An Almost Successful In Tank AEFW Treatment

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shot of another acro we are losing. You can clearly see purple/black almost flatworm looking, you can see yellow eggs such as aefw lay, and black bugs that are tiny (way smaller than the eggs). So it appears the combo is still eating all the acros. So are the dark bugs maybe aefw that is no longer translucent? Are the eggs from the black bugs,aefw that cannot be seen, or maybe a darker variety of aefw?? They are so small I cannot get a better pic. Already using a 60mm macro. If you zoom in they are too grainy to tell.
 

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Pics posted above are from after the treatment. It appears the black bugs lay orange eggs. I have spoken with my LFS and they have run into these as well. The good news is that Bayer does kill them but as described in the article these guys like to latch on so even when dead they have to be blown of with turkey baster full blast.
I must have had these in the tank prior to the treatment as nothing has been introduced. I think they were possibly controlled by the aefw and vice versa and with the aefw gone they may have exploded with no competition/predators. I am and have been in the process of removing as many colonies as we can and start fragging. We have been fragging for several weeks now and have run out of room. Waiting on frag tank so hopefully it will be ready next week. I also believe these pests live in the tissue and can escape dipping/QT procedures that are currently implemented by the industry.
Prior to treatment the tank had about 10 wrasses and they were removed and only one survived. I have noticed him in the last 2 days eating aroung the acros so maybe I had enough wrasses prior to treatment to control them naturally. Well if that is the case all should be better soon, I just picked up 6 worker wrasses (2 red coris, 2 yellow coris, melanarus, and a green wrasse. Maybe they will be hungry for them. Worth a try huh....
 
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A happy update for once around here. As mentioned we went ahead and removed about 90% of the sps that remained in the main display, fragged effected colonies, and dipped everything in bayer at 2ml/3cups tank water for 30 minutes each. After dips we soaked in tank water outside of tank for another 30 minutes and returned all to sump section where frags are temporarily stored. We left about 9 or so colonies in the tank that were largely untouched through this whole process. We added back to the tank 7 worker wrasses to help naturally with the black bugs.


After about a week now ( and 2 more dips for all sps in frag section) all seem to have totally recovered in the frag tank section and the colonies left in the diplay look better than they have in several months!! Now that I have a microscope I cannot seem to find any more black bugs.
Did they isolate themselves to the sps we removed? Doubtful.. I guess the removal of sps and dipping killed the majority and the leftovers have either been eaten by the wrasses, back to natural levels where they are not a problem, or hiding and not going into killer mode until the army level is back up? We will continue to monitor and report our findings.
 

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I'am having the same bugs as what you are describing along with the eggs that are scattered that look like acro eatting flatworm eggs. Ive seen them under my frag plugs and also on my frag rack. I have taken videos of them and I'm so confuse as to what they are. They look like worms when I zoom in on my camera from a top down picture but look like they are protruding with legs when they are on the side of my dipping cup and I'am looking at them at an angel. At any rate, I know that they are eating my acros because there are so many of them coming out at night. They went into a beast mode the other night on one of my millis and that was how I found out. It didn't seem like the 500percent interceptor did anything to them hun? I was going to dose that but then stumple across this thread. I'm almost positive I got these at the LFS. Little is known about these bugs but the evidence to what they can do is real.he I feel that they may be the next biggest thing next aefw. Anyways how are things going and are there any more signs of them? Please update, thanks!
 
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Sorry for the delayed post we have been on Spring Break vacation with the kids and just returned.
On 2/23/15 we removed 90% of the sps and put into the new frag tank (that is still connected to the main display and not able to run independent). We dipped the acros every other day for two weeks (2ml bayer and 20ml tank water for 30 minutes). The black bugs continue to be killed off during the dips but we are still unable to stop the spread. Dipping has certainly slowed it down enough to where we believe we can sustain the current dipping methods for approximately 2 more weeks and then the new sump, qt, and refugium tank will be set up. At this time we will be able to isolate the frag tank from the main display and all acros will be removed at that time from the main display. These guys are laying orange eggs similar to aefw in appearance as posted and I have no idea what the lifespan, hatch time,or anything is at this point but will attempt to treat just like aefw.
The plan will be to isolate,dip for 2 months and then try to return a hopefully recovered acro into the main display. Time will tell if the black bugs are able to get into the sps and host under the tissue. I believe this is the case so I did a small experiment:
Took an black bug infested frag and dipped it for 8 hours in strong bayer to melt skin. Then observed the totally bare skelton to find black bugs all over the areas where the tissue was. Are they entering the acros through the base during eating and STN that occurs or do they actually enter through a polyp and host under the tissue in that manner. Believe me I hope I am incorrect in these theories...
 
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The really bad news on the black bugs is that I have obtained two different SPS frags locally and both already had the black bugs before I even dipped them! Also have seen them from a recent order from across the country.
I do have a 20 gallon qt tank but not near large enough to house any frags for removal. I wanted to see how a new acro might adapt but not even trying it yet.
 

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The really bad news on the black bugs is that I have obtained two different SPS frags locally and both already had the black bugs before I even dipped them! Also have seen them from a recent order from across the country.
I do have a 20 gallon qt tank but not near large enough to house any frags for removal. I wanted to see how a new acro might adapt but not even trying it yet.

So what you almost saying is that the Black Bugs (Black Dead) is wide spread?
That's scary and will impact the coral industry if this is true.
 

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I think this is some very serious bugs. Will be isolating them into a separate qt tank from the main qt tank and treating with bayer aggressively every week 2x in hope of getting rid of them. I hope lacer theory is not true regarding the hosting under the skin thing but I've seen where they stay right at the opening of the polyps and that seems to be a favorite spot...I have a video of them on my phone but I don't think posting will do any good due to the quality..this is scary....
 
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So what you almost saying is that the Black Bugs (Black Dead) is wide spread?
That's scary and will impact the coral industry if this is true.

Yes I think it is spreading quickly and is showing up more and more in shipments into the US. I have spoken with a couple local LFS shops and they are having the same problems with the black bugs. One has gotten to the point of actually throwing them out any time he sees them as he is not having success getting rid of them either with dips.
 

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Ok, a little review.
The KCL treatment on the AEFW was success but encountering in a later stage the Black Bugs (BB) took the final hatched on your corals.
Without having BB the AEFW would be successful.
Knowing that in tank treatment will cost a lot of time on WC the best way to treat is in a small frag tank that can house all corals for a while and leave the DT without acro's for I would say three weeks to starve any AEFW in the tank left.
I think removing any encrusting's on LR need to be removed to speed up the process.
Sorry if this is already discussed just want to make sure for documentation if needed later on.

Btw, how are the BB doing on treatments?
 
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Ok, a little review.
The KCL treatment on the AEFW was success but encountering in a later stage the Black Bugs (BB) took the final hatched on your corals.
Without having BB the AEFW would be successful.
Knowing that in tank treatment will cost a lot of time on WC the best way to treat is in a small frag tank that can house all corals for a while and leave the DT without acro's for I would say three weeks to starve any AEFW in the tank left.
I think removing any encrusting's on LR need to be removed to speed up the process.
Sorry if this is already discussed just want to make sure for documentation if needed later on.

Btw, how are the BB doing on treatments?

I am starting to see less of them for sure and the acros seem to be finally recovering. I dont think I can completely rid them until I can isolate the acros from the main display.
 

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Has anyone ever tried raising their tank's Mag level to eradicate AEFWs? I was dipping weekly with RPS All Out, which in my experience effectively kills flatworms on dipped corals (claims to kill eggs, as well). Unfortunately, I could never quite get rid of them (AEFWs). At the same time, I started dosing Mag (KM) to combat a minor macroalage problem due to overfeeding my acros to help them survive the AEFW infestation. Anyway, I raised the tank's Mag to over 2000 ppm. That was six months ago, and I haven't seen a flatworm since.

Don't know if it was the elevated Mag, or if I just got lucky with the dipping process.
 
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Has anyone ever tried raising their tank's Mag level to eradicate AEFWs? I was dipping weekly with RPS All Out, which in my experience effectively kills flatworms on dipped corals (claims to kill eggs, as well). Unfortunately, I could never quite get rid of them (AEFWs). At the same time, I started dosing Mag (KM) to combat a minor macroalage problem due to overfeeding my acros to help them survive the AEFW infestation. Anyway, I raised the tank's Mag to over 2000 ppm. That was six months ago, and I haven't seen a flatworm since.

Don't know if it was the elevated Mag, or if I just got lucky with the dipping process.


I have not tried that for any treatments of pests but have used it to get rid of nasty case of bryopsis a few years back. I think once I get my frag tank isolated from the main display in the next few weeks I will be slowly bringing down the temp from 77 to 72 or so and see what temp effects have on them. From talks I have had with many over the subject it appears one person accidently left frags in bowl for dipping and forgot about them and being cold at the time the bowl went to 68degrees and he believes all the black bugs were dead. Yes the acro was too but maybe temp had something to do with it..I am really hoping that they will vanish prior to that but not likely.
 
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I was finally able to scalpel one of the dreaded black bugs onto a glass slide for viewing with the microscope. They are so small it has taken me some time to actually be able to see one of them in the scope.
Here is 10x shot
 

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was able to see this one at 100x
very scary....these are shots of the edge of the animal.
 

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in the top image above on bottom left side if you look closely you can see what appears to be a tiny crab of some sort.. So I had to further investigate.
 
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Sure enough all along the edges of the animal there appear to tiny crabs. Maybe babies? One thing for sure is they have an incredible appetite for acro...shot at 200x
 

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It has been a long road of fighting these beasts for me and they have now almost totally decimated my 10 year acropora collection. I have only about 4 colonies left that have been chopped to death and a few frags have made it. I have dipped with bayer, elevated KCL treatments, revive, and coral rx and nothing has killed the black bugs. I may finally be rid of them now that all the acros are dead and gone. They do not have an appetite for any LPS, zoas, chalice, only acro, and for some reason they did not kill any of my torts or pocillipora. Other than that only a few frags from large colonies are left and continue to dip to see if I can at least save a couple.
 
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Apologies to all for the delayed updates but I really wanted to make sure I was seeing the bugs correctly before posting. I really hope this does not become a epidemic in the industry as I see no way to kill them..SORRY FOR ALL THE DOOM AND GLOOM but I have lost several thousand in livestock the last few months and it is really hard to watch something you have put so much effort into growing wither away into a toilet decoration in a matter of weeks. Very depressing.
 

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