AEFW's Worst Nightmare - Purge V2

[TheDragonsReef]

Great to hear there's a product that works in tank. Any chance it would work on Montipora eating nudis? And if not can you make that next lol can't get those buggers out of my 265g

 

[GrouperBait]

My guess is I'd had them for a while before discovering them in June. I'd been keeping several good hunting wrasses in there but over time they were jumping out of the frag system and not being replaced. I think this allowed the worms to gear up.

Within a week of discovery, I had the full kitchen sink approach in place. I was "clear" by mid August. No more worms would come off in dips. No more bite marks, etc. Things were smooth until a couple weeks ago. I thought I had white bugs, and dipped a few colonies into Interceptor dip for 16 hours. And about 8-10 worms came off.

The frag that struggled was fairly new to the system. The older damaged colonies seem to be holding up OK so far.

One other observation: my basement smelled strongly of tea tree oil for a few days but seems to have dissipated over the last couple days. I guess the stuff kinda breaks down a bit over time and thus the need to keep dosing. Typically when dosing for pests, you dose, wait, remove, wait, repeat. Otherwise the concentrations get too high.

100% it had an extremely potent smell. Very similar to 2LF revive. But I don’t mind it.

Weirf. Similar experiences and time frames here. The only difference is that I’ve been dosing FWS religiously.

 

[ScottB]

100% it had an extremely potent smell. Very similar to 2LF revive. But I don’t mind it.

Weirf. Similar experiences and time frames here. The only difference is that I’ve been dosing FWS religiously.

Yeah, the odor is not bothersome. Just interesting that it seems to have dissipated.

I too have been dosing FWS since June as a part of my kitchen sink strategy. Was at double dose until September or so. If I had to guess which of my tools were most effective, I'd say it was the potassium chloride weekly dips, followed by the predators. That is anecdotal thought, not the result of a controlled test.

Somebody in that tank keeps chasing out my 6-lines and yellow coris.

I am going to give the Purge 2.0 a few more weeks and dip my suspect colonies weekly to see if the population disappears.

 

[GrouperBait]

Yeah, the odor is not bothersome. Just interesting that it seems to have dissipated.

I too have been dosing FWS since June as a part of my kitchen sink strategy. Was at double dose until September or so. If I had to guess which of my tools were most effective, I'd say it was the potassium chloride weekly dips, followed by the predators. That is anecdotal thought, not the result of a controlled test.

Somebody in that tank keeps chasing out my 6-lines and yellow coris.

I am going to give the Purge 2.0 a few more weeks and dip my suspect colonies weekly to see if the population disappears.

So when I realized I had them, I fragged every single colony and only the encrusted portion remained in the display. Then I put all ~300 frags on an egg crates system and dipped them every 7 days. At about week 4, almost all the acros were dead. I’m guessing the stress of new qt system, and aefw, and routine dips just put them over the edge.
Then I started to dose FWS to dt and sure enough, all the encrusted portion has bounced back in the past 6-8 months.

Another update: my alk is continuing to rise. 9.27 as of noon today and that is after I lowered the dose 15mls. I’m starting to worry.
I blasted the acros today with a turkey baster and two of them had flatworms fly off.
My next dose is scheduled for Monday at noon. I am going to shut off the flow and mix up the purgev2 with a gallon of tank water, then I’m going to go around and spot “feed” the purge on all the acros. I’m hoping to see instant death fly up. I’ll update on Monday.

 

[ScottB]

So when I realized I had them, I fragged every single colony and only the encrusted portion remained in the display. Then I put all ~300 frags on an egg crates system and dipped them every 7 days. At about week 4, almost all the acros were dead. I’m guessing the stress of new qt system, and aefw, and routine dips just put them over the edge.
Then I started to dose FWS to dt and sure enough, all the encrusted portion has bounced back in the past 6-8 months.

Another update: my alk is continuing to rise. 9.27 as of noon today and that is after I lowered the dose 15mls. I’m starting to worry.
I blasted the acros today with a turkey baster and two of them had flatworms fly off.
My next dose is scheduled for Monday at noon. I am going to shut off the flow and mix up the purgev2 with a gallon of tank water, then I’m going to go around and spot “feed” the purge on all the acros. I’m hoping to see instant death fly up. I’ll update on Monday.

QT systems for acropora are VERY temporary in my experience. I went through a ton of effort to make my frag system as "old" as possible with old tank water, old media (ceramic block), tons of old rock and tubs of old sand.

It took 2 years before my frag system became as acro friendly as my old display.

 

[Poochaku]

Thoughts on waterchanges during the treatment?

 

[Poochaku]

Thoughts on waterchanges during the treatment?

bump @UWC

Thing's are looking good but my alk consumption is dropping and I was wondering if a WC would help.

 

[UWC]

Up to you, but would try and refrain unless nutrients and things are getting way out of whack. The big thing is to just adjust your doser or reactor to keep things stable. Everyone’s tank will be a bit different as far as alk changes are concerned. After week 3-4 you’ll notice that alk consumption will really start to increase significantly

 

[dadnjesse]

I just treated my 125 Gallon tank and 50 Gallon sump with 70ml of purge V2. Most of my fish have been hiding ever since. I hope they are ok.

 

[UWC]

They'll be just fine. Just freaked out by the sudden change within the water

 

[dadnjesse]

They'll be just fine. Just freaked out by the sudden change within the water

Ok thanks.

 

[GrouperBait]

Update:
The instructions I received in the package appear to be different than the instructions that must have been recently updated on the website, so I just ordered another bottle so that I could “do it right”.
That said, I am on week 4 (I started on feb 22) and I can say that I definitely still have aefws. I had been dosing FWS for about 6-8months ish daily before I started dosing the purge and aefw were present on probably half my acros (maybe 20 or so patches of Acropora) and they are still on the same 20 patches. I have had my skimmer and UV offline the entire time and all my numbers have been consistent. There was a slight decrease in Alk uptake in week one, but it leveled out and has not continued to drop.
No fish seem to be affected, but there are a few corals that aren’t happy. It’s very hard to determine “why” and I doubt I will ever know. I just hope they rebound when purge treatment is over.
All in all, I am crossing my fingers that this next bottle will knock out the aefw’s for good, but I must say that I am not optimistic. Hopefully I will be proved wrong .
This seems like it may be a product designed to kill a whole lot of the aefw’s really quick, but for the product to wipe out all aefw’s from the system...we shall see. And if the product doesn’t work as advertised, then I’ll be the first to put UWC on blast since I’m wasting time and money on a lie.
But if it works, I’ll promote it everywhere I go and it could revolutionize this hobby.

I’m crossing my fingers!!

 

[UWC]

Are you seeing less adults and eggs? Worms smaller now, like eggs in the system are hatching? It’s important to run the full treatment so that you can work through the eggs that will hatch in the system throughout the treatment as the smaller worms will die off and not be able to reproduce.

 

[ScottB]

Are you seeing less adults and eggs? Worms smaller now, like eggs in the system are hatching? It’s important to run the full treatment so that you can work through the eggs that will hatch in the system throughout the treatment as the smaller worms will die off and not be able to reproduce.

So it is at the juvenile stage that the cycle gets interrupted then? I feel like the worms I am dipping off are medium to adult sizes.

As to eggs, I am obviously seeing fewer each week. I am pretty much just chopping up and dipping any colonies with exposed skeleton.

 

[ocboat]

Does anyone that have used this have clams or anemones in their tank? I have six clams and and a huge magnifica anemone that I would hate to lose.

 

[UWC]

So it is at the juvenile stage that the cycle gets interrupted then? I feel like the worms I am dipping off are medium to adult sizes.

As to eggs, I am obviously seeing fewer each week. I am pretty much just chopping up and dipping any colonies with exposed skeleton.

I was just curious as the younger AEFW’s get nuked so easy. If you are seeing less eggs, that’s a great sign

 

[ScottB]

I was just curious as the younger AEFW’s get nuked so easy. If you are seeing less eggs, that’s a great sign

Thanks. It is just hard to attribute this kind of progress to a specific treatment since I am doing both dosing and dipping. Actually more than that as I have predators, and am throwing out infected skeleton weekly.

If I had a tank full of Bali slimer, I would do a control experiment to separate the effects. But I don't. And as you said, once you discover AEFW, they've already reached a significant infection level.

Nobody wants an in tank treatment success more than me. Hopefully some folks will come along (in the name of science!) and do some controlled experiments.

 

[GrouperBait]

Are you seeing less adults and eggs? Worms smaller now, like eggs in the system are hatching? It’s important to run the full treatment so that you can work through the eggs that will hatch in the system throughout the treatment as the smaller worms will die off and not be able to reproduce.

I was seeing smaller worms around week 3. But two days ago (the day after my 4th dose) I saw a “big” one that was about 5-7mm. (I am a dentist and we work in tiny increments. It was definitely between 5-7mm) This obviously worries me. Maybe it is best to dose the tank, and then go ahead immediately and turkey baste all the colonies to loosen up any nooks and crannies.
Unfortunately, this is why I am scared the product is not going to work as advertised. But maybe it was just a really gigantic juvenile, so I’m definitely going to dose the second bottle and finish out the prescribed treatment.
Furthermore, the directions say “day 1, day 7, day 14...” which is NOT the same as once a week. I’m not sure if you guys intended it to be that way. For instance if you look at a March calendar, Day 1 would be Monday, and day 7 and 14 would be Sunday.
However, I’m going to dose weekly, even on the weeks that are supposed to be skipped (week 5 and 7), and pray for the best. At this rate, I am halfway done with treatment. 4 down, 4 to go, and 75$ invested on a 223 gallon total water volume system.

 

[UWC]

Frequent basting is never a bad idea as the worms can "protect" themselves somewhat with coral slime. It's also a great way to keep track of basic population numbers, which makes it easier to see when adults have died off. Then you are left dealing with newly hatched worms. I would recommend basting 2-3 times per week if you have the time

 

[ScottB]

Frequent basting is never a bad idea as the worms can "protect" themselves somewhat with coral slime. It's also a great way to keep track of basic population numbers, which makes it easier to see when adults have died off. Then you are left dealing with newly hatched worms. I would recommend basting 2-3 times per week if you have the time

A fine suggestion basting. I need to do that a little more often. Just need to turn off all the pumps and circulation so I can see what is coming off. Some folks baste with RODI; its a thing.