My battle against AEFW

[BrotherSheepDog]

Hi all, I'm fairly new to r2r.

I have 80 gallon mixed reef which is a downgrade from my previous 200 gallon aquarium. Most of my inhabitants came from my 200. Recently I have been loosing sps colonies. They were dying one at a time and I could not figure out why.

I constantly tested my parameters daily using salifert for Alk and nitrate, Red Sea for CA and Red Sea for mag.

My current Params are

Alk 8 dkh
CA 420
Mag 1400

I have suspected aefw for some time now but have not seen any of the tell tale bite marks. I dipped a few colonies and didn't see anything come off granted I have no first hand experience before with aefw so I wouldn't really know what to look for anyway. I figured the dying colonies were due to stress from moving from my old tank to my new one.

I decided to take pictures of my colonies lights out to see if I could detect any signs of pest. I sent a few pics to my friend [HASHTAG]#Diesel[/HASHTAG] and he did confirm that I indeed had aefw.

Heart broken I scrambled to the store yesterday after work to pick a new bottle of Bayer and a new bottle of coral Rx.

I found some time to dip three pieces this morning. I used a 4 gallon container and filled it half way with tank water. I then added 8 caps of coral Rx to equate for 2 gallons of water.

After dipping In the coral Rx I found this little bugger! My first real encounter with aefw. Never saw one in person before and boy was he huge!

The dip did not seem to kill him because he was moving around. I had only 15 min to play around with the dipping this morning because I had to go to work. I used a turkey Bastet and siphoned it up and put it in a small container with some water for the dipping container to see what happens to him. Curious to find out when I get home.

I plan on treating all my sps in a qt separate from my dt. I currently have a 40 breeder setup as a lps tank. I want to remove the lps in there completely and set that up as my qt for my sps while treating aefw.

My question is should I remove the sand and live rock as well?

On that specific 40 I am running two vertex 36" illumilux led strips. I am contemplating to switching over to my 250w halide geisseman fixture with 12k geisseman bulb. Any thoughts?

Current plan is two go through a daily dipping regimen and alternate between Bayer and coral Rx everyday day.

Thanks for reading guys , any advice is appreciated

 

[Eckolancer]

I would get some flat worm killer and dose the tank a few times a week until none are spotted. Also 2-3 times a week pull corals and do the Bayer dips. Between flat and red bugs I'm not sure which is worse yet. But flat worms do kill corals pretty fast.

Side not I don't feel that coral RX really does anything to the flat worms. I do a container of flat worm exit and dose about 20x the recommend amount for all new corals while I float them in the bag. Then once that's done I do Bayer dip everyday for a week for all new corals just to make sure any eggs that might be hatching are dead the day they come alive.

 

[Eckolancer]

I noticed you have some lps check them as well I've seen the flat worms hang out under polyps of hammer and Duncan's. Not sure about acans but can't rule them out.

 

[McMullen]

I've fought this battle a couple times. In my experience I have to mix coral Rx double strength to get the AEFW to "let go." I also use a turkey baster and blow the crap out of the coral. The double strength coral Rx works but it also seems to be really hard on my acros and I've finished off many stressed out acros dipping. If it were me I would pull out colonies, dip, search for eggs ( you can see them with magnifying glass) and only keep fragged pieces you know are egg and worm free. Then quarantine for 4 weeks. As mentioned there very well may be worms on your rock and other coral so you'll have to wait em out.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

I noticed you have some lps check them as well I've seen the flat worms hang out under polyps of hammer and Duncan's. Not sure about acans but can't rule them out.

Thanks for the tips Ecko. What flat type of flatworm killer would you recommend to dose the tank? I have read mixed reviews on Saliferts Flatworm exit vs AEFW with the majority consensus being that FWE does nothing to Aefw? not sure I'll try anything at this point.

 

[ReeferBean]

If you pull the acros out of your system to QT, and no acros are present including anything encrusted in your display tank, they will die off with nothing to eat. So if they are on other corals or rock, it really doesn't matter if you remove all the acropora for several weeks. I don't remember the life cycle... I want to say at least 6 weeks but don't quote me on that.

The bayer works well on them, but its hard to see what comes off in the dip. After I'm done, I usually dilute the dip container with fresh water so I can see what came off.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

If you pull the acros out of your system to QT, and no acros are present including anything encrusted in your display tank, they will die off with nothing to eat. So if they are on other corals or rock, it really doesn't matter if you remove all the acropora for several weeks. I don't remember the life cycle... I want to say at least 6 weeks but don't quote me on that.

The bayer works well on them, but its hard to see what comes off in the dip. After I'm done, I usually dilute the dip container with fresh water so I can see what came off.

Thanks for the tip about diluting the Bayer dip afterwards. When I initially started dipping I wouldn't see anything with the Bayer. That is the reason why I bought the coral rx also was because it is a clearer solution. I am definitely going to use the diluting tip to see what came off with the Bayer when I try it. thanks a bunch.

 

[JMLewis]

I use bayer dip as well and had my first encounter with AEFW. I can never really see what's at the bottom of my dipping container because the solutions so "milky" so I diluted it and sure as heck their they were...These were new frags. So I cut em off the frag plug and inspected for eggs.

Long story short I know the Bayer Dip will kill off AEFW. I don't really measure it out but I ld day I use around 5ml per cup of water for 10 minutes. I dip everything as a precaution and am pest free (knock on wood)

I second doing a second rinse off or you'll decimate your pod population. Made that mistake once.

Good luck man, got a bit of a journey ahead of you.

 

[tqui]

i've used bayer dip as well to battle the AEFW... I took all my sps out and dip them in bayer solution then put them back to the display tank every two weeks for 3 months (PITA), if i see egg cluster, i just frag out the good part and throw away the plug/rock that was attached.. ... but it's been over a year now, and my sps are growing and coloring up great.... be careful if you have shrimp in your tank, do not expose it to BAYER -- i killed two cleaner shrimps after putting the sps back to the display tank on my first dip.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

Home from work and the battle is still raging. Made some make shift egg crate for my 40b . Removing colonies from my dt is a pita luckily my tank is shallow.

My red planet was slowly dying. Note the large egg masses on the bottom of the colony. I will have to drag this apart.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

My Walt Disney frag I got from Diesel..despite the aefw it had great polyp extension

 

[kacrocorals581]

an acro lovers worst nightmare, hope it all works out for you.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

an acro lovers worst nightmare, hope it all works out for you.

Thank you sir I appreciate the kind words. 3 hrs into dippin I am almost done. I need to come up with a more efficient way to dip the corals if I plan to keep this up over the next few weeks.

 

[JMLewis]

Wow! Thats alot of eggs!

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

Wow! Thats alot of eggs!

Tell me about it. I was in for a surprise myself. I wish I would have taken more serious action sooner because I lost a ton of nice colonies before hand. I didn't get to take a pic but I found a huge aefw that was close to half an inch

 

[ronnie]

You're on the right path. Be diligent and you can beat them. It took me three times, but it works. And when you go to add new acros, QT them and use this same regimen or you'll end up with them again. Don't use any other dips - they don't work or they are too hard on the coral.

Bayer "prescription":
10ml per cup for 10 minutes
Rinse in secondary container with clean water before putting back in tank
Dip every six days - do not miss a rotation
Dip for 60 days minimum (ten dips)

Make sure all acros are dipped - even tiny little pieces or encrusted pieces on rocks, plugs, glass, etc - I recommend cutting any off of the rocks and removing the rock to eliminate risk and extra spots for eggs to be laid. I don't know if this is necessary, but it was more of a concern that I had and I didn't want to deal with them ever again.

 

[Tegridy Reef]

Following

 

[Tegridy Reef]

My Walt Disney frag I got from Diesel..despite the aefw it had great polyp extension

That concerns me I had great extension and lately hasn't Ben the same

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

You're on the right path. Be diligent and you can beat them. It took me three times, but it works. And when you go to add new acros, QT them and use this same regimen or you'll end up with them again. Don't use any other dips - they don't work or they are too hard on the coral.

Bayer "prescription":
10ml per cup for 10 minutes
Rinse in secondary container with clean water before putting back in tank
Dip every six days - do not miss a rotation
Dip for 60 days minimum (ten dips)

Make sure all acros are dipped - even tiny little pieces or encrusted pieces on rocks, plugs, glass, etc - I recommend cutting any off of the rocks and removing the rock to eliminate risk and extra spots for eggs to be laid. I don't know if this is necessary, but it was more of a concern that I had and I didn't want to deal with them ever again.

Hi Ronnie thanks for chiming in. I read your sticky about aefw four times today lol. Reading that I only have to do it every six days is such a relief I thought I was going to do this everyday.

I had a few questions. I know the acronym Aefw stands for acro eating flat worms. The name is pretty self explanatory. Should I have to worry about montiporas also? I want to be safe and qt them as well but I am running out of real estate in the Qt.

 

[BrotherSheepDog]

That concerns me I had great extension and lately hasn't Ben the same

I would check very closely and take immediate action if necessary