3.5G to the cup) and might not survive. It wouldn't be sellable at that point. I'm all for supporting the LFS but I'd like to see a more proactive response from where I pick up a frag from, especially as the issue came from the source. There's a reason why I don't spend money at places where I've encountered bugs before in the past (e.g. AquaSD and their acro eating spiders along with their response, which was very similar).

 

[Flagg37]

not exactly what I'd like to hear.

Especially When it's one of the stores on the upcoming lfs tour.

 

[tankguy]

Almost makes me think we should skip them. Even if we don't I doubt I'll buy any corals there.

 

[Coral reefer]

Let's bring some warning flat worms signs and keep posting them on that tank over and over.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Reminds me back when we had swaps at ASAP in Hayward and a donation of a monti cap frag (good size frag) was absolutely covered in montipora eating nudibranchs, the bag and everything became a teaching tool for the frag swap for everyone who wanted to see exactly what they looked like, how big they are, etc.

 

[Edgar Sandoval]

I got a strawberry short cake it from them and it had flat worms.
I chuck it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sfsuphysics]

You should probably assume everything from there has flat worms

 

[tankguy]

I was extremely disappointed when I walked in there

 

[Wlachnit]

I was extremely disappointed when I walked in there

As was I.

 

[daddio]

I could not believe all of the huge Aptasia everywhere.

 

[tankguy]

I could not believe all of the huge Aptasia everywhere.

Not exactly a big selling point

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Reminds me back when we had swaps at ASAP in Hayward and a donation of a monti cap frag (good size frag) was absolutely covered in montipora eating nudibranchs, the bag and everything became a teaching tool for the frag swap for everyone who wanted to see exactly what they looked like, how big they are, etc.

Haha, I remember that one. It was like, "Look, a giant bag of nudibranchs!"

Pretty impressive.

 

[TNT32D]

That's very sad! I like supporting their shop. Hopefully they can remedy the situation.