AEFW's Worst Nightmare - Purge V2

[ScottB]

Quick update about some side effects... Since the day of dosing a few Lps corals have not opened up, some are now showing skeleton. My 3 year old orange lobo the size of a large grapefruit has been deflated since dosing day and now has skeleton coming through the flesh - never good. Elegance still has not opened fully, and one scoly out of 4 is deflated with skeleton poking through. Acro PE still not as great as it was prior to dosing. Not sure if and how they are related, just posting observations.

Sorry to hear. My LPS never seemed to mind, Duncans, torches etc. But my flatworms never seemed to mind either.

 

[RMS18]

Sorry to hear. My LPS never seemed to mind, Duncans, torches etc. But my flatworms never seemed to mind either.

Hah yea I'm really hoping this works, otherwise I'm losing my favorite coral for nothing when FWS and Coral Booster may have been the better solution, just long term.

 

[RMS18]

Sorry to hear. My LPS never seemed to mind, Duncans, torches etc. But my flatworms never seemed to mind either.

Interesting how this works for some but not others. I wonder who else it HAS worked for and their procedure they followed, can't find much on the forums.

 

[LexMueller]

Bump! If I may ask. What’s an AEF?

 

[ScottB]

Interesting how this works for some but not others. I wonder who else it HAS worked for and their procedure they followed, can't find much on the forums.

Agreed. There are several reports of success, but am willing to bet that all of us are deploying a range of eradication methods at the same time so it may be difficult to isolate. I deployed the "kitchen sink" method and still had survivors.

 

[RMS18]

Agreed. There are several reports of success, but am willing to bet that all of us are deploying a range of eradication methods at the same time so it may be difficult to isolate. I deployed the "kitchen sink" method and still had survivors.

I hope in the long term you are able to beat them, or control them to level where you don't see any issues with the sps.

 

[RMS18]

Bump! If I may ask. What’s an AEF?

Acro eating flatworm aka little devil's lol

 

[ScottB]

I hope in the long term you are able to beat them, or control them to level where you don't see any issues with the sps.

Thank you. The pattern for me seems to be that I beat them as hard as I can for 3 months or so until I cannot find any worms any longer. I get maybe a 6 month break from them and then repeat. I am very discipline (now) about dipping/inspecting new additions so I don't feel that I am reintroducing them. I simply miss a straggler or two.

 

[RMS18]

Thank you. The pattern for me seems to be that I beat them as hard as I can for 3 months or so until I cannot find any worms any longer. I get maybe a 6 month break from them and then repeat. I am very discipline (now) about dipping/inspecting new additions so I don't feel that I am reintroducing them. I simply miss a straggler or two.

Have you tried acro crabs? I'm waiting for them to come back in stock. I just hope once I add them they aren't eaten by my wrasses ha. That will be a very $$ meal.

 

[RMS18]

Second Week Update:

Today i administered the second dose, and was able to actually see the worms enter the water column, i counted about 4-6 worms. Yet again once the treatment was in the water my wrasses dove for the sand. The fish do become skid-ish, and SPS slimed up again. So far the only negative observation was losing a healthy 3yr old lobo a couple of days after the first treatment. Again still not sure if the death was related or not to the Purge. The worms did find their way to a new acro over the past week, a RR firecracker now has bite marks on it which were not there last week, i saw the marks 3 days ago. On a side note, my system has been doing just fine without a skimmer! no3 right around 5-8ppm. the only change i had to make was lower alk and cal dosing due to PH drop. I'm hoping i see less bite marks, within the next 1-2 doses.

Any input @UWC ?

EDIT: also like to point out the water becomes hazy after treatment. It lasts about a day.

 

[ScottB]

Second Week Update:

Today i administered the second dose, and was able to actually see the worms enter the water column, i counted about 4-6 worms. Yet again once the treatment was in the water my wrasses dove for the sand. The fish do become skid-ish, and SPS slimed up again. So far the only negative observation was losing a 3yr old lobo a couple of days after the first treatment. Again still not sure if the death was related or not to the Purge. The worms did find their way to a new acro over the past week, a RR firecracker now has bite marks on it which were not there last week, i saw the marks 3 days ago. On a side note, my system has been doing just fine without a skimmer! no3 right around 5-8ppm. the only change i had to make was lower alk and cal dosing due to PH drop. I'm hoping i see less bite marks, within the next 1-2 doses.

Any input @UWC ?

Do the worms let loose without basting? Just from the Purge introduction alone?

Keep us posted and good luck.

 

[RMS18]

Do the worms let loose without basting? Just from the Purge introduction alone?

Keep us posted and good luck.

Yes sorry i should have clarified this, on the second dose the worms let lose without blasting. In fact i have only blasted the acros once so far and didn't have any worms come off. Since this is my first encounter i'm really unsure how easily they are supposed to come off when blasting? I take a turkey baster and from 1-3 inches away squeeze as hard as fast as i can in multiple areas of the acro. I know i should be doing it more often.

 

[ScottB]

Yes sorry i should have clarified this, on the second dose the worms let lose without blasting. In fact i have only blasted the acros once so far. I know i should be doing it more often.

Well that is encouraging.

And yes, you should be basting often. The more you make the worms work, the less time they have to feed and breed.

 

[RMS18]

Third week update:

So my LPS are not liking purge. I have 2 Trachy showing skeleton now. They have been with me just about a year now. Another scoly is also starting to receding and another lobo is also receding. What I have noticed the most is after the dose it takes 4-5 days for the Lps to look normal again, then the tank gets dosed a few days later.

I haven't seen any fresh bites on my RR fire cracker, the most recent coral to show bites. However I did see fresh bites last night on the most infected colony, BC glow stick.

 

[GrouperBait]

Third week update:

So my LPS are not liking purge. I have 2 Trachy showing skeleton now. They have been with me just about a year now. Another scoly is also starting to receding and another lobo is also receding. What I have noticed the most is after the dose it takes 4-5 days for the Lps to look normal again, then the tank gets dosed a few days later.

I haven't seen any fresh bites on my RR fire cracker, the most recent coral to show bites. However I did see fresh bites last night on the most infected colony, BC glow stick.

That sucks about your scoly and lobo. Sorry to hear that. I have neither in my system so I can’t share any experience with that.
it may interesting you say your water was cloudy. Mine was “cloudy” with debri but not cloudy with a homogeneous-benepets-like cloudyness. Also, I would baste more often and really get into the nooks and crannies. I had one inside a red Robin that was over 1cm at week 6. I wasn’t happy, and I posted about it. But I stuck with it and that was the last one I saw…knock on wood. The main difference I am seeing now between my success and others is that I chopped out all my acros to where I only had the base of the coral on the rock. (I tried to save the colonies but no luck)
And now, all the bases are growing big healthy bases. So I’m happy I didn’t actually lost any.

 

[RMS18]

That sucks about your scoly and lobo. Sorry to hear that. I have neither in my system so I can’t share any experience with that.
it may interesting you say your water was cloudy. Mine was “cloudy” with debri but not cloudy with a homogeneous-benepets-like cloudyness. Also, I would baste more often and really get into the nooks and crannies. I had one inside a red Robin that was over 1cm at week 6. I wasn’t happy, and I posted about it. But I stuck with it and that was the last one I saw…knock on wood. The main difference I am seeing now between my success and others is that I chopped out all my acros to where I only had the base of the coral on the rock. (I tried to save the colonies but no luck)
And now, all the bases are growing big healthy bases. So I’m happy I didn’t actually lost any.

Wow so you cut down all your colonies to only leave a base in the tank? Sounds like you basically started over lol and the purge treatment really wasn't playing a factor at all at that point. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

 

[GrouperBait]

Wow so you cut down all your colonies to only leave a base in the tank? Sounds like you basically started over lol and the purge treatment really wasn't playing a factor at all at that point. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Yeah I still have all my corals. No restarting for me.

 

[RMS18]

Fourth Dose Update-

So not much to update. Not sure how this product is working. When dosed I do get worms to enter the water column... But I think all that does is spread them to new colonies. Now my Cherry Bomb has bite marks. Prior to dosing I have 3 colonies affected all on the same rock. Now I have colonies on all 3 rock structures that are separated by sand with bite marks.

In going to do 2 more doses before I end the treatment. Tonight I will check over all the acros to look for % of frag bites to compare to the start of treatment % of fresh bites.

 

[RMS18]

Blasting Update:

No good news here. Just did a blasting and unfortunately I had 4 large adults, 3-5 medium and 2-4 small fly off of a bunch of colonies. So far to this point Purge is NOT working. That's a lot of worms for 4 doses in.

Question - if you chop this guys up in two or three can they regenerate like a star fish? I ask because they get sucked into PH and ripped into a couple of pieces when blasting.

 

[UWC]

Hi RM518, sorry for the delay, was out for a few days.

Yes, flatworms can survive in two pieces or more when cut up.

If you are still seeing worms of all sizes, I would recommend doing 8 straight weekly doses. How are the corals doing? Looking better? Worse?