Well, Add me to the list......

[Dave3112]

I know a lot of you have read/followed along on my tank thread and have heard about the troubles I have been having as of late with my parameters being off. Well, after looking really close at my corals where they have been STNing I noticed all these little brown spots. :squigglemouth: We all know what that could mean......so I got out the turkey baster and off flew these little white things.....Yep AEFW:cry:!!!!!

Well I have thought about giving up all day today and just throwing everything out. BUT I have been in the hobby for almost 20 years now so I am no quitter. I will fight these little buggers and I will win. My acros will take a hit and that makes me sad and angry at the same time but I will not give up. I am starting this thread to get some advice and document step by step how I am getting rid of this plague.

I do not know where I got them or how long I have had them. I do know that I saw NO SIGNS of them before I left for Germany back in early August. I have not purchased ANY SPS since about July. I have gotten some LPS and Zoas since that time. All I know is that it is my fault. I have always dipped my corals but never quarantined them. Well, that ends today!!! EVERYTHING from now on gets dipped and quarantined and then dipped again before it touches the display water!!!!

If anyone has gotten any frags from me and I have passed this scourge on to you I am truly sorry. I would never do that on purpose to anyone. Please forgive me if this has happened.

NOW on to how I plan to treat this

1. My wife has a 125 that has softies and LPS in it. The only SPS there is one colony of Acropora and a monti digi and monti cap. I will remove all my sps from my 220 and use her tank as a holding tank.

2. As I remove my frags and colonies from the 220 I am going to dip/soak them in bayer advanced insect control. Here I need some advice. How long to let them soak dip?

3. Frag/scrape all signs of eggs off of the acros after the dip before I place them in the 125. I plan on repeating the dipping and scraping of the eggs every week for 8 weeks. Even If I don't see signs of the AEFW after the first few sessions.

I need some more advice. How long to leave my 220 without any acros before I can add them again? And do I need to remove my montis, pocilliaporas and birdsnests? I have read many threads today and some say remove and treat all SPS and some (most) say just the acros. So I need opinions on what to leave and what to treat. Some of my rocks will have to be removed because the acros are encrusted to them and I plan on setting them outside for a few weeks then adding them to a large container to cycle with water change water from my tanks to be reused later.

Thank you for taking the time to read this rambling post! I hope to provide some good information to others with this process and gain some good insight from some of you who have had and beaten this pest in the past.

Dave

 

[Dave3112]

Ok. I can't bring myself to tear up my reef...........yet........I am going to add a couple of sixline wrasses to the tank and see if they can help keep things in check. When I set up my 50 gal cube I will frag and dip my SPS to make sure I have back ups of all my corals just in case the wrasses don't knock them out. I know there has to be some kind of natural control for them. If not then the wild reefs would all be suffering from these pests. Right? I know I am taking a risk by going this route but I think it would be a risk to use all these chemicals also. I guess it's darned if I do and darned if I don't. Now how many Sixlines will get along in a 220? There are PLENTY of hiding places.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[myzislow]

better off with a radiant or yellow halichoeres IMO. I'd add one or both, along with the sixlines . Should be fine in a 220.

 

[Dave3112]

Thanks for the input! I will look into both of those as well.

 

[boehm742]

+1 one on the yellow. i wish you the best of luck.

 

[bct15]

Don't get sixlines, they are evil and practically impossible to get out once they are in. Get a yellow wrasse or radiant wrasse, I love my yellow wrasse especially now that his war paint has grown in...also, I believe it is documented that dragonface pipefish eat aefw.

 

[Dave3112]

I already have a Hovens (melanarus) in there and I don't think he will get along with the Radiant or Yellow. What do y'all think? Should I get him out and re-home him to my 125?

bct- I thought the dragon face ate the redbugs? If they will eat the AEFW I will get a couple of those as well.

 

[Dave3112]

And my Hovens will eat them but he waits for my to blow them off of the corals:sure:

 

[Luisra]

That sucks preety bad!!! Like myzislow said, get some Haliochores sp. wrasses; Sixlines are too aggresive. Mandarines are great AEFW eaters too.
Also, AEFW don't like/hate high flow areas, so you may need to increase the flow in your tank.

And do I need to remove my montis, pocilliaporas and birdsnests?

Nope, Acropora Eating Flat Worms only eat/feed on acropora sp. If you remove every acropora from your tank they will starve to death. I suggest that you frag the growing tips from every acro, quarantine them, and then introduce them to the other tank; that is for safety stock in case you lose any acro in the dipping process.
Can't tell you exactly what the Hoven's wrasse is going to do to the others warsses. If they have a large tank (like yours) they are not aggressive toward each other, but remember that every fish has its own personality.

Sorry to hear that Dave, I wish you the best of luck!

 

[bct15]

I already have a Hovens (melanarus) in there and I don't think he will get along with the Radiant or Yellow. What do y'all think? Should I get him out and re-home him to my 125?

bct- I thought the dragon face ate the redbugs? If they will eat the AEFW I will get a couple of those as well.

Yeah your right, I misquote the literature there...sorry about that.

 

[Dave3112]

Yeah your right, I misquote the literature there...sorry about that.

No problem. I was thinking about getting some of those anyway because I think they are really cool.

 

[Dave3112]

That sucks preety bad!!! Like myzislow said, get some Haliochores sp. wrasses; Sixlines are too aggresive. Mandarines are great AEFW eaters too.
Also, AEFW don't like/hate high flow areas, so you may need to increase the flow in your tank.



Nope, Acropora Eating Flat Worms only eat/feed on acropora sp. If you remove every acropora from your tank they will starve to death. I suggest that you frag the growing tips from every acro, quarantine them, and then introduce them to the other tank; that is for safety stock in case you lose any acro in the dipping process.
Can't tell you exactly what the Hoven's wrasse is going to do to the others warsses. If they have a large tank (like yours) they are not aggressive toward each other, but remember that every fish has its own personality.

Sorry to hear that Dave, I wish you the best of luck!

Thanks for the info! I am going to try the wrasses before I do anything else. I have 2 MP40's in there at 100 percent on reef crest. But I may add a koralia 7 or two until I get enough cash saved up for a couple of MP60's.

 

[GR808]

sorry to hear Dave but you can beat this. Some have also did full tank dosing with Interceptor with success. I don't know much about that so can't give details. I hope it may be an option for you.
I myself has had the experience but have been dipping corals and rock in bayer complete insect killer from the hardware store. Been successful as well and the last few dips I had, there were no AEFW..
best of luck

 

[Dave3112]

Well I ended up adding 2 sixline wrasses and had to pull one out and put it in my wifes tank because the stupid purple dottyback was killing it. Funny that it didn't bother the other one. I have been using a turkey baster and blowing the flat worms off of the corals and since adding the wrasse there have been less and less coming off. I still see some eggs on my acro nana but this is the second day that I haven't seen any flat worms blow off the corals. And I have one FAT sixline!!! I hope that I am getting these things under control. I have used the Bayer Advanced on my frag tank (plumbed into my display) and got quite a few flatworms off of those and they are getting more and more color back everyday. I have only dipped them once and will keep dipping them to make sure I don't have them in there anymore. That way if I need to break down the display I can have a place to put them that the water parameters will be the same and maybe a method that I feel comfortable with as well.

 

[Dave3112]

What do y'all think? Will the fish control them on their own? I can see that the Bayer Advance is working in the frag tank and the corals haven't suffered any ill effects but I have HUGE colonies in my display and ALOT of them as well. So I don't really want to tear it down......

 

[brahm]

I've had AEFW now since before the summer. I thought my wrasses had everything in check, and they really had it down to a minimum for a number of months, but one day after being convinced by a friend to blast with an mj1200 instead of a turkey baster (which I felt was working well) I found 1 again.. now I just blast the tank once a week with an MJ1200 right before my water change (it's good for kicking up the detritus as well). Most times I find nothing I see no bites anymore, or eggs. However for the past 2 weeks, I found one on the under side of the same coral where a wrasse can't get to.. I used to freak out, but now it doesn't seem to be to big of a deal once I was aware of them I haven't lost anything to the AEFW. I never see bite marks, or eggs. The only pieces I've lost were because of my own inpatients and trying to dip things like a belina in revive (sigh).

 

[Dave3112]

I've had AEFW now since before the summer. I thought my wrasses had everything in check, and they really had it down to a minimum for a number of months, but one day after being convinced by a friend to blast with an mj1200 instead of a turkey baster (which I felt was working well) I found 1 again.. now I just blast the tank once a week with an MJ1200 right before my water change (it's good for kicking up the detritus as well). Most times I find nothing I see no bites anymore, or eggs. However for the past 2 weeks, I found one on the under side of the same coral where a wrasse can't get to.. I used to freak out, but now it doesn't seem to be to big of a deal once I was aware of them I haven't lost anything to the AEFW. I never see bite marks, or eggs. The only pieces I've lost were because of my own inpatients and trying to dip things like a belina in revive (sigh).

I have a brand new mj1200 that I will break out tomorrow! Thanks for the tip! I hope you get yours in check too. I really HATE these things!!!

 

[Dave3112]

The break down has started :cry: I dipped the frag tank acros again tonight and got a few more AEFW off of them and decided to start dipping the smaller colonies and most affected acros from the display. Gonna get crowded in the frag tank tonight......

 

[brahm]

I'm telling you don't even bother just keep blasting with the mj1200, and get some wrasses. The stress from the break down/dipping will kill more then the AEFW themselves.

 

[Dave3112]

I'm telling you don't even bother just keep blasting with the mj1200, and get some wrasses. The stress from the break down/dipping will kill more then the AEFW themselves.

I'm gonna do that too. The ones that I ended up taking out of the display were ones that were starting to grow together and some that were 4-5" colonies that only had about an inch of flesh left on the tips. I'm not touching the 12"+ colonies. I have a melanarus and a sixline. I can't put any more wrasses in there because the melanarus will kill them. It tolerates the sixline though. LOL