AEFW - My long journey

[Russo757]

I'm pest free. Went to revive dips and nada. [emoji108]

 

[DLuce510]

I dont think Ive seen anyone talk about KZ "Flatworm Stop" yet. Ive felt its great as a preventive but I have seen signs of flatworms never progress with use of it.
Also Ive seen peppermint shimp pick Acros clean in a closed enviorment where they dont have many other options for food.
Anyone else have expirence with these or other methods for natural control?

 

[coralseas]

I dont think Ive seen anyone talk about KZ "Flatworm Stop" yet. Ive felt its great as a preventive but I have seen signs of flatworms never progress with use of it.
Also Ive seen peppermint shimp pick Acros clean in a closed enviorment where they dont have many other options for food.
Anyone else have expirence with these or other methods for natural control?

KZ flat worm stops and coral booster worked for me. Went from total infested to not seeing any in a year. But run it nonstop and have a couple werases. Blow off the acros around the tank to make sure their gone. Working still

 

[LuizW13]

What do people with nano tanks that are too small for wrasses get as an alternative? I just got my first acros this week and i suspect one of them (tricolor) might be looking a little funny.

 

[DLuce510]

What do people with nano tanks that are too small for wrasses get as an alternative? I just got my first acros this week and i suspect one of them (tricolor) might be looking a little funny.

Theres wrasse's that can stay in nano's depending how nano we'r talking. Possum Wrasse, yellow corris wrasse, or the dreaded 6 line.
Acropora eating flatworms have been found on corals in the wild that are perfectly healthy, so this does suggest that the are natural Predators or something holistic at work to fend off the flatworms.

 

[LuizW13]

Theres wrasse's that can stay in nano's depending how nano we'r talking. Possum Wrasse, yellow corris wrasse, or the dreaded 6 line.
Acropora eating flatworms have been found on corals in the wild that are perfectly healthy, so this does suggest that the are natural Predators or something holistic at work to fend off the flatworms.

I'm not looking to get a wrasse, just because i have a 25g and i have my fish planned out already. It was mostly a curiosity of mine.

Thanks!

 

[coralbeauties]

I thought that i would share my trials with these buggers. I like others thought I was having tank issues when my sps were looking bad. Tried all kindof things till I discovered a funny looking spot on one of the effected corals and took a turkey baster to it and off came a aefw. They were all over my tank. I decided to use bayer and dip the corals that I could easily remove from the rocks. I also would pull whole rocks that were well encrusted and dip and rinse those. Let me tell you the tiniest bit of bayer will kill any shrimp you have in your system almost instantly. I did this for I think 6 weeks and also added a melanarus wrasse. I did frequent water changes and several weeks after the treatments and a water change I added a cleaner shrimp and it died right away. After several more water changes I was finally good to add shrimp. I felt I was cured of aefw, and for the next year or so I felt I had them whipped. Out of the blue I noticed one of my corals looking bad and being the arrogant reefer I was again thought it was tank issues and tried different things until I found worms again. I had also gotten rid of my wrasse because all my shrimp would come up missing and from doing some reading read where they love to kill and eat shrimp. After blowing off all my corals I only saw a few smaller worms blow off and only one larger one on the worst effected coral. I think this time I am going to live with them and not go through what I did before. I will just blow off my corals every couple of weeks and see what comes off them. If I ever upgrade to my dream 300dd tank I will deal with them then but as long as they are like they are now I can easily deal with them without a complete tank tear down. I would like to add another wrasse though, does anyone know of one who will not kill and eat my shrimp?
Jeff
Oh, by the way I also tried coral rx and it didnt even touch killing the worms. I might have needed to go above the recommended dosage to do any good.

 

[erky]

I thought that i would share my trials with these buggers. I like others thought I was having tank issues when my sps were looking bad. Tried all kindof things till I discovered a funny looking spot on one of the effected corals and took a turkey baster to it and off came a aefw. They were all over my tank. I decided to use bayer and dip the corals that I could easily remove from the rocks. I also would pull whole rocks that were well encrusted and dip and rinse those. Let me tell you the tiniest bit of bayer will kill any shrimp you have in your system almost instantly. I did this for I think 6 weeks and also added a melanarus wrasse. I did frequent water changes and several weeks after the treatments and a water change I added a cleaner shrimp and it died right away. After several more water changes I was finally good to add shrimp. I felt I was cured of aefw, and for the next year or so I felt I had them whipped. Out of the blue I noticed one of my corals looking bad and being the arrogant reefer I was again thought it was tank issues and tried different things until I found worms again. I had also gotten rid of my wrasse because all my shrimp would come up missing and from doing some reading read where they love to kill and eat shrimp. After blowing off all my corals I only saw a few smaller worms blow off and only one larger one on the worst effected coral. I think this time I am going to live with them and not go through what I did before. I will just blow off my corals every couple of weeks and see what comes off them. If I ever upgrade to my dream 300dd tank I will deal with them then but as long as they are like they are now I can easily deal with them without a complete tank tear down. I would like to add another wrasse though, does anyone know of one who will not kill and eat my shrimp?
Jeff
Oh, by the way I also tried coral rx and it didnt even touch killing the worms. I might have needed to go above the recommended dosage to do any good.

you have them again?

 

[Ashish Patel]

I thought that i would share my trials with these buggers. I like others thought I was having tank issues when my sps were looking bad. Tried all kindof things till I discovered a funny looking spot on one of the effected corals and took a turkey baster to it and off came a aefw. They were all over my tank. I decided to use bayer and dip the corals that I could easily remove from the rocks. I also would pull whole rocks that were well encrusted and dip and rinse those. Let me tell you the tiniest bit of bayer will kill any shrimp you have in your system almost instantly. I did this for I think 6 weeks and also added a melanarus wrasse. I did frequent water changes and several weeks after the treatments and a water change I added a cleaner shrimp and it died right away. After several more water changes I was finally good to add shrimp. I felt I was cured of aefw, and for the next year or so I felt I had them whipped. Out of the blue I noticed one of my corals looking bad and being the arrogant reefer I was again thought it was tank issues and tried different things until I found worms again. I had also gotten rid of my wrasse because all my shrimp would come up missing and from doing some reading read where they love to kill and eat shrimp. After blowing off all my corals I only saw a few smaller worms blow off and only one larger one on the worst effected coral. I think this time I am going to live with them and not go through what I did before. I will just blow off my corals every couple of weeks and see what comes off them. If I ever upgrade to my dream 300dd tank I will deal with them then but as long as they are like they are now I can easily deal with them without a complete tank tear down. I would like to add another wrasse though, does anyone know of one who will not kill and eat my shrimp?
Jeff
Oh, by the way I also tried coral rx and it didnt even touch killing the worms. I might have needed to go above the recommended dosage to do any good.

Looking back at your 1 year that you thought your where free of worms, How where the acros doing as far as growth, color, and PE? Did you add any new acros and where you inspecting daily and weekly around the corals base and undersides? I ask because Ifind it hard to believe they would have taken 1 year before you could see them again. Perhaps you just thought they where gone but they where secretly building up their power.
Interested to hear more on your experience.

 

[jhuntington12]

KZ flat worm stops and coral booster worked for me. Went from total infested to not seeing any in a year. But run it nonstop and have a couple werases. Blow off the acros around the tank to make sure their gone. Working still

I too used this for a period of time and it seemed to help, but only at low levels of infestation. I could spot eggs on colonies that I couldnt pull out due to their size and location. I would religiously turkey baste and usually the fish would eat the floating flatworms but the goal is to get them eggs.

If you can pull out the coral and scrape them off that would be ideal, otherwise you just have to constantly turkey baste them free for months and hopefully lessen their population to something manageable where KZ flatworm stop can take hold.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

I read that peppermint shrimp do predation on them.

 

[Tft12]

Is there an acceptable acropora-fallow period for AEFW eradication from a display?

 

[SuperDragon]

I did 3 months but I was paranoid, I'm sure these pests don't need that much time. However, I assumed that I had more than one pest. It worked for me.
I use a QT now and have caught Monti nudies before they got into the display. Good luck

 

[Rennan Serrano]

Hello Guys,

I'll enjoy this thread to talk about my AEFW battle.

I've discover a bit more then couple months ago that i had AEFW on my SPS tank. At the momment i sold a frag to a friend and when he dipped in coralrx the little pest came off...

Before that i've couldn't imagine that i had AEFW on my sps (no bitemarks or eggs visisble). When i got home i inspect for eggs/marks and nothing but when i took my spatulatha colony and dipped it... surprise... 15 AEFW's droped in coralrx bath. Looked like i was in the beggining of the infestation because i dipped other corals and didn't have much AEFW (ex: only two in my millepora). To be totally honest i was trying to dose some products and twick some stuff on my aquarium because i found at the time that i had pale colors and shy polyp extension. My lesson learned about it is when we see poor colors and PE first bath to check for some pest before starting twiking things and dosing stuff...

After that i start reserching and talked to some friends that overcame AEFW and decided to go ahead and do 8 dips, every 5 days with melafix (wich has the same main substance (melaleuca) that other dips such as revive or coralrx have).

Why Melafix? Simple, because in Brazil is easy to find and is gentle on corals and reef as well (dont need to be overinsing after each bath like Bayer, Melafix can be used in DT on a homeophatic dose, i've just been running some carbon to prevent build ups).

I'm doing 50% higher than recomended dosage for melafix dips and been dosing FlatwormStop everyday (normal dosage) to reinforce the threatment. I bought a small container and i use a 6000l/h powerhead during bath to help to blow them off corals.

I decided to not place corals in QT after baths since acros are delicate and changing their environement + dipping often can be really stressing and result in higher percentage of loss.

So far i've done 5 baths and didn't loose any of my sps, 3 more to go and it should be fine. After first bath, wich had few AEFW dropping off, i've havent seen then again in any bath but i will keep the threatment until the end. My comprehension is that we need to disrupt the reproduction cycle and by dipping every 5 days, new born AEFW won't have enough time to become sexually mature and the colony will start collapsing.

My luck is that all my sps are pinned so i dont have acros encrusting on rocks, pinned SPS corals makes life much easier to move then around and off tank for dipping.

Some considerations that i have about this protocol that i've choose:
1 - Before starting any threatment look well for water quality, my parameters were spot on before threatment and yet i've decided to do a 30% water change and run a ton of carbon before starting the threatment)
2 - Be aware that taking SPS out, bathing and etc will stress them and most likely stop carbonate consumption or slow it down. Therefore managing and adjusting dosage closely (in my case every two days) is important to prevent carbonates spikes that will kill your corals
3 - I have 5 haliochores wrasses in my display, i cann't state that they are doing something about AEFW or not but i see then picking around everywere so they might help somehow
4 - Flatworm Stop cannot be used for the less then 3 months, so after finishing i will keep dosing at least for another 3 months so after finishing i will keep dosing and dipping some colonies every other week to validate that i'll be pest free
5 - I've took some AEFW off the first bath to make some test and even by raising 10x times coralrx dip dosage during 40 minutes and they will not die!. IMHO trying to kill this pest during bath is not a good idea since you will stress coral on a strong dip, the best thing is to find the good dosage to knock them off and blast them with turkey baster and/or powerheads so they won't reattach, personally i like powerheads so there is continous flow during bath that will prevent them from reattaching to corals and they might get quite destroyed when sucked up and expelled by the pump.

So far i've seem some improvement on PE and colors on the corals that were most stressed, tought some colonies such as acropora yonguei did lost some vibrance, wich i think is normal with so much handling.

Final statement is that i'm not advising this protcol to anyone yet, just posting here for your toughts and comments and registration. Tought i hope it will work :)

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Thanks for the info, just did my fifth treatment with melafix for the same reason yesterday.
This was suppose to be the no 5 for a total of 6 (1/week), but i saw one worm this time so i plan on doing 1/week for the whole month.
No loss in corals so far.
Good luck!

 

[Rennan Serrano]

Well,

I've finished my threatment over a month now and no signs of bites marks, eggs or whatsoever related to AEFW.

I will continue flatworm stop for 2 months more and now i'm dosing coral bosster too.

I will wait for another month and do a dip on some corals for final check but so far everything seems to be doing great. Colors are coming back nicely, coralgrow is speeding up and polyp extension is better then ever before.

I do have to say that i got a little bit sad at then end...

After the last dip, my red dragon colony had RTN overnight and spread it to my formosa blue sky.

I've managed to contain the RTN on the tank by pulling out the colony fast and cutting all the tissue loss on both colonies. i lost 30% on of my formosa and 90% on the red dragon, managed to save some frags that i've moved to my qt tank to avoid RTN maddness to continue.

First time that i've crossed RTN in 2 years of SPS reefing, the thing i've learned on this chapter is; when you spot it just take the coral out ASAP, make frags out of the living parts and place them in QT, otherwise it will propagate and knockout other colonies.

 

[H@rry]

If you dip the Red Dragon or Hawkins Blue in CoralRX it will kill it 95% of the time. Same holds true for most of the thin branching acros. I've never lost either of these dipping in Bayer's.
BTW, Bayer's has changed names to BioAdvanced. Same stuff. I used some this morning on a couple of new frags I bought.

 

[Rennan Serrano]

If you dip the Red Dragon or Hawkins Blue in CoralRX it will kill it 95% of the time. Same holds true for most of the thin branching acros. I've never lost either of these dipping in Bayer's.
BTW, Bayer's has changed names to BioAdvanced. Same stuff. I used some this morning on a couple of new frags I bought.

I'm not using CoralRX on sensitive Acro, only Melafix.

It should be fine, no?

 

[H@rry]

I've never used Melafix. I know Bayer's is safe on sensitive Acros.

 

[Chip]

Lugol's iodine will Brown out an Acro instantly, Revive does about the same thing. Neither one seemed to really kill it just stun them. Flatworm Exit does absolutely nothing at 5x strength on AEFW.
Bayer never seem to harm the coral and keeps the color and instantly killed AEFW. I did a 15 min. dip once a week for six weeks. Took 9 hours every Sunday, Dipped every acropora and putting them all in a quarantine tank. Starving the main tank of any acropora so eggs and remaining flatworms can die. 4 years later still running strong.