What are these good or bad?

they look like a closed up zoa to me.

 

Sure do look like AEFW's.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums...rms-16086/



Do you have any acropora in your tank? If you do look for bite marks.



They are pretty much the worst reef pest you can have as there is no "in-tank" treatment avaialble.

 

Defiantly look like flat worms.

 

There are flatworms that will live on only soft corals as well....... you find them more on mushrooms but you will also see them on zoas, leathers, and even lps coral tissues. If you have or can borrow Julian Sprungs "Invertebrates" book i would highly recommend looking at the flatworm section in there to help you identiy your culprit. This book has tons of valuable information.

I believe this is what you have but you can decide for yourself. If you see these flatworms only on those zoas and perhaps other soft corals and NOT on your rocks and sand then they are probably the soft coral version of flatworms. They are typically roundish in shape, opaque, and clear to browinh colored and found living on coral tissues, they typically ARE NOT found on your rocks or other non tissue surfaces. They are commonly found on mushroom corals, but can be found on zoas, polyps, leathers, and lps tissues. They dont normally do visible or fast harm to the coral, just more of an irritation to the coral (hence your zoas not wanting to open) and to you an eyesore, and no one will want frags from you. It has been debated that these flatworms live off of some of the slime that the corals produce, but i dont think thats been proven. Sometimes you can see them actually crawling around on the coral itself, especially if they get irritated (like if you treat them and they are dying they will crawl around crazily on the coral). Here are some pics of them http://www.arkive.org/bubble-coral/...64888.html, http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fltwmid.htm (very last image at the bottom of the page, you can see the flatworms on some strpied mushrooms), and here http://www.arkive.org/bubble-coral/...65537.html, http://www.flickr.com/photos/torvaanser/2048375073/.

Treatment for these varies. If you can remove your infected coral pieces and do a "dip" i would try that first, to help prevent possible damge to your system and inhabitants that treating your whole tank may cause. For a dip treatment you should use a very strong iodine type solution like seachems reef dip (maybe double or triple dose), or two little fishes coral cleaner (follow correct dip dosage, do not over dose, or do so at your own risk), or you can even do a dip of milbemycin oxime ( or interceptor- dog wormer that is commonly used on treatment of acro eating red bugs) or flatworm exit. I would recommend flatworm exit over milbemycin oxime, as there is alot more info on the internet of peoples differing experience using flatworm exit and this product is much easier to get as opposed to milbemycin oxime (your vet will look at you strangely when you tell them you plan to use the dog pills for your fish tank). Flatworm exit is very common and one of the most popular treatments for plaque proportions of varying species of flatworms in tanks and is noramally dosed in your infrected tank.

Now if you dont think you have the ones above, or to help comfirm our suspicion, read here. First, make sure you look closely.....do you see anything else like the flat worms on your zoas covering your rocks? If you have these things covering your rocks and sand and other things that are in areas of low flow, then they could be the Red planaria. Red planaria are redish, brownish, opaque, oval shaped and typically have 2-3 pointed tips at one end of them. These are very hard to eliminate and are really hard to get rid of! Pic of them here http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&a...0,s:0,i:74, and herehttp://www.wetwebmedia.com/WormPIX/...to_WWM.jpg. You can read about removal of red planaria here http://www.melevsreef.com/flatworms.html, and here http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...?t=1449466, just make sure you do lots of research. You can read about acro flatworms, and the red planaria(rust brown flatworm) here http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/...agesid=362.

I doubt they are acro eating flatworms as those tend to stick to acros, their namesake. There is some info in the above link about acro eating flat worms.

Whatever you decide to do i hope this helps and goodluck!

 

I dont think freshwater dipping will do to much but worth a try, it may get some of them to let go at least. Since its only a plug/piece try the seachem dip along with the freshwater that doesnt hurt the coral anymore then the freshwater will. Like i said i dont think you have the plague red planaria, so not as serious a problem. I have helped treat these soft coral flatworms successfully with coral dip and flatworm exit. The dips you may have to do at least a couple different times before you get all of them and their eggs(if there is any).