Wormwood Treatment for AEFW

[Graffiti Spot]

I read that and remember struggling with aefw at high temps but the last time I dealt with them the tank ran at 76 and I did the fws and had a much easier time dealing with them even before the fws. I would believe lower temps help slow them down a little. Has anyone tried lowering the whole tanks temp very slowly? I wonder what the lowest temp we could keep most acropora at is.

oldnsalty, what was your average temp during treatment?

 

[oldnsalty]

Were you using FWS or wormwood? I'm curious if there is a difference. Sorry about your results, that's really disappointing.

I used wormwood. With my total water volume being 350 gallons fws would have cost me a small fortune.

 

[Dlealrious]

Is anyone using this as a precaution. I just started dosing for this reason. Just hoping there is no bad side affects

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I am wondering this too since I was going to do the same thing but I may just use fws since I know it worked for me in the past.
I wonder if there is a better way of getting the material from the plant than just soaking it. I wonder if we could soak the leaves in vodka and get a final product that’s more potent? That would take a lot of experimenting I would guess.

 

[TDEcoral]

I read that and remember struggling with aefw at high temps but the last time I dealt with them the tank ran at 76 and I did the fws and had a much easier time dealing with them even before the fws. I would believe lower temps help slow them down a little. Has anyone tried lowering the whole tanks temp very slowly? I wonder what the lowest temp we could keep most acropora at is.

oldnsalty, what was your average temp during treatment?

Lower temps definitely slow their life cycle. You can read about it in that paper about AEFW that came out a couple months back.

 

[Ashley Kekua]

thank for the information now I have. wonder

 

[Ashley Kekua]

wormwood seem couragious

 

[Skibum]

I'm at day 50 on FWS dosing. (I'm dosing 5 ML daily on my 54 Gallon). I haven't seen any adults in a while, I've lost a few colonies and frags. while my Garf Bonsai is just hanging on, tortuosa doing okay as well. I'm finally seeing growth back on my acros, and less spots on my corals (from worms eating). I'm going to go another 50 days on 5 ML daily to see. Sorry, my picture taking sucks otherwise I would post those ;-0

 

[Graffiti Spot]

That’s good to hear! No issues with the dosage at 4x? Or is your tank volume more than 50 gallons total? Are you seeing healthier flesh on the acros?

 

[Skibum]

That’s good to hear! No issues with the dosage at 4x? Or is your tank volume more than 50 gallons total? Are you seeing healthier flesh on the acros?

I think there were some issues initially. It's pretty concentrated dosage (my total volume is about 60 gallons including sump/rock etc. I do think some of my SPS suffered through it, but I wanted to nuke those things from high orbit. For the SPS that did manage to make it though (mostly mature colonies, they seemed to have adapted). Last night I went hunting for worms on their favorite targets, used Julians thing to squirt water on them. I didn't see any adults and couldn't confirm if the smaller debris that came off were worms. The other thing I haven't seen in almost 2 months is acro growth.. I finally have some encrusting going on and some tips growing again.

I've learned my lesson about QT'ing new frags now. These things are painful.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Wow that’s a big dose. I hope it helps quicker than the average timespan! Good luck!

 

[Skibum]

Here's a comparison between my Bonsai and my Miyagi Tort colonies. The Bonsai was just absolutely hammered by the worms while the tort did have some nibbles they didn't get in there as much. The Stag colony behind my bonsai started RTN'ning as well although I think I halted that last week. My Slimer also was just wrecked too.

 

[Skibum]

I'm at day 50 on FWS dosing. (I'm dosing 5 ML daily on my 54 Gallon). I haven't seen any adults in a while, I've lost a few colonies and frags. while my Garf Bonsai is just hanging on, tortuosa doing okay as well. I'm finally seeing growth back on my acros, and less spots on my corals (from worms eating). I'm going to go another 50 days on 5 ML daily to see. Sorry, my picture taking sucks otherwise I would post those ;-0

Well now I have to eat my post. I just sprayed a couple of large adults off an encrusted base. I suppose the metric has to be reproduction and whether or not more bite marks appear. Did anyone else keep a somewhat weekly journal of the progress of using FWS?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I don’t think I stopped seeing worms until I was over two months in but probably more about three to four. But I can’t remember for sure.

 

[Skibum]

I don’t think I stopped seeing worms until I was over two months in but probably more about three to four. But I can’t remember for sure.

Thanks. Did you see recovery sooner however? I'm starting to get basal encrustation on some of my acros, while others just look pathetic. interestingly enough my Yellow TIP austera seems to be almost completely unaffected by this whole episode. Super Hardy Acro imo.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I saw a turnaround at two months or so. But I really think basting the corals every few days is key to getting them gone sooner. Keeping them off of the corals of their choosing will slow down the amount of eggs they lay and keep them from eating as much. I didn’t have a huge amount to start either. I also recommend dipping everything affected and scraping the eggs you can find before you start the treatment so you can start with lower numbers. Once the worms get to large numbers it’s very hard to control them especially with a method like this. But over enough time I think it should still work.

 

[Skibum]

I saw a turnaround at two months or so. But I really think basting the corals every few days is key to getting them gone sooner. Keeping them off of the corals of their choosing will slow down the amount of eggs they lay and keep them from eating as much. I didn’t have a huge amount to start either. I also recommend dipping everything affected and scraping the eggs you can find before you start the treatment so you can start with lower numbers. Once the worms get to large numbers it’s very hard to control them especially with a method like this. But over enough time I think it should still work.

The basting I can do... the dipping not so much. The corals are too heavily encrusted. I tried to do it with one colony and it just died the next day. I need to remind myself this is a marathon and not a sprint. Thanks for the reply

 

[Skibum]

Well, after 70 days and constant treatment with FWS (daily 5 ML dose) I still have most signs of AEFW. I was curious so I took some of my remaining colonies (now frags) for a dip. Worms a plenty fell off. I'm resigned now just to destroy my rocks to get my remaining colonies so they fit in a bucket, and just dip everything every 3 days or so while looking for eggs. I'll continue with FWS but am not relying on it for primary treatment.

 

[joseserrano]

Well, after 70 days and constant treatment with FWS (daily 5 ML dose) I still have most signs of AEFW. I was curious so I took some of my remaining colonies (now frags) for a dip. Worms a plenty fell off. I'm resigned now just to destroy my rocks to get my remaining colonies so they fit in a bucket, and just dip everything every 3 days or so while looking for eggs. I'll continue with FWS but am not relying on it for primary treatment.

Sorry to hear this didn’t work for you. Seemed like such a great and easy solution, but too good to be true I guess

 

[Graffiti Spot]

You are quitting after two months? Most everyone still had worms around two months from what I remember. I sure did, population was small and weakening at that point though.
It’s not too good to be true, it’s worked for a lot of people. I think having patience, and starting early is when most people see success. I think it seems like the ones who don’t have success are the tanks that have heavy infestations and their corals were really struggling to start with. These worms are really hard to fight if you let them get to a certain number. Ime you still have to be proactive and watch your corals for the first four months, any colonies that started looking bad I would pull and scrape eggs from and make sure all worms were off before putting back in the tank so the coral could heal.
I imagine zeovit didn’t want to advertise this as an in tank treatment because of the tanks that had bad infestations might struggle a lot more than the tanks that caught the pests early.