Wormwood Treatment for AEFW
- Thread starter jda
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I do intend to do all of them. Last night was a "test" to see that my sticks got through the dip OK. I've never used Melafix before.
Every acropora got dipped & blasted this morning. Three hours of my life I will never get back.
On the bright side, there were far fewer worms than I expected after doing the most affected colonies / frags last night.
On the bright side, there were far fewer worms than I expected after doing the most affected colonies / frags last night.
The worms tend to colonize their favorites first. After that colony is destroyed they need to find a new host(s). They also tend to prefer the smooth skin type acros. After a few weeks and a good dipping regime you should be okay.
I am now about 7 weeks into treatment. Second bottle of KZ Stop. The combination of dips, Stop, and wrasses & damsels seem to be working. Finding only a handful of worms each dip, versus 40-50 in the beginning.
Good on you. For me honestly, things didn't turn around AEFW wise until I ripped out colonies and started dipping. If I had to do it all again I would have just ripped and dipped. I'm JUST now recovering my chemistry after months and months. For me, the damage to my tank was more than just lost colonies. My latest battle is HA, after fighting (cyano, bryopsis, nutrient swings, ALK etc). I blame it all on those danged worms. I've learned my lesson.... have a 20 gallon tank for your frags..
TX_Punisher
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I’ve been dosing KZ but just ordered the powder to DIY.
thanks for the info.
thanks for the info.
So I am now about 3.5 months into treatment on my 300G frag system. I guess I would say that I am "managing" the population but have not yet eradicated them.
Steps:
a) Weekly dips in Melafix (5 minutes under heavy baste with small powerhead). Missed a couple weeks here/there.
b) Scrape eggs every 2 weeks. Super tedious.
c) Two bottles KZ FWS at roughly double dose.
d) Replacing peppermints every few weeks as they jump. Too much flow for them to be happy.
e) Added springeri damsels, 6 line wrasses, 4 line wrasses.
Results:
- Dramatic reduction in worm count discovered in dipping. From 40-50 to a handful or none at all. Much smaller worms now so there are eggs I am missing. No big worms anymore.
- No further losses that I can attribute to aefw anyway
-I lost two, maybe three healthy frags to the dip I believe. A milli and smooth skin. They just turned brown immediately.
It would be hard to suggest which part of the treatment is/is not most effective, but I would be afraid to drop any of them.
Steps:
a) Weekly dips in Melafix (5 minutes under heavy baste with small powerhead). Missed a couple weeks here/there.
b) Scrape eggs every 2 weeks. Super tedious.
c) Two bottles KZ FWS at roughly double dose.
d) Replacing peppermints every few weeks as they jump. Too much flow for them to be happy.
e) Added springeri damsels, 6 line wrasses, 4 line wrasses.
Results:
- Dramatic reduction in worm count discovered in dipping. From 40-50 to a handful or none at all. Much smaller worms now so there are eggs I am missing. No big worms anymore.
- No further losses that I can attribute to aefw anyway
-I lost two, maybe three healthy frags to the dip I believe. A milli and smooth skin. They just turned brown immediately.
It would be hard to suggest which part of the treatment is/is not most effective, but I would be afraid to drop any of them.
So I am 6 months into treatment with KZ Flatworm Stop (double dose). I am not currently seeing any signs of AEFW. For the past couple of months I have seen a couple bite marks here and there, mainly focused on my Tricolor Acro (the proverbial canary in the coal mine). But recently nothing. Very please with the results thus far.
Last month I managed to catch this guy.
Last month I managed to catch this guy.
Awesome guys keep up the basting and I hope in a number of months you both report even better news!
Oscar Bravo
Active Member
Man I really had hopes for wormwood 
What do you mean had? Did you try it with no luck?
Oscar Bravo
Active Member
Well after two hours of reading the forums I thought that a lot of people were going to have good results. But it sounds like some didn't get any results. I am having a little problem with the bug and I was getting my hopes up.
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OP
OP
If you are looking for consensus in reefing, then you need to find another hobby. There is probably somebody out there that thinks that salt mix is overrated for a marine tank.
I got to see the patient zero tank a few weeks ago and it is still AEFW free.
I got to see the patient zero tank a few weeks ago and it is still AEFW free.
after losing lots of acro colonies, I'm not a believer in the KZ treatment. I had a previous post detailing my failure with the treatment. I was at 90 days, thought it might be doing something but didn't even slow them down. I just do dips now, with a tooth brush. I don't have to worry about ripping out colonies anymore because they're all gone.
90 days is about the time where you would see results, 3 to 4 months in my experience and maybe even 6 months for the people who didn’t realize they were infested and have massive egg batches and death. Sorry you had issues with the worms killing stuff so much. Sounds like you cought them very late which can be pretty tough to deal with. You would have been a great test subject to see how well the this works on a full blown outbreak. I know it’s a pain to wait 9 months to a year for results but I don’t want people to get the impression that the kz treatment doesn’t work. IMO treatment time is going to depend on the level of infestation for anyone thinking about trying it.
I actually just started using fws again at the regular dose because I have been having corals die from high alk and no filter changes (I am guessing) and I am hoping it helps strengthen their flesh. I have not even dipped a single coral in my tank yet because I don’t care if I even get aefw since the treatment worked so well when I did it last. Fortunately I have not noticed any worms or bite marks and I even saw bite marks on two corals I introduced, but if any worms were on them I must have blasted them off when inspecting them.
It would be sad to see this method fade into the wind just because of some posts of people quitting early because they couldn’t get their outbreak under control from the start. And without more people trying it, that’s what will happen. Considering it’s the only safe in tank treatment that has worked well for aefw that would be very sad. It would be helpful if everyone who had tried this method to post here with results.
Oscar bravo, I would try the treatment with fws if you are patient enough. I would keep your hopes up honestly. I haven’t seen anyone do a year of treatments without results yet, the ones that I remember saying the treatment didn’t work, stopped too soon from what I remember. Please don’t let a few people discourage you from trying this, unless you feel dipping weekly for a month or two is what you want to do.
I actually just started using fws again at the regular dose because I have been having corals die from high alk and no filter changes (I am guessing) and I am hoping it helps strengthen their flesh. I have not even dipped a single coral in my tank yet because I don’t care if I even get aefw since the treatment worked so well when I did it last. Fortunately I have not noticed any worms or bite marks and I even saw bite marks on two corals I introduced, but if any worms were on them I must have blasted them off when inspecting them.
It would be sad to see this method fade into the wind just because of some posts of people quitting early because they couldn’t get their outbreak under control from the start. And without more people trying it, that’s what will happen. Considering it’s the only safe in tank treatment that has worked well for aefw that would be very sad. It would be helpful if everyone who had tried this method to post here with results.
Oscar bravo, I would try the treatment with fws if you are patient enough. I would keep your hopes up honestly. I haven’t seen anyone do a year of treatments without results yet, the ones that I remember saying the treatment didn’t work, stopped too soon from what I remember. Please don’t let a few people discourage you from trying this, unless you feel dipping weekly for a month or two is what you want to do.
As I posted earlier, after 6 months of double dosing with FWS and semi regular basting of impacted acros I do really feel like I may have wipe these bugs out. I guess time will tell. After only 3 to 4 months I was seeing signs of AEFW activity for sure. At this point I don’t think I have seen any new bites for a couple weeks and corals that were impacted have healed.
To ensure I never missed a dose of the FWS I set it up on an automated doser and used a strip bar to mix it for thirty minutes everyday before it was added to the tank.
While I may not have had an extreme infestation of AEFWs, I’ll say I think I caught it I time to prevent it from getting out of hand.
Oscar Bravo
Active Member
I really don’t have a big infestation at this point. My wrasses do a very good job on keeping them regulated. I hope. I am still thinking of giving it a go on the wormwood treatment. I have done some dipping but it’s so hard to get my colonies out all the time. I am not sure if I can keep up with dipping.
Defiantly need more people to try the wormwood. I was on the fence about trying it but just came to the point where I was to lazy and ordered a big bottle of fws.
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