This means WAR. What medication will kill all worms?

[EMeyer]

One of my display tanks (a soft corals and LPS tank) has for several years hosted a terrible worm that eats zoas. It makes a tough, silk-like tube that emerges from its hiding place deep in the rocks, up to whatever colony its decided to eat. I've never seen the worm, but every morning I can see what it did last night, based on where the tunnel is.

I've lived with it for years by just not putting any more zoas in the tank. It occasionally munched on the few that were left, and we reached a stable ceasefire.

But over the last two days it's eaten a colony of grape coral (Euphyllia cristata). This is a clear violation of our truce. Screw you, worm, now its WAR.

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Having tried and failed to find it and remove it directly, I'm going chemical this time. So I'm turning to R2R for your experience with aquarium medications. What medications, if used to treat a whole tank, will kill all worms in the tank but nothing else?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Praziquantel I think is what you may be looking for

Praziquantel

Edit: this is older information, a new post is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dosing-praziquantel-pzq.1105700/ Praziquantel (de-wormer) What It Treats – Flukes (Monogeneans), Black Ich (Turbellarians), and intestinal worms. How To Treat – There are a few aquarium products which...

www.reef2reef.com

Read through very carefully before doing though. Hate for you to loose any livestock

 

[CindyKz]

I'd be concerned about trying to kill ALL worms. You could have a lot more than you think and give yourself an ammonia spike.

 

[Lizbeli]

Is this a big tank? How hard would it be to find the tube and yank it out? Chemicals last resort, you’ll kill many beneficial creatures we work so hard to get.

Obviously if its a large tank or filled with coral manual removal would be super hard. Might have to set some sort of trap. But I know thats hard to do if you don’t even know what it is.

Hmm..

 

[EMeyer]

Thanks for the quick replies!

It clearly lives inside the rock somewhere, and is a relatively large animal based on the size of the tube. But I've tried hard to locate it by physically removing rocks, socking them in freshwater, etc. somehow it always evades me.

Its not a huge tank, just deep so its hard to work in, and almost any removal of rocks from the aquascape requires a full removal of everything, because its mostly epoxied together.

The suggestion about ammonia spikes is definitely something I've wondered about.

I hate whole-tank chemical treatments, they are an absolute last resort... but this may be last resort time.

 

[andrewey]

If you suspect it's a single worm, have you thought about removing the zoa temporarily, putting a sacrificial zoa in a bottle trap (or similar trap) and seeing if that's successful? I had to do something similar with a rogue mantis shrimp.

 

[EMeyer]

Its a nice idea. The issue I see is that he goes after zoas and euphyllia, and I have lots of both throughout the tank. So I'm skeptical that he'd be attracted to the same one he was eating before, I bet he'd just start munching another one.

Yesterday I traced his tunnel deeper into the rock, ripping it off with tweezers. I ended up wet to my armpits but I got pretty deep into the rock work. At least this buys time while I contemplate the chemical treatment. He apparently has to rebuild his tunnel to move.

The tunnel is as thick as my pinky... this is a big worm.

 

[jda]

Nothing. Prazi won't likely do what you want. Levamisole will kill some types of worms at safe values, but not all... you could try it.

Try an bottle trap and cross your fingers.