Calling all Lanthanum chloride users: got any AEFW?

[ScottB]

On my second round with AEFW. Thought I had them finished last Summer. So tired of dipping my acropora.

I came across an article in Coral Magazine to which I subscribe. (And you should too if you are following this thread.) In it, the author pretty clearly states that LCl will kill AEFW at the normally suggested solution of 1ml/100l.

I have my PO4 jacked up to the point where I believe I can safely dose without depletion (.23).

But I am looking to determine if there is really a PATTERN that can we can see with LCl use & aefw.

An excerpt of the article here:

The Lanthanum Solution: Combating Flatworms in the Reef Aquarium - CORAL Magazine

Daniel Knop examines the many methods that reef aquarists employ in an effort to eliminate problematic flatworm pests in reef tanks, including one option that may well be the ultimate weapon to eliminate flatworms once and for all!

www.reef2rainforest.com

 

[ATAquariums]

Thanks for sharing. This would be. Great solution if it works.

 

[jda]

I used LC in a vat with some recently acquired neglected live rock that had standard red planaria - I am willing to give some effort to get some nice Fiji, Marshall Island or other pacific rock from used tanks. I was quite aggressive with the LC since the rock in fresh saltwater tested out at over 1.0 ppm of P after just sitting overnight and would have unbound much more if I gave it time. It did nothing to the flatworms even over weeks of dosing and I had to kill them with Levamisole (ingredient in Salifert's Flatworm Exit). There are all kinds of flatworms and what works on some won't work on all.

 

[mdb_talon]

That is very interesting thanks for sharing. Next time i have some flatworms in QT i am going to test this. I know just the vendor to use!

 

[ScottB]

I used LC in a vat with some recently acquired neglected live rock that had standard red planaria - I am willing to give some effort to get some nice Fiji, Marshall Island or other pacific rock from used tanks. I was quite aggressive with the LC since the rock in fresh saltwater tested out at over 1.0 ppm of P after just sitting overnight and would have unbound much more if I gave it time. It did nothing to the flatworms even over weeks of dosing and I had to kill them with Levamisole (ingredient in Salifert's Flatworm Exit). There are all kinds of flatworms and what works on some won't work on all.

Well that is not real encouraging. But like you said, there are some real differences across flatworms. Kinda hanging some hope on the credibility of Coral Magazine.

 

[jda]

The LC is safe if you go slow, so what is the harm? I guess this is a broadcast dose and not into a sock or something?

 

[ScottB]

The LC is safe if you go slow, so what is the harm? I guess this is a broadcast dose and not into a sock or something?

Knopp doesn't say specifically, but the the general tone is just to follow the conventional dosing method.

The hard part is, without a current census of my worm population I'll not really know if it did anything. I have definitely managed down the population a great deal since January via KCl dips. Last dipping round only found 2-3 worms from a dozen frag racks versus 2 dozen in the initial round.

I know there are a lot of LCl users out there; just hoping they all chime in with AEFW free commentary.

 

[ScottB]

Well I dosed yesterday @ 1ml/100l so 9.5ml mixed with tank water. I just dumped it into the overflows.

I did not see the clouds of precipitate that everyone writes about, but nobody seemed to notice anything. I will test again for PO4 make sure I did not knock it down too much. That said, I still have a doser hooked up to a liter of PO4 solution so I can bump it up and go at it again in a few days.

After a couple doses, I will run through my dip routine and see what worms remain. It is a very tedious ~3 hour task.

Based on the lack of poll respondents, I guess the combo of LCl and worms is rare. I sure hope so.

 

[reef_ranch]

I read the article at the end of October and gave it a go in November. Back story: I had a few pieces of SPS that have always supported a few AEFW despite constant basting, scraping of egg masses and pruning. I eventually gave up, threw out the worst colonies and resolved to "live with it" on those colonies that seemed to handle them well enough. The AEFW did not attack most of my colonies so there was that silver lining. Almost as bad as the AEFW is the red planaria. I have quite a few jawbreakers spread throughout my tank and a massive frogspawn. The red planaria seem to love both species. When they got bad, I would dose the Salifert flatworm stop. (Careful of overdosing this; I went too far one time and lost a few anthias) That would kill off quite a few of them but definitely not all and the population would recover within a few months at most. It had no visible effect on the AEFW.

After reading the article, I bought a 500 ml bottle of the Tropic Marin Elimi-Phos Rapid and dosed it at the recommended rate (15ml per day for my tank). I dosed it into my overflow which drops into 200micron socks then into the skimmer compartment. After the first few days no red planaria were visible on any of the mushrooms and I couldn't see any on the frogspawn either but they are much harder to see on it. As for the AEFW, they were reduced but probably not eliminated. By January, there were no visible bite marks on the SPS and the flesh under the hardest hit colony -- a Vivid's Rainbow Delight had grown back completely.

Last week I did notice a couple more red planaria (literally 2 on probably 50 mushrooms so not much at all) and there are now a a handful of bite marks on the Rainbow Delight (arghh!!) and I basted off three adult AEFW just today. Clearly at the dose I used, it does not eliminate either species. (I added nothing to the tank since I started dosing so they are from the original population) But I am convinced LC does work for both, at least to an extent. I bought another 500 ml of the Tropic Marin LC and am going to start dosing again. This time I'll try to keep a better record of the effect on the worms. Clearly my experience is nothing anyone can rely on, but I think there is promise.

 

[ScottB]

I read the article at the end of October and gave it a go in November. Back story: I had a few pieces of SPS that have always supported a few AEFW despite constant basting, scraping of egg masses and pruning. I eventually gave up, threw out the worst colonies and resolved to "live with it" on those colonies that seemed to handle them well enough. The AEFW did not attack most of my colonies so there was that silver lining. Almost as bad as the AEFW is the red planaria. I have quite a few jawbreakers spread throughout my tank and a massive frogspawn. The red planaria seem to love both species. When they got bad, I would dose the Salifert flatworm stop. (Careful of overdosing this; I went too far one time and lost a few anthias) That would kill off quite a few of them but definitely not all and the population would recover within a few months at most. It had no visible effect on the AEFW.

After reading the article, I bought a 500 ml bottle of the Tropic Marin Elimi-Phos Rapid and dosed it at the recommended rate (15ml per day for my tank). I dosed it into my overflow which drops into 200micron socks then into the skimmer compartment. After the first few days no red planaria were visible on any of the mushrooms and I couldn't see any on the frogspawn either but they are much harder to see on it. As for the AEFW, they were reduced but probably not eliminated. By January, there were no visible bite marks on the SPS and the flesh under the hardest hit colony -- a Vivid's Rainbow Delight had grown back completely.

Last week I did notice a couple more red planaria (literally 2 on probably 50 mushrooms so not much at all) and there are now a a handful of bite marks on the Rainbow Delight (arghh!!) and I basted off three adult AEFW just today. Clearly at the dose I used, it does not eliminate either species. (I added nothing to the tank since I started dosing so they are from the original population) But I am convinced LC does work for both, at least to an extent. I bought another 500 ml of the Tropic Marin LC and am going to start dosing again. This time I'll try to keep a better record of the effect on the worms. Clearly my experience is nothing anyone can rely on, but I think there is promise.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds similar in outcome to everything I have done over the last 9 months. Each seems to "help" but not eradicate. Here is a list of tools/methods I have deployed over time. Some had overlap, some not. In descending order of PERCEIVED effectiveness. (There is no way to truly separate out the effects.)

Dipping in KCl @ 12g per gallon. This clearly works.
Chucking over-infected colonies in bleach. 100% effective.
Predators: 6-line, springeri damsels, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp.
KZ FW Stop. (seems to make the colonies feel better while under attack.
AEFW-X (in process, undetermined.)
Purge 2.0 (no discernable effect)

Like you said, my worms are very choosy about their preferred hosts. The same handful of colonies over and over.

My dose of LC brought my PO4 down from .23 to .13 so I am going to dose up a bit and hit it again.

 

[jda]

Are you seeing eggs and babies with your dips with all of these options? Instant death and dying without offspring both work, even though some cannot handle the timeline of the second.

 

[thepotoo]

Clearly at the dose I used, it does not eliminate either species.

is it possible it only kills adults but leaves eggs? I wonder if a couple more months of dosing would completely eliminate them permanently.

 

[reef_ranch]

On April 14 I did another LC dose in the recommended amount. My nitrate/phosphate ratio is out of whack with the NO3 above 20ppm and the PO4 below .04. (The LC works very well at reducing PO4.) So I am dosing phosphorus to raise my phosphate and increasing daily NOPOX dose to try to get the nitrates down. I'll hold off dosing any more LC until then. HOWEVER, I have basted my SPS 5 days straight since that last LC dose and have not seen a single AEFW. So far so good.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I can’t remember exactly where but there was a video, in spanish, with tropic marin elimiphos and aefw. It looked to me like the tm elimiphos (LC) was being used more as a dip than a full tank treatment. Anyone tried a LC dip for aefw?

 

[ScottB]

Are you seeing eggs and babies with your dips with all of these options? Instant death and dying without offspring both work, even though some cannot handle the timeline of the second.

Sorry late in reply.

I am at the point now that when I see eggs, I just trim a few frags and chuck the colony in bleach. I am not a perfect scraper apparently. Or they are laying eggs in secret places.

While my last dip was clean, I need to repeat again. I typically get a variety of adult and smaller worms, just fewer each week of dipping.

KCl is extremely effective against my worms. I see them baste off early in the dip. After 7-8 minutes in the solution they are so shriveled I can hardly recognize them as flatworms anymore.

I did get some very small acoel shaped worms that come off, but appear pretty unaffected by the solution. Every single visible pod is toast.

The worms favorite colonies are long gone by now, reduced to just a few 1-2" frags that seem to be holding up fine now. I feel I wasted a lot of time doing two things:
a) Trying to dip & clean eggs from the worms favorite baseball sized colonies. Just chop & go from now on.
b) In tank treatments.

 

[ScottB]

On April 14 I did another LC dose in the recommended amount. My nitrate/phosphate ratio is out of whack with the NO3 above 20ppm and the PO4 below .04. (The LC works very well at reducing PO4.) So I am dosing phosphorus to raise my phosphate and increasing daily NOPOX dose to try to get the nitrates down. I'll hold off dosing any more LC until then. HOWEVER, I have basted my SPS 5 days straight since that last LC dose and have not seen a single AEFW. So far so good.

Thank you for the update.

I don't have good census data on my aefw population but visually I am making progress I believe.

I have enough PO4 back now (.17) to go another round. Will report back after next dip.

 

[ScottB]

I can’t remember exactly where but there was a video, in spanish, with tropic marin elimiphos and aefw. It looked to me like the tm elimiphos (LC) was being used more as a dip than a full tank treatment. Anyone tried a LC dip for aefw?

I have not used LC as a dip. Would be interesting to see it work at the same (10ml/100liter) as the recommended "in-tank" treatment level.

I think someone proposed this test before but I never acted on it. I will try that versus a follow up dip with KCl. Given the forecast for tomorrow it will be an "indoor" day so maybe I can get it done then.

 

[ScottB]

I have not used LC as a dip. Would be interesting to see it work at the same (10ml/100liter) as the recommended "in-tank" treatment level.

I think someone proposed this test before but I never acted on it. I will try that versus a follow up dip with KCl. Given the forecast for tomorrow it will be an "indoor" day so maybe I can get it done then.

@Charlies Frags I did try the combo dip last weekend (KCl and LC) but it was inconclusive as NO worms were present.

Some combination of KCl dipping, AEFW-X and lanthanum chloride seems to have beaten them into submission for now.

I have been chumming the tanks hard to get PO4 up again for a third dose of LC, but think I am just going to dump in some trisodium phosphate and keep hammering away before (another) AEFW counterattack. I am missing out on some local SPS trading offers and it is bumming me out.

 

[ScottB]

On April 14 I did another LC dose in the recommended amount. My nitrate/phosphate ratio is out of whack with the NO3 above 20ppm and the PO4 below .04. (The LC works very well at reducing PO4.) So I am dosing phosphorus to raise my phosphate and increasing daily NOPOX dose to try to get the nitrates down. I'll hold off dosing any more LC until then. HOWEVER, I have basted my SPS 5 days straight since that last LC dose and have not seen a single AEFW. So far so good.

How goes the battle? We seem to be on similar paths right now.

 

[ScottB]

Are you seeing eggs and babies with your dips with all of these options? Instant death and dying without offspring both work, even though some cannot handle the timeline of the second.

I never answered this question.

I never witnessed deaths from any "in tank" method aside from basting them off with a trained wrasse at the ready -- Melanarus in my case.

On the affected colonies, I finally kinda gave up if the tissue loss was significant and the colony was sizable. Too many crannies for the eggs. Just clip & dip a few frags and trash it.

Hard to address what was happening with babies as they are hard to see with all the slime and debris in the dipping bin. Plus, the KCl shrivels even the large ones pretty quick.