An Almost Successful In Tank AEFW Treatment

[Laser]

TREATMENT #2 PERFORMED 12/18/2014

Observations: Minimal AEFW observed. Death toll of all small creatures seemed to be much less than first treatment. There were a few AEFW and all seemed to be proportionate in size around size of rolling pen. I "believe" but certainly cannot substantiate that we were seeing AEFW that had been hatched since the last treatment. We will plan on a third treatment in 2 weeks (Jan 1) as a final treatment.

Coral observations: I have to admit we contemplated not doing the treatment as the acro were looking so good again after the first treatment. We saw a much different response it seemed. Most milles actually kept PE during the treatment and are really looking pretty normal already this morning. Acros slimed again but already have PE this morning as well. It seems the acros built a resistance of sorts and really handled the treatment better this time.

We will observe the snails today to see if they come back again like they did last time from long nap.. We have minimal snails as most were already taken out to QT but enough to observe.

Fish observations: Fish did not seem to build any tolerance to the treatment like the corals did. Understand we only had 4 fish left to base this on but they seemed to be stunned instantly this time and we were able to catch all and transfer into the QT. Happy to report that all are alive this morning and have already eaten. They would not have made it long in tank this time if we would not have caught them I don't believe.



1st treatment yielded changing of filter socks about every 2 hours after first treatment with all the floaters.

2nd treatment yeilded a changing of filter socks directly after treatment and then again this morning so much less death has occured.

We will continue to watch responses and report back findings.

 

[Laser]

Continuing with water changes as we did after first treatment. did a 25% change last night 30 minutes after treatment. Performed another 25% change at about 3AM and have performed another 25% change at 9AM. Making more water and will change again this evening. We will then do another 50% change tomorrow morning.

 

[Laser]

Forgot to mention that it appears no effect on the LPS again. Zoas/Palys still completely closed but suspect they will open again today as they did first treatment.

 

[Laser]

Day 18 update:
Treatment #2 went well and all SPS is recovering nicely again. Now that we have performed water changes --- 125% total --- all SPS has great PE again and regaining colors quickly. All LPS and palys/zoas have been uneffected and really looking good. They are actually growing much quicker than before treatment due to the high nutrients that are now present due to all the die off.
We have incurrred a pretty bad outbreak of hair algae and will have to deal with that once the treatments are over but nothing that a good cleanup crew will not be able to take care of pretty quick. Over all I would say this is very exciting developments that we have seen. Through the 2 treatments we have only lost about 3 small frags and one medium sized colony that was already badly infested.
We will perform a third treatment (and any further needed based on seeing aefw) until we get rid of these pests. We are winning the war now we feel!!!

 

[DFW]

Day 18 update:
Treatment #2 went well and all SPS is recovering nicely again. Now that we have performed water changes --- 125% total --- all SPS has great PE again and regaining colors quickly. All LPS and palys/zoas have been uneffected and really looking good. They are actually growing much quicker than before treatment due to the high nutrients that are now present due to all the die off.
We have incurrred a pretty bad outbreak of hair algae and will have to deal with that once the treatments are over but nothing that a good cleanup crew will not be able to take care of pretty quick. Over all I would say this is very exciting developments that we have seen. Through the 2 treatments we have only lost about 3 small frags and one medium sized colony that was already badly infested.
We will perform a third treatment (and any further needed based on seeing aefw) until we get rid of these pests. We are winning the war now we feel!!!

You're the man! Thank you for sharing!

 

[labas39]

Day 18 Update

Is your potassium level now at 400 ppm?

If so, do you know how many days it stayed elevated?

If not, do you know what the potassium level is at now?

The reason I ask is I started dosing potassium and wanted to know how much acros can take at prolonged durations.

 

[Laser]

Is your potassium level now at 400 ppm?

If so, do you know how many days it stayed elevated?

If not, do you know what the potassium level is at now?

The reason I ask is I started dosing potassium and wanted to know how much acros can take at prolonged durations.

I had my water tested at a lab prior to the first treatment and K was 440. Caught a sample of first treatment for testing and K tested at 1480 during the 30 minute soak.
We then started water changes asap to get 125% water changed and bring K back to 440 level which is where it is today. So all in all I would say 30 minutes at 1480, and then 24 hour period of getting water changes so level dropping after each change and we did not collect samples at those intervals. Hope this is clear...

 

[labas39]

I had my water tested at a lab prior to the first treatment and K was 440. Hope this is clear...

Thanks, very clear. Sounds like I don't have to worry if I go to 410 or even 440.

 

[Laser]

Day 23 update:
SPS is recovering on similar timetable to first treatment. They have really colored up back up and have excellent PE.
Many snails have woke up and are working again on the hair algae outbreak.

Observations:
It seems that after the treatment and during the water changes that corals that were exposed to air for longer than about 5 minutes really suffered and we lost a couple. He has several frags in his frag tank as well and only the tallest tray that gets exposed to air during water changes is exhibiting losses. It seems after the treatment the acros are very weak and cannot take a lot of O2.
During the change we did splash most acros and they all survived. Only had problems with two acros that were exposed for about 7 minutes with no splashing or wet down of any kind. Just on observation if anyone tries this going forward.
I would say to this point that it appears the beneficial bacteria is still in place as the corals exhibit an ability to regain colors and PE quickly. We have seen a pretty bad outbreak of hair algae but I can really attribute that to the treatment or a fish that dove under the sand and we never recovered. All in all corals looking very good again and getting ready for treatment #3 on Thursday evening. Hopefully it will be the last and we will not see any more AEFW stragglers...

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Are you able to post any pics of the tank, curious how bad the algae out break was.

I found a few Polyclad flatworms (clam murderers) in my tank last year after I found a 9" Deresa dessimated over night. I love clams but won't add anything knowing they may still be in there- I bet this stuf would melt those rotten abominations

Looking forward to your treatment tomorrow to see how things go.

So this stuff must not cloud the water at all which is how you can clearly see if any AEFW came off the SPS?

Crossing my fingers all results show zero AEFW, I suspect if you see even 1 AEFW another treatment in a few weeks is in order????

 

[Laser]

Are you able to post any pics of the tank, curious how bad the algae out break was.

I found a few Polyclad flatworms (clam murderers) in my tank last year after I found a 9" Deresa dessimated over night. I love clams but won't add anything knowing they may still be in there- I bet this stuf would melt those rotten abominations

Looking forward to your treatment tomorrow to see how things go.

So this stuff must not cloud the water at all which is how you can clearly see if any AEFW came off the SPS?

Crossing my fingers all results show zero AEFW, I suspect if you see even 1 AEFW another treatment in a few weeks is in order????

I am going to my brothers in the morning and will get some pics of the algae. It has subsided quite a bit as we have been skimming, changing filter socks, and keeping the tank stirred up and removing and much manually as possible. We decided to add lanthum chloride to help knock out the phosphates and we have done this slowly over the past 2 weeks. As was with the previous 2 treatments the corals are really looking amazing again with colors returning and PE like crazy. Sure seems that AEFW is now gone.
When added the treatment does NOT cloud the water at all and it is very clear to see floaters (as long as I have my 2.0 cheaters on)..
As you stated if we even see one stragler we will be treating again in 2 weeks. Crossing our fingers as well as we really have seen great results so far. We did see a brown out of frags that were in his sump and we attribute that to the excessive air exposure during the many water changes but all in all very encouraging.
I feel at this point that the question going forward will be what effect the treatments had on the beneficial bacteria.. I am actually wondering if we should consider dosing some type of bacteria after the last treatment to aid in recovery...Thoughts?

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Unless you're seeing ammonia or nitrite I would not bother spending the money-this is just my opinion but I feel any beneficial bacteria lost will come back.

I've got a golden dwarf moray that I feel would be tough to catch and then about a dozen fish-I just lost about 1000.00 on fish last month due to ich (first ich death in 6 years, and it was a doozy) and having the tank fish free for 6 weeks would cause any ich spores or what ever they are called to die off I think-Plus knowing for sure I killed they polyclads is reason enough for me to give this a try. I'm worried about the 16" RBTA I have in the tank, not sure but I think that would die??

I had AEFW and it was a pain removing all the acros and dipping for 8 weeks but it had to be done. I used a sodium hydroxide solution to kill any encrusted remnants that were left from removing colonies

Following along to see what tomorrow brings-Good luck!!

 

[Laser]

Treatment #3 Performed 1/1/15:

Observations of treatment #3 were very encouraging as we DID NOT see any more aefw (or any tiny life for that matter) during the treatment. Corals seemed to respond well again as many kept PE this time and seem to be getting used to the elevated potassium spikes. We literally saw nothing in the water column this time including a lack of pods. We performed two different 25% water changes last night and will perform 2 more 25% changes today and a 50% change on Saturday morning. (this is same process we used for each treatment).
We have beat the dreaded AEFW with this in tank treatment :smash:and will now observe the recovery of the acros. We plan to get water back to normal through water changes and bring K back down to around 400-450. We will then add a clean up crew back in the display to combat the algae outbreak that occured from all the death. We plan to add the fish back at the end of week along with the rest of the inhabitants we were able to catch and QT during the treatements. I will update in the next few days to assure recovery progresses as we have seen with the first two treatments.

 

[labas39]

Congrats!

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Great news about the last treatment but I'm curios, are you guys going to do one more treatment? I have to say if it was me I would even though nothing was seen on the last treatment. So much work has gone into this one more treatment would give me piece of mind and really what's one more after all you've gone through.

I have to think you have it down to science now.

Last night my "canary in the coal mine" died-Its been a long time since I tried a clam since I found the Polyclad almost two years ago and I had found 2 dead worms in the following months of seeing them in my tank. Well I added a Crocea to test the tank a few months back and I look in the tank this morning and see the shell had been moved so I grabbed a flashlight-the entire clam was eaten overnight.

I've seriously considering this process but will test a few frags out before doing so, SPS and Acans, maybe even buy a small BTA since the 16" RBTA that's in the tank isnt being removed.


Anyway not to go off track but was curious if you two have considered another dose.

Congrats again!

 

[Laser]

Great news about the last treatment but I'm curios, are you guys going to do one more treatment? I have to say if it was me I would even though nothing was seen on the last treatment. So much work has gone into this one more treatment would give me piece of mind and really what's one more after all you've gone through.

I have to think you have it down to science now.

Last night my "canary in the coal mine" died-Its been a long time since I tried a clam since I found the Polyclad almost two years ago and I had found 2 dead worms in the following months of seeing them in my tank. Well I added a Crocea to test the tank a few months back and I look in the tank this morning and see the shell had been moved so I grabbed a flashlight-the entire clam was eaten overnight.

I've seriously considering this process but will test a few frags out before doing so, SPS and Acans, maybe even buy a small BTA since the 16" RBTA that's in the tank isnt being removed.


Anyway not to go off track but was curious if you two have considered another dose.

Congrats again!

We are not planning to do another treatment as we already put the fish and clean up crew back in the tank today. As you can imagine it really is a lot of work getting all the water ready and performing that many water changes not to mention the cost of all the salt. Cost aside that is certainly not why we chose to not perform a 4th treatment.
I believe in the treatment now that I have seen it work and if I ever have an outbreak in the 1000 display I will certainly use this method as the corals are now mostly colonies and good size. Yes there are certainly downsides--fish deaths, clean up crew near wipeout(many snails must have hibernated during the treatment as many came back each time but dwindled as we went), algae outbreak, salt costs, time, sore back, lack of sleep thinking I was wiping out my brother tank, etc but I have seen the acros respond and the AEFW literally dissentagrate before my eyes. I lost a SPS tank 5 years ago even removing the sps and QT dip method as it was already too late and that species was very aggressive and quick to destroy, maybe even a different species than what we dealt with this time but who knows....

 

[Reefnjunkie]

What ever became of those eggs you had pictured earlier-hatched, melted, still there ?????

LOL

Thanks again for the posts/replies

 

[Laser]

What ever became of those eggs you had pictured earlier-hatched, melted, still there ?????

LOL

Thanks again for the posts/replies

The eggs on the Jason Fox Yellow Tips acro that we were observing had hatched before we started watching them. Kate Rowlison took a look at them and determined that each egg had a small darker hole which indicated they had already hatched. I will be going over this morning to observe and will check the yellow tip to check if the eggs ever melted or they are still there..

 

[FarmerTy]

Thank you for sharing your experiences! This will definitely end up in my treasure trove of reef tricks. I am planning to at least incorporate it as a dip for all incoming SPS frags.

Just a thought, but it would be nice to be able to use something as s binder for the potassium so that large water changes wouldn't be needed. I'll leave that up to the chemical gurus to figure out.

 

[Lazys Coral House]

If no binder is available what about doing a 100% water change 30 minutes after dosing. Is it effective in that short period of time or do you think it is needed to be in system longer.