AEFW Confirmed! Help Reefsquad!!

[blackgate]

Okay I can confirm eggs underneath one of my humilis colonies and in a tank full of thriving sps, I can see this is going to be an extremely difficult journey. I just went and bought Bayer Complete Insect killer what are my next steps? Also, for future reference, will Bayer kill redbugs when I purchase new corals and QT?

 

[143MPCo]

[HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG] @twilliard

 

[twilliard]

Can we see a picture of the tank, knowing how many coral is important for the clean-up stage
Dip that coral and see how many flatworm come off

 

[McMullen]

Okay! Your also going to need a priest, a sledge hammer, and a chain saw. These hellspawn will remain invisible until the priest begins the exorcism. Once they reveal themselves you fire up the chainsaw and frag your coral to save the uninfected pieces…..you have to be quick here. Then, before they're able to sprout wings and launch into the air use the sledge hammer to smash em back to Hell!! At least thats how I did it…..twilliard's way may also be effective

 

[Diesel]

Okay! Your also going to need a priest, a sledge hammer, and a chain saw. These hellspawn will remain invisible until the priest begins the exorcism. Once they reveal themselves you fire up the chainsaw and frag your coral to save the uninfected pieces…..you have to be quick here. Then, before they're able to sprout wings and launch into the air use the sledge hammer to smash em back to Hell!! At least thats how I did it…..twilliard's way may also be effective

You have to show a vid of this bro others we see it as hearsay.

 

[Diesel]

Hey Diesel, I can now confirm that my 93 sps tank has aefw on two colonies. Most colonies seem completely fine and look great but I realize that will change soon. This is pretty devastating as I have some large colonies and really got this tank looking awesome. Anywho, I have some monti's, and some birdsnests, but mostly acros. What is my next step?

This gentleman contacted me through a PM but I found it better to have a thread here just for him we all can chime in and many other hobbyist can learn from this.
Lets help this brother back to a great tank again.
As @twilliard mentioned we like to see pics how large of a problem we dealing with.
Mean while look around if you can find a Melanurus, Yellow Coris or Leopard wrasses as these will help you in the process to rid of these dreadful pests.

 

[twilliard]

To me these are just another flatworm
BUT these guys are egg layers!

 

[McMullen]

I first tried a shovel……didn't work….go with the sledgehammer! The chainsaw was messy but necessary……side note…….the women in the background just showed up and screamed the entire time. When it was all over and done with, she left……strangest thing……...

 

[McMullen]

Sorry about the double pic post!!

 

[blackgate]

I will take pics when I get home. The tank actually looks great and I have destroyed the colony last night as I didn't want to take any other chances. I have one colony that has some recession at the base but I can't find any evidence of flatworms

 

[blackgate]

I need to know ratios for bayer as well.

 

[reefwiser]

http://www.cherrycorals.com/news/coraldips/

 

[twilliard]

I will take pics when I get home. The tank actually looks great and I have destroyed the colony last night as I didn't want to take any other chances. I have one colony that has some recession at the base but I can't find any evidence of flatworms

They will be hard to see! Best thing to do is take it out of the water and closely inspect the base

 

[SPotter]

About 6 months ago I discovered these pia's in my tank. I attempted to remove and dip but given the size of my tank and number of acros I have, it proved to be a huge undertaking. I added any wrasses that had "might eat worms" in the description and still had no signs of improvements. I then found some threads about people using Sapphire Damsels to combat this problem. So I purchased 10 of them...7 for my display and 3 for my frag tank and after speaking with a couple of reef friends decided to pick up a couple of bottles of Zeovit Flat Worm Stop....I was willing to give anything a try. Within hours of adding the damsel to my display I could see them plucking worms out of my colonies. I began dosing the FWS at twice the suggested rate just for the first week and then for the next month dropped to the suggested rate and then after that dropped to dosing every other day. It has been 2.5 months since I have seen a worm or any indication of bite marks. The Damsels continue to constantly inspect the colonies and I continue with dosing FWS every other day and will do so for another month. At which point I will reduce to 2 doses a week. I know there was much debate about the efficacy of FWS and many people don't like Damsels because of how aggressive they can become but I figured it was worth a shot and fortunately it worked for me. The Damsels show no signs of aggression and have become a nice part of my reef tank.

 

[Diesel]

If it's that bad that you already destroyed a colony I wouldn't take any risk and start dipping, you can see what comes off clearly id you use a clear bowl and afterwards pick it up to look from under need.

 

[Diesel]

About 6 months ago I discovered these pia's in my tank. I attempted to remove and dip but given the size of my tank and number of acros I have, it proved to be a huge undertaking. I added any wrasses that had "might eat worms" in the description and still had no signs of improvements. I then found some threads about people using Sapphire Damsels to combat this problem. So I purchased 10 of them...7 for my display and 3 for my frag tank and after speaking with a couple of reef friends decided to pick up a couple of bottles of Zeovit Flat Worm Stop....I was willing to give anything a try. Within hours of adding the damsel to my display I could see them plucking worms out of my colonies. I began dosing the FWS at twice the suggested rate just for the first week and then for the next month dropped to the suggested rate and then after that dropped to dosing every other day. It has been 2.5 months since I have seen a worm or any indication of bite marks. The Damsels continue to constantly inspect the colonies and I continue with dosing FWS every other day and will do so for another month. At which point I will reduce to 2 doses a week. I know there was much debate about the efficacy of FWS and many people don't like Damsels because of how aggressive they can become but I figured it was worth a shot and fortunately it worked for me. The Damsels show no signs of aggression and have become a nice part of my reef tank.

The same damsels I have in my frag tank where I hold SPS in QT and they are amazing together with my Melanurus wrasse.
FWS improves the slime coat on acro's only as it will be harder for FW to house them on.
I have seen a test with acro's and FWS but still after a while the FW got to house and munch on the acro's.
FWS won't kill anything or even damaged their nerve system, it's like a thick wax layer you coat the acro's with.

 

[WetWhistle]

This is what I use for bayers. 8mls of bayers per 1L of tank water in a small bucket. (I use 2L of water if doing a few frags) Dip for 5-10 mins and rinse in clean tank water before putting back in. I like to swish each frag as I take it out of the bayers. I would dip for the maximum amount of time. Visually look over the coral for any signs of eggs especially underneath and at the base of the branches. I myself would break off any corals that show signs and dip as to me it is better to be cautious and not take a chance of spreading in an SPS tank. So I take any out that might be infected as i am not willing to chance it. I keep an Melanurus wrasse in my tank to as they are great at eating stuff like this.

Another good eater of AEFW in my experience are the Acropora Crab (Trapezia sp.) or Bandit coral crab (Tetralia nigrolineata). I keep the Bandit coral crab in a few of my SPS and they protect the acro quite well. I actually like these guys so much I go to my LFS and look for marine cultured corals and buy ones that have a few of these crabs in them. Then manually remove them with tweezers before dipping the new coral. Once I dripped the crabs over I put them in little cups\container with lids and open the cup above the coral so I can choose what SPS they go into. Just make sure you are confident in ID the crabs as you don't want to put the wrong Species in. lol

 

[SPotter]

The same damsels I have in my frag tank where I hold SPS in QT and they are amazing together with my Melanurus wrasse.
FWS improves the slime coat on acro's only as it will be harder for FW to house them on.
I have seen a test with acro's and FWS but still after a while the FW got to house and munch on the acro's.
FWS won't kill anything or even damaged their nerve system, it's like a thick wax layer you coat the acro's with.

Here's where it gets interesting with FWS..... I did a test on a couple of AEFW's I siphoned out of the tank. I put 3 worms in a 100ml cup that contained 90ml of tank water and 10ml of FWS...heavy concentration. The worms immediately curled up upon being placed in the cup and within 10 mins were completely dead. One of them even dissolved. Now I wasn't sure if there was some residue from something else that I used in the cup that may have caused this so and considering that Zeovit says it wont kill them, I waited until I was able to find another worm and did it again. This time I used a Red Solo cup with 90ml of tank water and 10ml of FWS....same results except for the dissolving part. The AEFW shriveled up immediately and then eventually died. Now I am not saying someone should figure out how much to dose their tank based on the ratio I used since there are too many unknown negative impacts that could cause but it was a fun experiment and I thoroughly enjoyed watching those worms die!!!!!

 

[Diesel]

HAHA, that's a awesome experience.
Ok let this sink in for a bit........... 1 gallon is I think when my 3rd grade math still works about 3785ml
If you have a 90G tank (to make it easy) you need 10G of the ZEOFWS which is 37850ml, which is again close 76 bottles of the 500ml FWS, that results in if the bottles aren't on sale !!!!76x$79.99=$6079.24 no kidding !!!!
This will kill all AEFW............. if in tank treatment it will probably take all your livestock out too and that is just ONE treatment as it will kill AEFW only but leave the eggs unharmed (that's a assumption on the eggs as I never done a experience on that).
I would say we have a solution here that only the government would use

If you stick with the regular dose of 1ml per 25 gallon which is to make it easy on the 90G only 4ml which does nothing to the FW.
I have seen it but they never increased the dose as that would cost more $$$$ and what does it do to the livestock in the tank as you increase??

I'll stick with Bayer and a QT treatment as removing all SPS out of the DT will be your best chance of success.

 

[blackgate]

Diesel, the colony I destroyed was one that I had brought back from the dead due to running such a low nutrient tank. As I increased nutrients it really started to make a come back. Only within the last week to 2 weeks have I noticed the colors on that colony not looking as bright. Only when I got a shot of the underside with the flashlight did I see at least 2 or 3 egg clusters. I have several other pcs of this and I really had no problem getting rid of it especially since it sat underneath my magnifica anemone and routinely got torched by it. Honestly, the colors and polyp extension on nearly every single piece in my tank is great, growth has not really been to hot but I did not think too much of it until now. Also, does anyone know if bayer will kill redbugs so that I will know for future purchases? Or do you need to dose bayer and sentinel separately?