Triton and AEFW

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trueblackpercula

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So I was watching the video of your outstanding tanks at your store. I have been asking myself what on earth do they do to treat for AEFW? Can you share your experiences on what fish control them in the tanks and what you use to treat the Sps when you get them,? Just trying to learn how to control or eradicate them in my small tank.
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Sangheili

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I just started a new tank and my current method is quarantine and bayer dips. Planning on 3 rounds of 5-7day spacing before placing any sticks in the display. Of course if any bugs ever did make it in the display that's an entirely different subject.

Interesting question, I'd love to hear Ehsan's feedback on this.
 

Sangheili

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Looks like KZ Flatworm Stop may assist in keeping AEFW at bay. Curious if that is a product that is "Triton Compatible" so to speak, can't imagine why not.
 

joefishUC

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I asked Ehsan this very question and he said he uses various wrasses to control any infestations of flatworms. Wrasses such as melanarus, christmas wrasses, six line and yellow coris all have extremely acute vision and can get pick the worms off the corals. Unfortunately, treating the entire tank with a flatworm medicine rarely seems to completely irradicate them. The reason being is that there are several types of worms, some are more resistant to medicines than others. Since the bite marks and eggs are fairly easy to spot even with the naked eye, you may want to remove each acro, one at a time, inspect for bite marks and eggs, (some people use a magnifying lens) dip the coral if you see any signs of marks, and scrape off any eggs if possible. Doing a manual inspection of all the acropora is effective if you can get each one out of the tank. Obviously if the tank has mature stands of acropora this is nearly impossible. I know Joe Yiullo at the Atlantis Aquarium has had outbreaks of flatworms and he gets in the tank and hoses down the colonies with freshwater underwater from a hose. This high powered stream of freshwater blasts the worms off the corals where the fish can them consume them. If anyone has had true success treating their tank with the KZ flatworm stop I would love to hear it. As for the medicines being "triton approved", I wouldn't worry too much about this. Fresh activated carbon will remove most of the medicine once the treatment is done. Just use something that others have tested with little or no ill-effect on their invertebrates, remove with carbon and you should be fine. If you want to do water changes after the treatment just use a good salt like tropic marin pro. Good luck!
 

Sangheili

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I asked Ehsan this very question and he said he uses various wrasses to control any infestations of flatworms. Wrasses such as melanarus, christmas wrasses, six line and yellow coris all have extremely acute vision and can get pick the worms off the corals. Unfortunately, treating the entire tank with a flatworm medicine rarely seems to completely irradicate them. The reason being is that there are several types of worms, some are more resistant to medicines than others. Since the bite marks and eggs are fairly easy to spot even with the naked eye, you may want to remove each acro, one at a time, inspect for bite marks and eggs, (some people use a magnifying lens) dip the coral if you see any signs of marks, and scrape off any eggs if possible. Doing a manual inspection of all the acropora is effective if you can get each one out of the tank. Obviously if the tank has mature stands of acropora this is nearly impossible. I know Joe Yiullo at the Atlantis Aquarium has had outbreaks of flatworms and he gets in the tank and hoses down the colonies with freshwater underwater from a hose. This high powered stream of freshwater blasts the worms off the corals where the fish can them consume them. If anyone has had true success treating their tank with the KZ flatworm stop I would love to hear it. As for the medicines being "triton approved", I wouldn't worry too much about this. Fresh activated carbon will remove most of the medicine once the treatment is done. Just use something that others have tested with little or no ill-effect on their invertebrates, remove with carbon and you should be fine. If you want to do water changes after the treatment just use a good salt like tropic marin pro. Good luck!

Thanks for the info Joe,

I would love a Melanarus but a quick search turns up that they harass and sometimes eat smaller Tridacna clams so thats a no-go, not worth the risk for the prevention. Just today I had to catch my latest addition to the tank (which was a royal pain in the a--), a Molly Miller blenny, because he started nipping on one of my clams on day 2 in the tank.

From my research, the KZ medication is more of an immune system builder then an actual medication. Likely some form of food, amino acid, vitamin, or something similar that slowly boosts the slimecoat production on the Acro making it harder for the Flatworms to munch on them. Seems like a good preventative measure but not very cheap to dose.

My tank is new and my SPS are all still in the connected frag tank, so I am doing Bayer dips each week until I am confident there will be no pest problems. Just also looking into prevention methods as eventually I will probably have quite a bit invested in SPS and dipping entire colonies sounds excruciatingly painful.
 
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