What would you do

[duke62]

I got a Garf Bonsai from a guy today and i do what i always do, clip the coral off its encrusting plug dip it and inspect. The branch was shapped like a Y so i cut it in 2. Well some small unknown dots popped off and up on looking closely at it with a 10x magnifying glass i noticed AEFW eggs on a bare spot. Automatically i threw the base out and threw that piece in the garbage then dipped the other piece again but this time in 3 dips. Bayer,revive then melafix. Nothing came off this time but did noticed very small bite marks. Right now its floating in a bag of fresh tank water in my frag tank. Should i throw it away or keep it since no more worms popped off in 2nd 3rd and fourth dip. Noticed no bare spots on that coral or eggs with the magnifying glass

 

[dnov99]

Having been down the aefw road I would either throw it out or qt the frag if possible. Just not worth the risk of bringing them into your DT. You never know if one may sneak through...

 

[duke62]

Believe me so have I. But i figured i found the eggs,I did the 3 dips which took a half hour and i inspected it. It was a 4in piece encrusted and I cut the healthiest piece off and threw away the encrusting and branch that had the eggs. Then i did the 3 dips to that 1" piece to which nothing come off

 

[trido]

After living with AEFW's for a year and a half before biting the bullet and sacrificing a lot of nice SPS a few years ago.. Then, just recently finding them in my tank again. I voted to toss the frag. Unless you can QT is for a few weeks.

 

[CoralMD]

I don't think it's worth the risk toss it

 

[Eric B]

I believe that they only lay eggs on the non living tissue, base of coral or frag plug so if you dipped in bayer which if strong enough will kill everything but eggs then just coat everything else but live tissue with super glue gel and should be good as the eggs will not hatch if you cover in gel. If you have the possibility though I would just qt the frag and dip once a week in bayer for the next 2-3 weeks while in qt system and that would get them also as I hate killing any coral or anything else in my system.

 

[Murfman]

QT and dip again over 3-4 weeks.

 

[rideit6578]

toss it bro. not worth it. I'll snip you a piece of my garf when you come over.

 

[bknapp]

IMO it's not really worth the chance of adding them into your system, whether its your frag or display tank. You may want to inform this local person as well so that he can try to contact any others who have purchased frags from him.

Unless of course you have a coral QT where you can hold it and dip all acros in that tank once a week for close to seven weeks.

 

[duke62]

Yeah i let him know. He was really bummed out. He is one of the nicest guys i met in the hobby. He thought it was being stung but i had to give him the bad news

 

[duke62]

See i was looking at it like this. Most of the time people get 1" frags. I would have to say MANY people carry this dreadful bug in their tanks known or not known. When they sell corals we buy them not knowing if they have AEFW so we inspect them and dip them like usual. We QT them and in the tank the go. I was given this big piece for free from a reefer and since it was a big frag that was fully encrusted it made it easy to spot. So I did what a seller would do and thats make a 1" frag and did my regimn of dipping and QT but I overly dipped with 3 different dips. It stressed the coral out to bleach but it will come back. I now have it in QT and will do single dips to it for a month and see what happen. I inspected it with a 20x magnifying glass under a bright light and see no evidence it has any eggs on it. If a AEFW made it through the process of 3 types of dips that took a half hour long we are all in alot of trouble :)