Calling all Lanthanum chloride users: got any AEFW?

[Charlie’s Frags]

I think (hope, pray) they are still gone. It is about time that I should pull a handful of their favorite colonies and dip to double check. Been distracted with plumbing the new frag tank for a full week now.

If not you then somebody else with these little terrors should try.

 

[ScottB]

I thought I would come back to this thread with an "update".

So Spring 2022, I seemed to have AEFW under control / undetectable. But I had gotten to that point once/twice before, got lazy, and kinda ended up where I began. The AEFW population would rebound once I stopped dipping every weekend.

But coming up on a year later, I have not seen a worm since. Since then, I have been running higher nutrients -- even dosing trisodium phosphate -- and dosing LCl once a month or so.

I think I am going to reverse my previous skepticism about LCl dosing's effectiveness. While I am not sure it literally kills adult AEFW, I believe it is messing with either the young ones or some stage of the reproductive cycle. I never did the dip test on the worms to confirm lethality. By the time that thought occurred they were already undetectable.

Warning: do NOT dose lanthanam chloride (LCl) without sufficient levels of PO4 available. It will strip it out quickly and your corals will suffer/die. You also risk dinos. Dose up PO4 if you have to.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Adding to this thread for visibility. I pulled a piece that was infected out of the tank and into a gallon of tank water, dosed LaCl at 10x recommended strength and waited 5 min. Dose was enough to produce cloudiness / flocculent in the water (which I don’t get when dosing into tank per MFG recommendation). The AEFW almost instantly fell off. At least as effective as levamisole. So this isn’t a myth, it’s confirmed for me anyway. What I don’t know is if the dosage of LaCl for PO4 in the display at recommended strength is enough to kill them. Going to keep dosing the tank to just keep PO4 from actually reading zero and will keep this updated on my progress. Was shockingly effective. Didn’t sound logical to me that it would work but here we are.

 

[ReefAtlas]

I don't want anyone to hurt their tangs or coral so take this for what it is. I have treated several large acro dominant tanks over the last 5 years for AEFW with tropic marin elimiphos rapid- which is the Lanthanum Chloride. I treat at 5 mls per 100 gallons of water, dripped directly into the display tank in high flow area. The objective is to build a concentration of the La in the tank where the AEFW are. I do this twice a week for about 3 months. Effective skimming is critically important but I do not change type or frequency of the physical filtering (socks, floss, pads) in any way. My belief based on observation is that the large adults are hurt by this but the smaller ones are killed. No effect on the eggs so you need to go for the three or four months to make sure all eggs hatched and all babies are dead. Let the adults die off thru stress of the treatment and old age. You can monitor the impact of just this change by basting the corals directly in tank and watching for large adults to come off the coral. You will see less and less and then eventually you will go for weeks and see none of them anymore. You cannot stop treatment for at least 2 months after the last one is seen just to be sure. Baster at least twice a week to watch for changes.

I watch ULR P test Hanna and make sure to feed heavy enough to keep above 10 ppb. I feed acros a mix of equal parts benereef,reef roids, dried cyclops, and spirulina. I test P ppb the day after treatment. Watch normal parameters and adjust as needed to prevent any swings because growth will restart and consumption will increase as the little pricks die off.

I know I have not posted much and don't have the history on the site but this has worked very well for me and has been safe as far as I can tell for all fish including yellow and PB tangs.

 

[skyrne_isk]

I know I have not posted much and don't have the history on the site but this has worked very well for me and has been safe as far as I can tell for all fish including yellow and PB tangs.

I’ve always suspected those who end up killing their fish are radically over dosing, under skimming, or both. No doubt the super fine particles can clog the gills of fish -
like the tangs - who have big oxygen needs and more robust gills for their size. I actually drip my LaCl into the sump using an enteral feeding bag and a needle valve. No filter sock and no problems. Several tangs in the tank as well: Zebrasoma, Acanthurus, etc.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Adding to this thread for visibility. I pulled a piece that was infected out of the tank and into a gallon of tank water, dosed LaCl at 10x recommended strength and waited 5 min. Dose was enough to produce cloudiness / flocculent in the water (which I don’t get when dosing into tank per MFG recommendation). The AEFW almost instantly fell off. At least as effective as levamisole. So this isn’t a myth, it’s confirmed for me anyway. What I don’t know is if the dosage of LaCl for PO4 in the display at recommended strength is enough to kill them. Going to keep dosing the tank to just keep PO4 from actually reading zero and will keep this updated on my progress. Was shockingly effective. Didn’t sound logical to me that it would work but here we are.

One update: Either go 5x dose and try not to form precipitate and if you do, only leave the frag in the LaCL until you see the flatworms fall off then pull it. The frag I dipped was totally bleached out 24 hours later.

 

[ScottB]

Adding to this thread for visibility. I pulled a piece that was infected out of the tank and into a gallon of tank water, dosed LaCl at 10x recommended strength and waited 5 min. Dose was enough to produce cloudiness / flocculent in the water (which I don’t get when dosing into tank per MFG recommendation). The AEFW almost instantly fell off. At least as effective as levamisole. So this isn’t a myth, it’s confirmed for me anyway. What I don’t know is if the dosage of LaCl for PO4 in the display at recommended strength is enough to kill them. Going to keep dosing the tank to just keep PO4 from actually reading zero and will keep this updated on my progress. Was shockingly effective. Didn’t sound logical to me that it would work but here we are.

I can also confirm that LACl certainly has some inhibiting properties against AEFW. I have continued to run really dirty nutrient levels and dose it every 2 weeks or so. I have a heavy tang load so run it in the overflows through socks and skimmers.

I don't want anyone to hurt their tangs or coral so take this for what it is. I have treated several large acro dominant tanks over the last 5 years for AEFW with tropic marin elimiphos rapid- which is the Lanthanum Chloride. I treat at 5 mls per 100 gallons of water, dripped directly into the display tank in high flow area. The objective is to build a concentration of the La in the tank where the AEFW are. I do this twice a week for about 3 months. Effective skimming is critically important but I do not change type or frequency of the physical filtering (socks, floss, pads) in any way. My belief based on observation is that the large adults are hurt by this but the smaller ones are killed. No effect on the eggs so you need to go for the three or four months to make sure all eggs hatched and all babies are dead. Let the adults die off thru stress of the treatment and old age. You can monitor the impact of just this change by basting the corals directly in tank and watching for large adults to come off the coral. You will see less and less and then eventually you will go for weeks and see none of them anymore. You cannot stop treatment for at least 2 months after the last one is seen just to be sure. Baster at least twice a week to watch for changes.

I watch ULR P test Hanna and make sure to feed heavy enough to keep above 10 ppb. I feed acros a mix of equal parts benereef,reef roids, dried cyclops, and spirulina. I test P ppb the day after treatment. Watch normal parameters and adjust as needed to prevent any swings because growth will restart and consumption will increase as the little pricks die off.

I know I have not posted much and don't have the history on the site but this has worked very well for me and has been safe as far as I can tell for all fish including yellow and PB tangs.

I have used the same product for nearly a year now. As the original article in Coral Magazine suggests, it is working. I have been AEFW free for MANY months. It does take some time -- and a HIGH NUTRIENT ENVIRONMENT! Do not do this with modest nutrient or limited filtration. The former situation will kill your coral. The latter your fish. Be smart. DM me if you need to, but give me some time to respond.

 

[Kactai]

This is an actually magnificent solution. I wonder if anyone has the capacity or willingness to run some trials on this AEFW solution. I’ve read just about everything I can find online about AEFW and this seems like the most promising treatment option for large fully grown in tanks if you have an understanding of reef chemistry and can balance nutrients.

 

[skyrne_isk]

This is an actually magnificent solution. I wonder if anyone has the capacity or willingness to run some trials on this AEFW solution. I’ve read just about everything I can find online about AEFW and this seems like the most promising treatment option for large fully grown in tanks if you have an understanding of reef chemistry and can balance nutrients.

Was getting ready to update my build thread about this, but dosing LaCl and spraying KCl on encrusted colonies over the last months has (knock on wood) eliminated AEFW for me. It is NOT a quick fix, and I dipped several infested colonies and frags - scraping eggs when I found them. There were some losses and I think it was a combination of factors: low PO4, swinging PO4 levels, and probably more metal in the water (lanthanum) than some species could tolerate. I slowed down water changes to once a month to help keep LaCl up in the system.

I wasn’t scientific about dosing intervals, but I did stick to the dose amount specified by Tropic Marin. So generally I would overfeed for a few days, get my PO4 up to .07 or so (it runs close to zero (.02-.03) most of the time) and then dripped into my sump an amount that on paper should get close to bottoming it out. My unscientific take is that it takes a while to build up lanthanum to levels where it will stop reproduction and/or kill small flatworms. As others have reported, larger ones seem unaffected and I would intermittently have breakthroughs where a colony would pale out and I’d start finding eggs. But over time these got less and less.

One last note: like most everyone observes, AEFW definitely have preferences in species to predate. My strategy was to break off the heavily infested SPS that would get eggs and then have them unmounted in the display - usually just sitting on the sand. These I would dip in KCl every other week-ish or when they would have bad color/PE. I thought keeping these preferred SPS to attract AEFW (so they were easy to dip and kill) would be helpful. And it was. I’ll post back here if I get any more outbreaks. And I probably will keep dosing LaCL for another couple months.

 

[Kactai]

Was getting ready to update my build thread about this, but dosing LaCl and spraying KCl on encrusted colonies over the last months has (knock on wood) eliminated AEFW for me. It is NOT a quick fix, and I dipped several infested colonies and frags - scraping eggs when I found them. There were some losses and I think it was a combination of factors: low PO4, swinging PO4 levels, and probably more metal in the water (lanthanum) than some species could tolerate. I slowed down water changes to once a month to help keep LaCl up in the system.

I wasn’t scientific about dosing intervals, but I did stick to the dose amount specified by Tropic Marin. So generally I would overfeed for a few days, get my PO4 up to .07 or so (it runs close to zero (.02-.03) most of the time) and then dripped into my sump an amount that on paper should get close to bottoming it out. My unscientific take is that it takes a while to build up lanthanum to levels where it will stop reproduction and/or kill small flatworms. As others have reported, larger ones seem unaffected and I would intermittently have breakthroughs where a colony would pale out and I’d start finding eggs. But over time these got less and less.

One last note: like most everyone observes, AEFW definitely have preferences in species to predate. My strategy was to break off the heavily infested SPS that would get eggs and then have them unmounted in the display - usually just sitting on the sand. These I would dip in KCl every other week-ish or when they would have bad color/PE. I thought keeping these preferred SPS to attract AEFW (so they were easy to dip and kill) would be helpful. And it was. I’ll post back here if I get any more outbreaks. And I probably will keep dosing LaCL for another couple months.

Thanks for the update!