AEFW questions

[nc208082]

I think I may have some aefw on a colony I noticed. I am familiar with the treatment regime but curious as to what to pull from the tank. From my understanding I can leave Montipora and Smooth Skin Acropora (i.e. Red dragon, Purple monster) in the DT but pulling out all other sps to qt tank and dip 2x a week? Also lots of corals have encrusted on the rocks, should I just cut what I can and then use a chisel to break off encrusted part?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Vmacisback]

Yea that sounds about right. I would still pull all corals out of the tank, all it takes is one adult or a cluster of eggs left behind in the display to ruin your treatment. Also as I am sure you know you should get rid of the existing frag plugs because AEFW love to lay eggs on them and dead parts of SPS.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I think I may have some aefw on a colony I noticed. I am familiar with the treatment regime but curious as to what to pull from the tank. From my understanding I can leave Montipora and Smooth Skin Acropora (i.e. Red dragon, Purple monster) in the DT but pulling out all other sps to qt tank and dip 2x a week? Also lots of corals have encrusted on the rocks, should I just cut what I can and then use a chisel to break off encrusted part?
Thanks in advance.

You MUST dip ALL acropora, including smooth skins and all. Including milles, people often think they aren't acropora. And you said "pull out all other sps". Only acros will be infected, stylophora, poculipora, montipora, seritophora, digitata and probably more are not acros and can stay in the display tank untouched.

No need for a QT tank. They just stress out the acros worse and cause more losses unless you have a stable running system that's been used for acros with success in the past. You have to chisle out all encrusted parts off the rocks or putty over them if need be. People loose more acros trying to setup a rush qt system than anything else. Dipping from your display tank is less harsh on the corals and easier for you, ime.

You only need to dip once a week. Maybe dipping every 6 days would help ease your mind but I am not sure why people dip twice as much, imo that's not letting the acro heal or recover and could be to much stress.

Tips...

Doing spot dips for a few weeks on heavily infested tanks helps cut back numbers before the dipping process begins. This makes it easier on you if you scrape as many eggs when spot dipping as you can find.
Use two rinse stages with tank water. The first is a tank to shake all attached flatworms off with. The second is a holding tank until you can put it back. Let it sit in this tank for a long time if your using Bayer. I like revive and melafix more because you can see in the dip bucket easily and it's not going to kill stuff in your tank if you mess up. Melafix is very easy on the acros too.
Don't skip any days. Aefw will screw you at any chance you give them. They seem to k is where you can't see or aren't looking and will lay eggs and eat that part of the acro first. No maybe not but sometimes it's almost as if they do :)

Chime in if you have any suggestions. I will post more if I think of any.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

I agree with Pedoconfuego about setting up a qt. I'm just finishing up beating these f'rs, and everyone said put in qt, but all i read was people losing sps in qt. So I decided to just take them out of display frag tank then dip and put back in. I dipped for going on 13 weeks now, twice a week and only lost one coral besides the ones i just tossed that where covered in eggs. I only started tossing them about half way through the process to speed up beating them. The ones I did toss where cheap easy to replace frags. My more expensive frags I would cut off the plug they was on and remount to new plugs. Be careful with the smooth skin when you dip.i found that the red dragon and fox flame I have didn't like being dipped much. They would almost go white. So when I put back in tank they went to the lowest par in my tank I could find to help recovery. I haven't seen aefw for the last 3 dips.

 

[nc208082]

Thank you for the replies. I have a qt system that I will be using that I have set up to be stable and keep the sps happy. I would prefer to do it in the qt so I can monitor easier and any free floating Flatworms in the display will have nothing to grab hold of. I am going to take your advice and do a dip once every 6 days for 8 weeks just to be sure. I don't have melafix, I only have bayer and revive so I will be using bayer. I am going to be trying something a little bit different. I currently run the full aquaforest balling method on my DT and I am going to continue that on my qt tank. I have found it helps sps heal and stay healthy so hopefully that will aid in minimizing any losses.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

@Pedoconfuego

How much melafix do you use for dipping?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Redneck I cant remember, it was around 5 years ago but their are some scattered threads that should tell you from when some of the old-timers had aefw. If you are dipping in a 20 gallon tank or something ear that size you will need a few big bottles.

I really recommend using revive or melafix. They both allow you to visually watch the flatworms fall off and inspect whats left easier. But Bayer will do the job. Just be careful with residual dip getting in the qt and making the qt more unstable. Melafix is really softer on acros too. Dip smooth skins for much less time and it will help. Another reason I wouldn't do twice a week is because smooth skins do better with more time between dips.
If you have just set up your qt, I would definatly wait a month or two before adding the acros. Weekly spot dipping affected colonies during that time and scraping eggs weekly while your waiting for the qt to mature a bit will give you less trouble in the end. Honestly when setting up a new tank to dip in I would think you would be just trying to keep everything alive and healthy more than anything but let us know how the aqua Forrest products help during the qt. Good luck and keep us updated.

 

[nc208082]

If you have just set up your qt, I would definatly wait a month or two before adding the acros. Weekly spot dipping affected colonies during that time and scraping eggs weekly while your waiting for the qt to mature a bit will give you less trouble in the end. Honestly when setting up a new tank to dip in I would think you would be just trying to keep everything alive and healthy more than anything but let us know how the aqua Forrest products help during the qt. Good luck and keep us updated.

Curious as to why wait a month or two before adding acros, the Liverock i'm using is coming straight from the DT and same with all the water being used.

 

[maroun.c]

I'm for setting up a quarantine even though its tougher to maintain and if it leads to a few more losses so be it. At least you will have more certainty that your tank is clear of them in 5 weeks.
Returning frags or colonies to an infected tank can only extend the cycle and lead to a longer treatment period and more dips which equals more stress to corals and more losses.
a bare bottom quarantine without too many rocks will allow you to see any pests still alive and might make a natural predator like a wrass a good help in irradicating any left ones betweeh the dips.
hope you manage to erradicate them with minor losses.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Well moving your rocks from your display and tank water into another tank is somewhat the same as keeping them in the display. I wouldn't worry about finding pests in the tank, the weekly dips will take care of them. Waiting a month or two I said because I thought you would start the qt from scratch. It's all personal opinions on what's best and whatever is best or easiest for you should work.
I don't think returning acros to the display will extend the dipping process any. Why would this happen? The acros are infested the same in either tank and a couple flatworms picked off by wrasses in either tank won't help more than the weekly dips themselves. Any hatched eggs on the liverock in the display will be killed by the next weekly dip. Also I found that the acros fair very well during weekly dips. Especially if you use melafix or switch weekly between melafix and another dip. The acros look better each week and can take a dip better each time.