An Almost Successful In Tank AEFW Treatment

[Skydvr]

I'm not sure I would agree with that. If all of the bacteria had died off, the livestock would be suffering from ammonia poisoning at some point shortly after the large water changes had been completed. Plants, and I'm sure algae as well, are able to assimilate ammonia, but I do not think it is likely that the amount of algae in that tank is able to uptake all of the ammonia produced by that biomass, from feedings, and from the decay that was not able to be removed from the tank. I do not think the corals would be recovering and flourishing if the bacteria colony was wiped out. I believe the nutrients released from the large amount of die-off that occurred, is what is driving the algae outbreak.
I am not sure how the elevated potassium would effect the parameters that are driving the algae outbreak. I know it is essential for algae growth, but I am not sure how much it would put the algae into overdrive on its own. It is one of the macro nutrients that drives growth, but it is not usually talked about as most people do not measure it and it is in lower concentrations (normally) than nitrogen an potassium. I am sure it will have an effect, I just don't know to what extent.

You would need to feed the bacteria and pods in that bucket, otherwise they would starve along with the AEFW that may or may not be on/in the rock.

If it was to the point that you needed to treat the entire tank and risk all of the inhabitants and risk a potential tank crash, I think that removing a small portion of the rock is too big of a risk. By the time you have starved off any potential AEFW, the tank would be well on it's way to repopulating the bacterial colony. If you were concerned about bacteria immediately after the treatment, there are bottled products that have proven them selves in speeding up new tank cycles and you can get pods from places to replenish that population as well. It would be much cheaper and faster in the long run when compared to potentially having to repeat the treatment due to reintroducing AEFW.

 

[Laser]

The bio die off from the treatments continued to take a toll on the inhabitants and ammonia tests were showing a trace. The sand bed was covered with algae. We decided to go ahead and vacuum the sand bed. Well it appears a few days later that was the final trick. In all the years I have been in the hobby I have never seen any type of overnight success but THIS was a first. The same night we vacuumed the sand bed the SPS already had PE again and regaining colors. Colors continued to come back quickly and are now looking really good again. The sand bed did not seem to have any detrius left as it was decayed into small white ball substances. The water we removed was black and enough to make you gag.
I spoke with Kate Rawlinson yesterday about the events and they will be replicating the process asap. They will also be running the treatments on a BB tank to see effects on liverock and if the liverock bio die off will survive enough to support the system without a sand bed. We are still AEFW free and tank is headed back in right direction. We estimate that we lost about 15% of our SPS throughout the 3 treatments but most was already heavily infected and we feel they would have been lost with current techniques of removal from tank and dip treatments anyway. Yes there were fish losses,invert losses, and a wipe out of the clean up crew, a major shift from low to high nutrient causing a major algae outbreak, but we consider this a tremendous success with all the SPS we were able to save. All fish and inhabitants are doing well and back in the display. A new clean up crew was added about 10 days ago and with all the hard work they put in and the cleaning of the sand bed the algae is already under control, ammonia levels gone, and tank back to normal. Good luck to all going forward who elect to attempt this treatment as there is no doubt now that AEFW can be treated with an in tank procedure.:tongue:

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Thanks for the update-I was talking last night with the Mrs about the sand bed and mentioned syphoning out the bad.

I'd have to conclude the LR does retain enough good bacteria to handle the support the system or your outcome would have been different being it sounds like from the odor you experiences and the color that what bio load was sand based died off.

Did you notice any of the LR showing the same black look that the sand exhibited?


A fellow reefer and I did this high potassium method on a frag tank he has and nothing was found but it was a good experiment. I was involved with this same treatment for someone elses system that runs bare bottom and flat worms did fly off. On the later system the LR is kept in a large remote vat so it able to be isolated and just the tanks were dosed. But doing that no bio load was affected and this Saturday we will do a second treatment. The tank was drained 100% and all new made up water was added before opening up the valves and flowing through the vat of rock. Some snails were not caught and survived including stomatella snails.

IME this is highly effective and with a few minor tweaks here and there this will be an answer for many.

Please post another update if you wouldn't mind in a week or two, I'll do the same.

Thanks again!

 

[Laser]

Thanks for the update-I was talking last night with the Mrs about the sand bed and mentioned syphoning out the bad.

I'd have to conclude the LR does retain enough good bacteria to handle the support the system or your outcome would have been different being it sounds like from the odor you experiences and the color that what bio load was sand based died off.

Did you notice any of the LR showing the same black look that the sand exhibited?


A fellow reefer and I did this high potassium method on a frag tank he has and nothing was found but it was a good experiment. I was involved with this same treatment for someone elses system that runs bare bottom and flat worms did fly off. On the later system the LR is kept in a large remote vat so it able to be isolated and just the tanks were dosed. But doing that no bio load was affected and this Saturday we will do a second treatment. The tank was drained 100% and all new made up water was added before opening up the valves and flowing through the vat of rock. Some snails were not caught and survived including stomatella snails.

IME this is highly effective and with a few minor tweaks here and there this will be an answer for many.

Please post another update if you wouldn't mind in a week or two, I'll do the same.

Thanks again!

Great to hear!!
The liverock did exhibit the same type algae outbreak as the sand bed. The question Kate brought up was that since our system had the sand bed and we were able to effectively remove enough of the dyeing biomass through sandbed vacuuming that the liverock still had enough to support the system and not a total bio die off occured, but what would happen if there was no sand bed and you could not effectively get the dead matter out of the rocks? That is what she is going to try and simulate asap along with the same type method we used with the approximate 3 inch sand bed we treated.

 

[FarmerTy]

My theory is mostly nitrifying bacteria that live in the upper layers of sand and the outer layers of the liverock probably died off once the potassium levels were raised. It will take awhile for the higher potassium levels to permeate deeply into the sandbed or deep into the inner core of liverock. Most nitrifying bacteria however live near the surface of thr liverock or upper regions of the sandbed as they require oxygen. Most of your bacterial dieoff is probably the nitrifying bacteria but enough survived to continue the conversion of ammonia/nitrite to nitrate. Bacterial populations can multiply rapidly and enough was probably left to process the ammonia/nitrite in your system. You removing the top layer of basically dead organics helped the surviving nitrifying bacteria deeper in the sandbed to receive better water flow to supply oxygen and ammonia/nitrite for them to survive and also help you out by breaking down those products to nitrate.

For DENITRIFYING bacteria, the type that is anaerobic (does not require oxygen) and processes nitrates into nitrogen gas (simplified), they were probably largely unaffected as they typically reside deep in the core of liverock and in the deeper regions of your sandbed where there is no oxygen. They are still processing your nitrates but probably can't keep up with the initial nutrient spike due to all the dieoff from the treatment... hence why you had algal growth with the increasing nitrate level.

A bottle of bacteria wouldn't hurt if you've already done that but now all you really need to do is just monitor ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels and make sure none get crazy high while your sps are recovering.

 

[Laser]

My theory is mostly nitrifying bacteria that live in the upper layers of sand and the outer layers of the liverock probably died off once the potassium levels were raised. It will take awhile for the higher potassium levels to permeate deeply into the sandbed or deep into the inner core of liverock. Most nitrifying bacteria however live near the surface of thr liverock or upper regions of the sandbed as they require oxygen. Most of your bacterial dieoff is probably the nitrifying bacteria but enough survived to continue the conversion of ammonia/nitrite to nitrate. Bacterial populations can multiply rapidly and enough was probably left to process the ammonia/nitrite in your system. You removing the top layer of basically dead organics helped the surviving nitrifying bacteria deeper in the sandbed to receive better water flow to supply oxygen and ammonia/nitrite for them to survive and also help you out by breaking down those products to nitrate.



For DENITRIFYING bacteria, the type that is anaerobic (does not require oxygen) and processes nitrates into nitrogen gas (simplified), they were probably largely unaffected as they typically reside deep in the core of liverock and in the deeper regions of your sandbed where there is no oxygen. They are still processing your nitrates but probably can't keep up with the initial nutrient spike due to all the dieoff from the treatment... hence why you had algal growth with the increasing nitrate level.

A bottle of bacteria wouldn't hurt if you've already done that but now all you really need to do is just monitor ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels and make sure none get crazy high while your sps are recovering.

Perfectly said!! I totally agree with this and believe that is what happened.

 

[Laser]

With great pain I must now post that we are experiencing losses of the sps colonies. The nutrient swing was too much for the tank evidently and the ammonia and nitrates were both elevated. We attempted several water changes to bring down the levels but no luck. In the last 2 days we have lost approximately 25% of the remaining SPS stock with a majority of the remaining colonies also effected already at the bases. The RTN is happening in an accelerated fashion and a total loss of sps is now expected by morning, although we do still have about 10 colonies that look perfect so go figure.. In a ray of good news the ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites are now in check as well as phospates but it appears too late. All other corals remain totally healthy and the chalices and LPS are actually seeing an accelerated growth rate due to the nutrient explosion. We will give updates on further losses but at this point I cannot promote this in tank method until further research from Kate and her team yield better results. I am convinced, and even took out several sps for observation and cannot find any signs of aefw, that we killed the aefw but the nutrient explosion proved to much to handle through usual means of nutrient export (I.E. skimming, filter socks, water changes, gfo, carbon).

SO UNFORTUNATELY CAN THE MODS PLEASE CHANGE TO TITLE OF THE THREAD!! (maybe to ANOTHER AEFW in tank try gone bad) No further losses need to occur. I believe that this is a tremendous weapon as a dip against aefw but then again the eggs remain the question... ****!!!!!!!!!Sorry for the vent but to watch all the losses brings tears to my eyes...:Cry:

 

[tonymission]

I'm so sorry to hear that man... I'm sad with you ((

 

[evolved]

SO UNFORTUNATELY CAN THE MODS PLEASE CHANGE TO TITLE OF THE THREAD!! (maybe to ANOTHER AEFW in tank try gone bad) No further losses need to occur. I believe that this is a tremendous weapon as a dip against aefw but then again the eggs remain the question... ****!!!!!!!!!Sorry for the vent but to watch all the losses brings tears to my eyes...:Cry:

I gave you a bit more credit than that, as I think it's deserved here. You may have found a solution, with simply the wrong approach. It's potentially a building block for someone else!

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Agreed^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And SOOOOOO Sorry to read your last update

Ive a buddy with a sump that houses roughly 300 pounds of live rock and his display has about 300-He has had AEFW and stays on top of it by basting the corals and his fish gobble them up-all his fish, even is clowns.

Anyway we had discussed trying this on his tank and the idea was to shut off all the returns and feeds via the ball valves he had so its just the main display that would be treated and lessen the volume of water that would need to be replaced and make it easier and by doing so non of the live rock that's been in the sumps is exposed.

Out of curiosity did you baste or use a power head to blow off the rocks after treatments?


The few tanks Ive treated (all frag systems) all have been bare bottom and were isolated from the rest of the system so they bacteria support the system was never exposed to high levels. We found that we had to lift all the frag to syphon below all the corals because the bristle stars etc that died. If we didn't do that it was nasty, like smelling a dead snail, you know the smell-weve all sniffed that snail to see if its dead OMG.

Anyway after doing all that syphoning it help remove any dead "stuff" and it didn't sit in the tank to do harm.

That's why I ask if you blew off the rocks after/between treatments.

Sorry again for the terrible outcome

 

[Laser]

Agreed^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And SOOOOOO Sorry to read your last update

Ive a buddy with a sump that houses roughly 300 pounds of live rock and his display has about 300-He has had AEFW and stays on top of it by basting the corals and his fish gobble them up-all his fish, even is clowns.

Anyway we had discussed trying this on his tank and the idea was to shut off all the returns and feeds via the ball valves he had so its just the main display that would be treated and lessen the volume of water that would need to be replaced and make it easier and by doing so non of the live rock that's been in the sumps is exposed.

Out of curiosity did you baste or use a power head to blow off the rocks after treatments?


The few tanks Ive treated (all frag systems) all have been bare bottom and were isolated from the rest of the system so they bacteria support the system was never exposed to high levels. We found that we had to lift all the frag to syphon below all the corals because the bristle stars etc that died. If we didn't do that it was nasty, like smelling a dead snail, you know the smell-weve all sniffed that snail to see if its dead OMG.

Anyway after doing all that syphoning it help remove any dead "stuff" and it didn't sit in the tank to do harm.

That's why I ask if you blew off the rocks after/between treatments.

Sorry again for the terrible outcome

We did blow the rocks between treatments trying to get as much nasties out as we could. Even went as far as hooking up a mag9.5 when my elbow developed tendonitus from the turkey baster. We went through filter socks like crazy, filters even on the mpw60's and changed them all out daily. I would say a good 4 hours per day was spent on maintenance for the tank trying to keep up with the nutrient explosion.

 

[Chris155hp]

Following

 

[numsie]

Following

 

[Laser]

we have continued to loose sps in the last few days. I continue to observe and have yet to see any aefw HOWEVER maybe a game changer today. I pulled out some frags that we cut from mothers while trying to save them and noticed on the base where they were already starting to rtn there were little black spots. At first I thought just dead skin or maybe algae but when I put on my cheaters and put it under light it was tiny black bugs. I pulled a few more sps frags and a couple of mini colonies we cut to save and sure enough they all have them!!!! REALLY????
So I guess the tank must have been infested with aefw and these little black bugs and the black bugs did not get killed in the KCL treatments? These are NOT red bugs ( I have had them, seen them and can spot them) but look just like them but they are black. Anyway not sure where to go from here. ALL chalices, zoas, LPS continue to thrive with not a single issue. I have read some have tried interceptor on the black bugs. I can tell you that I prepared a 24ml sample tank water with 2ml bayer and soaked them for 25 minutes and it did NOT touch the black bugs!! I am going back to try different dips but I feel sure the KCL dip will not work or I could not have them in the first place..

OHHHHH More confusion...:rain:

 

[Laser]

so after never even hearing of black bugs a little research and this is what is now killing the acros
Black Bugs & Gray Bugs?Invisible Killers » Reef'd Up Aquatics

 

[Laser]

In an effort to save some of the acropora I went ahead and performed the interceptor treatment. I was able to order the pills online from Australia I believe a few months back for emergency. I figure this is it...Just put a 200% dosage in tonight (due to some posts I had read relating to the black bugs taking a higher dose). Will observe later tonight but I already have seen a few spots they were visible they have released and went somewhere...Fingers crossed..
For all of those now wondering yes I do now believe there to be some type of relationship between aefw and red/black bugs. This is just way to much of a coincidence....Hope you are still tuning in Kate! I know you guys were going to take a look at this as well coming up so a little more proof. Maybe I have killed the aefw, but the KCl did not kill the red/black bugs, and they are now taking over without any competition. Not so hard to believe the KCL did not kill them as many of the snails actually were fine after a few days of hibernation. (well i say fine - they were moving and eating algae). And maybe just maybe I can now wipe out the red/black bugs and nothing left??? We shall soon see.. It was certainly worth a try in my book..Stay tuned for the soap opera.

 

[Laser]

Well the morning after and as I expected the black bugs seem to eat interceptor for snacks. TOTALLY uneffected by the treatment. We even dosed at 250% the recommended dosage.. So maybe just perform another this morning without a water change?

 

[Laser]

We went ahead and prepared another 250% solution of interceptor and added to tank this morning.
In total we have now added 500% of the recommended dosage. Please go away black bugs or a total removal of corals and start over is in order..With the black bugs I am now scared that they will also attack the LPS eventually so all efforts for removal have been implemented.

 

[Laser]

8 hours later and NO site of any black bugs!!!I will do a water change, put carbon back in line, turn on skimmer, and observe. I can already say I see a few SPS that have a little PE that I have not seen in several days so maybe a good sign.

 

[snipertwobe]

following, and sorry for your losses good luck