AEFW treatment, best options, unique situation, looking for opinions

[hatfielj]

I have a frag system running that has AEFW. The in-tank purge treatment did not work. I just moved to a new house and have a new system up and running that is ready for corals. I want to take frags of the corals in my frag tank and place them in the new tank.

My plan was to dip and frag everything in the frag tank and mount the frags to new plugs. They are currently mounted on tiles. I will be throwing away the tiles with the encrusting bases. If I do a dip, frag the corals, and mount them to a new frag plug, do you think there's any chance the AEFW could make it into the new tank? (I will be careful to only the healthy, living tissue). Or should I leave them in the frag tank and dip them weekly for a few weeks? I'm trying to minimize stress. Most of the corals are doing great. I only have AEFW on a couple of them fortunately.

Also, which dip do people consider the best for removing all adults?

 

[ycnibrc]

I will dip every 3 days for 4 weeks then move to New tank. This way if egg hatches within 4 weeks it will get kill.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I dip with melafix once a week for 4 to 6 weeks depending on the amount of worms. I would defiantly take care of them before you move them over so you can be sure and don’t have to worry about them again.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Dipping is not a sure fire guarantee and there is a chance you miss the cycle. Dipping is useless against the eggs and all it takes is one slipping through. If it's just a few frags then just throw them away. If I had a frag tank with $1,000 of corals in it I would still throw them away if I found AEFW on one of them. Dipping just kills the worms not the eggs.

I dip new arrivals now to determine if I throw in the trash and write the vendor off. That's about the only thing that works; QT for 1 month if anything. Dip is just informational for me.

 

[oldnsalty]

I would follow your original plan. cutting frags off the plugs with no dead tissue exposed, only live tissue. Dip weekly for no less then 5 weeks. If you want an added level of treatment you can use wormwood as @Pedoconfuego suggested. There is a thread started by @jda that is very informative about using it. I have used coralrx with very good results and not harmful to acros. Be careful with any smooth skinned corals with any dips though. I have battled these for several times and have never seen them on my smooth skinned corals but they could always be on the plugs so be careful.

 

[divewsharks]

I am having good success using KZ Flatworm Stop and regular basting my corals. Not a cure all, but I definitely see a difference and shrinking population. This is for the corals I could not remove and dip in my DT.

Also just stumbled on this today. There has been and will more research released on AEFW.
Published paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00524/full
and interview with a pair of the lead researchers:

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I am having good success using KZ Flatworm Stop and regular basting my corals. Not a cure all, but I definitely see a difference and shrinking population. This is for the corals I could not remove and dip in my DT.

Also just stumbled on this today. There has been and will more research released on AEFW.
Published paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00524/full
and interview with a pair of the lead researchers:

How many months have you been dosing?

 

[Bbfishb81]

I just went through this in my frag tank. Flatworm exit doesnt work. I dipped everyhing every second day and added a six line wrasse. I was worries about it happening in my DT so I put a green spot mandarin in there cause I dont like six lines as it is, and refuse to put one in my DT. Took about 6 weeks, and 75% acro loss, but managed to get rid of them.
Best of luck!

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I just went through this in my frag tank. Flatworm exit doesnt work. I dipped everyhing every second day and added a six line wrasse. I was worries about it happening in my DT so I put a green spot mandarin in there cause I dont like six lines as it is, and refuse to put one in my DT. Took about 6 weeks, and 75% acro loss, but managed to get rid of them.
Best of luck!

It's mentioned literally hundreds of times on this forum that flatworm exit isn't for AEFW, I still don't understand why inexperienced reefers can't handle this concept. This is like trying to get rid of them by putting amino acids in your tank; it literally does NOTHING for AEFW. It's a product meant for Planaria flatworms which are COMPLETELY different than AEFW.

I wonder how much money this company has made from people buying box after box hoping it will kill their AEFW infestation lol.

 

[divewsharks]

How many months have you been dosing?

I just hit the 3 month mark.
I dose KZ Flatworm Stop each night and KZ Coral Booster every 2/3 days. My plan is to soon switch to a regular/maintenance dose.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I just hit the 3 month mark.
I dose KZ Flatworm Stop each night and KZ Coral Booster every 2/3 days. My plan is to soon switch to a regular/maintenance dose.

I'm about month 2 of dbl dose and don't notice a major improvement just yet.

 

[divewsharks]

I'm about month 2 of dbl dose and don't notice a major improvement just yet.

Are you also regularly basting the corals to knock the adults & juveniles off? I blast them into the water column and my wrasses and even firefish will quickly make them a quick snack.

 

[Marthin Muller]

first of all, good luck and it's great to hear that you looking out for your corals
Had AEFW several times in my 16 years of reefkeeping and never had a wipeout. a young tank is difficult due to lack of maturity and new corals are stressed corals.
Most recent I got given a coral that looked quite sad, stunning acro.. dipped it and nothing.. put it in my tank and a whole flock of flatworms came off... right panic as my tank is sps dense..
added purge and no skimmer for months.. still had the odd one here and there.. got 3 springerii damsels who opted to set up 3 different stations.. havent seen anything since..
strangely needed to dose potassium more when I was doing the purge and since

 

[x2uranium]

Hatfieldj the only dip that proved to work is melafix and it works great watch your smooth skin acros and hyacinths they don’t like dips over 8 mins

 

[Graffiti Spot]

first of all, good luck and it's great to hear that you looking out for your corals
Had AEFW several times in my 16 years of reefkeeping and never had a wipeout. a young tank is difficult due to lack of maturity and new corals are stressed corals.
Most recent I got given a coral that looked quite sad, stunning acro.. dipped it and nothing.. put it in my tank and a whole flock of flatworms came off... right panic as my tank is sps dense..
added purge and no skimmer for months.. still had the odd one here and there.. got 3 springerii damsels who opted to set up 3 different stations.. havent seen anything since..
strangely needed to dose potassium more when I was doing the purge and since

I hope the fish actually finished them off for you but ime that is rare unless your basting the colonies often. Those damsels are the best at this job though. I guess if your not selling corals this method is a good one for sure!

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Hatfieldj the only dip that proved to work is melafix and it works great watch your smooth skin acros and hyacinths they don’t like dips over 8 mins

Melafix is my go to if treating for aefw. Revive works good too and so does coral rx but melafix is defiantly the best. Smoothies I always dip for four min until they start wiggling then I pull the acro and visually make sure it’s clean, even 8 min I have seen smoothies get burned with dips like revive and coral rx. Also melafix mixes clear so it’s very easy to see what’s coming off the corals, a big plus when trying to dip for aefw. One of the big reasons I tell people to stay away from Bayer.

 

[x2uranium]

Indeed.. sometimes they are going to lose color and or burn no matter the case. most can take 15+ mins of dips. Also by far the best product I have used as the most effective dip to eridicate flatworms if you are diligent in your dipping regimen.
Plus I don’t like dealing with Baer and dealing with gloves and disposal all that nonsense.

 

[x2uranium]

As a side note I have no idea why this product isn’t used more often in this hobby. Most people want an in tank option. Unfortunately you can’t have your cake and eat it in this situation you need to work for it.

 

[Bbfishb81]

It's mentioned literally hundreds of times on this forum that flatworm exit isn't for AEFW, I still don't understand why inexperienced reefers can't handle this concept. This is like trying to get rid of them by putting amino acids in your tank; it literally does NOTHING for AEFW. It's a product meant for Planaria flatworms which are COMPLETELY different than AEFW.

I wonder how much money this company has made from people buying box after box hoping it will kill their AEFW infestation lol.

Not sure what to say to this, kinda feel attacked for sharing what DID work for me.

Seeing as I forgot to mention the dip I used, I'm not sure if sharing it is welcome now, but I'm gonna anyways. it was a combination of revive and iodine.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Bbfish revive and a little iodine is what I always use when I see odd pests like spiders or slugs or weird bugs, it’s a great dip. Don’t feel attacked, it’s just that flat worm EXIT doesn’t affect acropora eating flat worms so it defiantly didn’t kill them off in your tank, are you sure you had acro eating flat worms? It works great for planaria flat worms but those are two very different pests.
On a side note I have heard of a lot of weird situations killing off aefw infestations in tanks. One being large temperature drops over periods of time and the other being using tap water. I wouldn’t ever use either of these to try and rid a tank of aefw but I do know the temperature of the tank has an affect on the worms and their lifecycle.