AEFW - Tank Dismantling - Advise / Tips Needed

[RMS18]

Hey everyone,

Well these little devils have pushed me to the end. I've decided to cut all colonies off the rockwork frag what I can save, and dip. I'm looking for some advice / tips from anyone who has done this before.

My plan:
-Cut all colonies off place on frag rack in main display ( I thought about using a qt tank but I use t5 on my tank, I'd have to buy a led light for thisqt tank. The change from t5 to led maybe to stressful in addition to the weekly dips.
-Dip then all twice a week using melafix
-Scrape / use kalk paste on left over encrusting acro / milli to kill off eggs and remaining SPS
- continue to dip draged corals for 6-8 weeks

Questions:
- can I leave monti and Stylo alone? Or do I need to cut them off as well?
- will kalk paste kill the AEFW eggs?

What else am I missing to make sure this venture is 100% successful?

Thank you - this really stinks.

 

[fishguy242]

@vetteguy53081 @Eagle_Steve ??

 

[vetteguy53081]

Iodine dip more effective
You can add wrasses such as yellow virus, 6 line, lunarre or melanurus which should eat them
Salifert flatworm exit should also work but dose at 85% and siphon dead ones Daily

 

[RMS18]

Iodine dip more effective
You can add wrasses such as yellow virus, 6 line, lunarre or melanurus which should eat them
Salifert flatworm exit should also work but dose at 85% and siphon dead ones Daily

Thanks for the reply. I do have wrasses including a coris, and I also added acro crabs months ago. I tried purge, KZ FWS but these methods only kept their numbers in check. I want them completely gone. I don't see any options that have a long track record of working other than cutting and dipping for weeks.

 

[jda]

If they keep the acros in the main tank, so can go out for a stroll and miss the dips and then get back on later. The worms can swim and they can live off of acropora for quite some time. If you want complete eradication, then different tanks is a good idea.

 

[Nht]

@Stormhaven

 

[ScottB]

Sorry to hear they made it to your DT. I had them twice in my frag system and it was a real drag. Some answers to your questions:
a) Anything that is acro or milli has to go, everything else can stay... montis, stylos whatever.
b) Yes, better removed to a separate tank. But if you cannot set up something that is stable, you are going to take some losses so there is a real trade-off here.
c) Potassium Chloride is the perfect dip for AEFW for a variety of reasons listed below.
d) You will (likely) find that your worms have very strong preferences for one species/colony over the others. If they have heavily infested a given colony, they have cleared enough flesh to lay a lot of eggs. You will need to frag it up and chuck all the inner branch base stuff in the trash or calcium reactor.
e) You can run temps a little lower to slow their gestation rate. The hatch takes about a week otherwise.
f) If you see worms come off, KNOW that there are eggs to be found/removed/crazy glued. Or just frag it to be safer.

Why KCl?
1) It does not stun, it kills them. Literally will melt them. Melafix is good for MENS though. Real good.
2) Very gentle on acropora. I was dipping 15 racks each week and lost nothing to speak of.
3) Not milky like Bayer so you can see them come off.
4) 1 tbls per gallon tank water; light baste; 10 mins.
5) I don't find KCl effective on any other coral pests, just worms. All brittles and pods will die as well though.

 

[jmwreef]

Very sorry to hear about the AEFWs. I don't really post online much, but I did have AEFWs and was successful in getting rid of them. It was very labor intensive but not especially complicated. I didn't have a separate tank, though that would have been useful. The main long term issue was maintaining frags and colonies that were not permanently attached.

1. I started running Flatworm Stop (I still do).
2. I removed every bit of acro off the rocks, threw away or cut away any heavily infected branches
3. I started dipping all the acros in the system, everything always on the same day, in Bayer. I continued dipping based on this hatching rates I found here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00524/full#h8. The idea is to kill them after they've hatched but before they mature enough to lay eggs. The schedule will different depending on tank temperature.
4. I just kept repeating the process -- it was probably 2-3 months, maybe 4 months, before I was confident there were no more worms.
5. I don't share any coral without letting people know I've had AEFWs in the past.

The whole thing was a serious drag. But for me anyway it worked out well in the end -- I still keep almost exclusively acros. Good luck!

 

[RMS18]

Thanks for the replies! After cutting down everything I did toss some that were just to far gone or had eggs, I only found one colony that had eggs picture is below, 4 others that had bite marks. I applied kalk paste all over where the corals encrusted on the rocks that would not scrape off. I do have a few more spots I missed to scrape, so I'm going to restart the dipping clock after all encrusted coral is removed. After dipping the frags I kept and gluing to new plugs I counted 15-20 worms that I could see after all the dipping was done. Curious to see what happens on the second dip. I also want to blast the rocks where the corals we're to see if anything comes off. Currently I don't see any bite marks on any of the fragged corals, as I only kept coral without bite marks. I tossed a lot for coral... A lot. Figured it was better to keep 1-3 frags per acro type then trying to keep colonies where there are more spots for worms to hide.

I'm using two 10gal tanks for the dipping, one with melafix the other as a wash tank which I'll refill after each rack comes out of the wash.

 

[RMS18]

Very sorry to hear about the AEFWs. I don't really post online much, but I did have AEFWs and was successful in getting rid of them. It was very labor intensive but not especially complicated. I didn't have a separate tank, though that would have been useful. The main long term issue was maintaining frags and colonies that were not permanently attached.

1. I started running Flatworm Stop (I still do).
2. I removed every bit of acro off the rocks, threw away or cut away any heavily infected branches
3. I started dipping all the acros in the system, everything always on the same day, in Bayer. I continued dipping based on this hatching rates I found here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00524/full#h8. The idea is to kill them after they've hatched but before they mature enough to lay eggs. The schedule will different depending on tank temperature.
4. I just kept repeating the process -- it was probably 2-3 months, maybe 4 months, before I was confident there were no more worms.
5. I don't share any coral without letting people know I've had AEFWs in the past.

The whole thing was a serious drag. But for me anyway it worked out well in the end -- I still keep almost exclusively acros. Good luck!

Wow dipping for almost 4 months? That's about 2x the amount I have read anyone dipping on RC where I found a lot more information on AEFW.

Do you feel FWS is snake oil? I had a vendor who I reached out to for advise tell me that stuff was smoke and mirrors. I was using it but unsure about measurable results.

I read that same article. My tank averages 80 degrees so hatching should be 8-10 days, I'm dipping every 7. But without any dead coral in the tank I'm not sure eggs will exist. The frag have no dead tissue and to my understanding eggs are only laid on dead tissue.

Thanks for the post.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the replies! After cutting down everything I did toss some that were just to far gone or had eggs, I only found one colony that had eggs picture is below, 4 others that had bite marks. I applied kalk paste all over where the corals encrusted on the rocks that would not scrape off. I do have a few more spots I missed to scrape, so I'm going to restart the dipping clock after all encrusted coral is removed. After dipping the frags I kept and gluing to new plugs I counted 15-20 worms that I could see after all the dipping was done. Curious to see what happens on the second dip. I also want to blast the rocks where the corals we're to see if anything comes off. Currently I don't see any bite marks on any of the fragged corals, as I only kept coral without bite marks. I tossed a lot for coral... A lot. Figured it was better to keep 1-3 frags per acro type then trying to keep colonies where there are more spots for worms to hide.

I'm using two 10gal tanks for the dipping, one with melafix the other as a wash tank which I'll refill after each rack comes out of the wash.

Melafix does work on AEFW. I did see some stress with it on some Millis and the switched to potassium chloride. If you need a backup, KCl is the one. It dissolves AEFW in 10 mins. No acro losses.

Don't use KCl for anything else but acros and milli. I use Melafix for other corals.

 

[RMS18]

Melafix does work on AEFW. I did see some stress with it on some Millis and the switched to potassium chloride. If you need a backup, KCl is the one. It dissolves AEFW in 10 mins. No acro losses.

Don't use KCl for anything else but acros and milli. I use Melafix for other corals.

I do have KCI. I tired the KCI spraying technique. Drain the tank expose the acros and spray the solution onto the acros... I saw zero worms come off but what did come off was acros flesh after I went in to blast afterwards. After the one time spraying I was done with it. To much work to drain the tank that far, fish did not like it, coral were in air for a while. Are you AEFW free yet? We have spoken before in the Purge thread which did work to some degree but also took out over $1500 in LPS and stressed my fish a lot after each dose. It's interesting Purge smells just kike Melafix.

 

[jmwreef]

Wow dipping for almost 4 months? That's about 2x the amount I have read anyone dipping on RC where I found a lot more information on AEFW.

Ha! Yes, I know, such a long time. But I run my system a little cooler -- around 76 degrees -- and therefore dipped a little less often. Plus, and this is the real reason, it seems like for the last month and a half I would go through the process and find exactly ONE worm after dipping dozens of pieces. Maybe I had forgotten a frag or dipped too briefly -- there's a lot of room for human error. With Bayer it's also hard to see, and so I wanted to keep it up until I went 2-3 times without finding anything even remotely close to a worm. Once you're through it you definitely don't want to do it again. But in the end it was fine and worth the effort.

 

[jmwreef]

Do you feel FWS is snake oil? I had a vendor who I reached out to for advise tell me that stuff was smoke and mirrors. I was using it but unsure about measurable results.

Oops, forgot to reply to this. I'm not confident at all that FWS alone would actually solve a problem, though maybe that's worked better for other people. My subjective impression is that my acros look healthier when I use it. I haven't had AEFWs in a long time but keep dosing it, because I like it. I literally just bought another liter last week when I saw BRS running a discount. It's expensive, but I only have about a 130 gallon system, so it lasts me a long time.

 

[C. Eymann]

Potassium chloride dips are key


Using jeweler specs to find/ scrape any egg masses


Sealing the base/ any non living substrate/ skeleton of colonies being removed/ dipped

Breaking up any colonies thst are too dense/ making it impossible to see if there are dead patches or unsealed substrate/ substrate in the middle of the colonies.


Sealing up both the encrusted bases and substrate surrounding old encrustment on the rock structure for eggs thst have been missed.


Tact glue colonies in place wherr they are easy to weekly remove/ dip or fabricate a temporary rack to set them on in the tank, repeat dips / inspections and replugging weekly.

 

[ScottB]

I do have KCI. I tired the KCI spraying technique. Drain the tank expose the acros and spray the solution onto the acros... I saw zero worms come off but what did come off was acros flesh after I went in to blast afterwards. After the one time spraying I was done with it. To much work to drain the tank that far, fish did not like it, coral were in air for a while. Are you AEFW free yet? We have spoken before in the Purge thread which did work to some degree but also took out over $1500 in LPS and stressed my fish a lot after each dose. It's interesting Purge smells just kike Melafix.

My dips have been clean for a little over a month now, but I am going to keep dipping. It is a pain, but it is my frag system so I shouldn't complain. I am reasonably efficient at it by now as it is my third round with them. Determined to make it my LAST round.

The other two times I quit after about 3 clean dips and that was not enough. I know I am not introducing new ones, just missing some eggs somewhere along the way.

Sorry the KCl spray did not work out. In theory it seems attractive.

As to Purge and AEFW-X I don't have anything positive to report. FWS didn't seem to affect my worms either, but something in it seemed to keep the acros a little happier while the worm assault continued.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

KCl spray did not work for me either, just another crackpot idea that doesn't really work. AEFW-X just more smoke and mirrors, 2Litres and 10 weeks of this stuff did not help.

I have pretty much removed all the acros that were being attacked but left the ones that don't seem to be affected by the worms. I wonder if they will now move onto those if their favorite food source is gone?

Here is a video of my situation:

 

[Yanir34]

Sorry to hear they made it to your DT. I had them twice in my frag system and it was a real drag. Some answers to your questions:
a) Anything that is acro or milli has to go, everything else can stay... montis, stylos whatever.
b) Yes, better removed to a separate tank. But if you cannot set up something that is stable, you are going to take some losses so there is a real trade-off here.
c) Potassium Chloride is the perfect dip for AEFW for a variety of reasons listed below.
d) You will (likely) find that your worms have very strong preferences for one species/colony over the others. If they have heavily infested a given colony, they have cleared enough flesh to lay a lot of eggs. You will need to frag it up and chuck all the inner branch base stuff in the trash or calcium reactor.
e) You can run temps a little lower to slow their gestation rate. The hatch takes about a week otherwise.
f) If you see worms come off, KNOW that there are eggs to be found/removed/crazy glued. Or just frag it to be safer.

Why KCl?
1) It does not stun, it kills them. Literally will melt them. Melafix is good for MENS though. Real good.
2) Very gentle on acropora. I was dipping 15 racks each week and lost nothing to speak of.
3) Not milky like Bayer so you can see them come off.
4) 1 tbls per gallon tank water; light baste; 10 mins.
5) I don't find KCl effective on any other coral pests, just worms. All brittles and pods will die as well though.

What is KCI ?

 

[ScottB]

What is KCI ?

Potassium Chloride. It is a very common (lower sodium) substitute for table salt. Cheap, effective and safe when used properly. 1 tbsp per gallon tank water as a dip.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

So how are things going now?