AEFW or Black Bugs

[Mrcote1]

I haven't though of a solution for my large colonies yet, the only signs im seeing are on my frags in a specific area of my tank. Once i start seeing the first signs on the large colonies which as mentioned before are larger than softball and very encrusted, ill probably use bone cutters to get as much off the rock as possible and dip in large bowls.

The melafix at a high dose of 5-10x for 6 minutes killed all the worms/bugs. It didnt just shock them and I confirmed by taking them and putting them in tankwater for 20 minutes and there was still no movement.

Im due for another dip tonight. Ill post results, and how many i actually used and exact times.

 

[Mrcote1]

Also another point id like to add. Before I used the melafix, i dipped these in potassium chloride at over 5x reccomended dose. This did not phase the bugs/worms at all. I also tried coral revie (not sure how far over the dose I went but i did quite a bit). This also did not phase the bugs/worms.

The frags i did this too were dead the next day (probably between the harsh dips and the bugs overtaking them)

 

[Mrcote1]

Alright so 15ml of Melafix in 1 cup of water after 5 minutes they had all stopped moving (6x the recommended coral dip strength). I did a 6 minute dip again to be sure.

About 1/4 of the amount of bugs/worms came off the frags this time.

Ill continue this weekly for probably about 2 months. One of my large sps colonies has some tissue loss but im not seeing any bugs on the coral. If the tissue loss is worse tomorrow ill be cutting it off the rock to add it to the dipping

 

[Mrcote1]

These things are persistent. Another dip and still dozens coming off my 3 frags im dipping.

Im hoping they all feed off of the weakest corals (my 3 frags) and not just eat anything and spread through the entire tank. I dipped 2 of my other healthy frags on the other side of the tank and no bugs/worms came off the frags so fingers crossed I can eradicate them just by dipping the three frags.

 

[slingfox]

These things are persistent. Another dip and still dozens coming off my 3 frags im dipping.

Im hoping they all feed off of the weakest corals (my 3 frags) and not just eat anything and spread through the entire tank. I dipped 2 of my other healthy frags on the other side of the tank and no bugs/worms came off the frags so fingers crossed I can eradicate them just by dipping the three frags.

Have you considered just chucking out the three frags infested with the AEFW?

 

[Mrcote1]

These things are persistent. Another dip and still dozens coming off my 3 frags im dipping.

Im hoping they all feed off of the weakest corals (my 3 frags) and not just eat anything and spread through the entire tank. I dipped 2 of my other healthy frags on the other side of the tank and no bugs/worms came off the frags so fingers crossed I can eradicate them just by dipping the three frags.

Have you considered just chucking out the three frags infested with the AEFW?

I dont think that works. Ive already lost multiple frags before these ones before I relaized what was going on. After a frag would RTN, and then be completely gone, then I would start to see another frag start to deteriorate (the nearest one). So im hoping these frags are acting as the easy feeding targets for the bugs and keeping them on the frags as opposed to moving to the colonies. So as the new bugs hatch from eggs on the rocks, they move to the weak frags, then I dip and kill them and rinse and repeat until all are dead