Wormwood Treatment for AEFW

Travis Stewart · Oct 14, 2019

Any updates? Think I will give it a try

jd-woodlands · Oct 14, 2019

Ordered some wormwood from amazon today, KZ FWS is working great... however i have a bigger tank now and the cost per dose is getting a little high. Sharing with @Travis Stewart and we can update as things progress.

Tried UWC Purge with no success. Have a spare bottle if anyone wants it.. or if UWC will take it back or offer some credit that would be nice....

joseserrano · Oct 14, 2019

I had a friend recently combat them by lowering temperature and dipping once a week for a month and a half. So far so good. I posted the article a week or so ago.

Travis Stewart · Oct 14, 2019

joseserrano said:
I had a friend recently combat them by lowering temperature and dipping once a week for a month and a half. So far so good. I posted the article a week or so ago.

Mind posting to this thread?

joseserrano · Oct 14, 2019

Travis Stewart said:
Mind posting to this thread?

search my name and recent posts made.

Cliff717 · Oct 15, 2019

Hi guys. I am having a hard time finding the powder for sale here in Canada. Would this work?

Graffiti Spot · Oct 15, 2019

I would try it it says 100% wormwood. Just use a coffee grinder to grind it up real well.
I am so glad others are trying this. I am thinking about trying the wormwood even though I don’t have any worms to see if it creates the same results as the fws.

jda · Oct 15, 2019

This is really similar to the stuff that I got:

It is really fine like sugar sand.

jd-woodlands · Oct 15, 2019

jda said:
This is really similar to the stuff that I got:

It is really fine like sugar sand.

Did you warm up the RO to steep the wormwood or just cold? Any other tips?

nicsound · Oct 15, 2019

I'm only 2 weeks in but have been dosing at 1ml/10gallon/day of unfiltered wormwood solution (avoiding dosing the heavy sediment), with no apparent ill effect, except for the obvious irritation to my urchins when dosed too close to them. They otherwise seem fine and show no sign of irritation when dosed away from them.

Clams, anemones, sponges and other filter feeders (and sadly the red planaria) all seem to be unaffected at this time and corals are looking good but I somewhat doubt that it's wormwood in FWS that does all the other KZ magic.

That wormwood leaf looks fine. It's just not ground as finely. There is one thing that keeps bugging me though, dosing this into a closed system.. has anyone seen the thing about how little oregano is actually in a lot of commercially available products? And that's a common, mass produced herb.. Just a thought..

Anyway, here's a link to the thread Jose mentions as it's a good way down the search results already:

Interesting findings for AEFW.

Interesting how temperature can help get these guys out of your system with in theory less dipping.

www.reef2reef.com

Shame I can't dip my whole reef..

Nic x

joseserrano · Oct 15, 2019

nicsound said:
I'm only 2 weeks in but have been dosing at 1ml/10gallon/day of unfiltered wormwood solution (avoiding dosing the heavy sediment), with no apparent ill effect, except for the obvious irritation to my urchins when dosed too close to them. They otherwise seem fine and show no sign of irritation when dosed away from them.

Clams, anemones, sponges and other filter feeders (and sadly the red planaria) all seem to be unaffected at this time and corals are looking good but I somewhat doubt that it's wormwood in FWS that does all the other KZ magic.

That wormwood leaf looks fine. It's just not ground as finely. There is one thing that keeps bugging me though, dosing this into a closed system.. has anyone seen the thing about how little oregano is actually in a lot of commercially available products? And that's a common, mass produced herb.. Just a thought..

Anyway, here's a link to the thread Jose mentions as it's a good way down the search results already:

Interesting findings for AEFW.

Interesting how temperature can help get these guys out of your system with in theory less dipping.

www.reef2reef.com

Shame I can't dip my whole reef..

Nic x

You can get rid of planaria with flatworm stop.

jda · Oct 15, 2019

Salifert Flatworm Exit for regular red planaria. KZ Flatworm Stop for AEFW.

jd-woodlands · Oct 15, 2019

Mixed up the wormwood powder tonight, foam on top certainly reminds me of how UWC Purge looks. Will be dosing along with FWS for the next few months.

Travis Stewart · Oct 16, 2019

jda said:
Salifert Flatworm Exit for regular red planaria. KZ Flatworm Stop for AEFW.

Thoughts on this just getting skimmed out?

Travis Stewart · Oct 17, 2019

Also, do you keep performing routine maintenance as far as WC?

Cliff717 · Oct 17, 2019

Well I got mine in the mail today I’m going to try it maybe over the weekend. I will be continuing to run carbon and doing water changes so we’ll see how that works out

gabrielpnt · Oct 18, 2019

jda said:
While we all know that there is not any miracle cure that kills AEFW in their tracks, there is one that works systematically over several months.

There has been some hype around a new miracle treatment that does not appear to work as described, but it can work if you give it time and use a different methodology.

Wormwood is a powdery, pulpy substance like coffee grounds. It appears to be the main product in a few off-the-shelf remedies. Wormwood will not usually kill larger, healthy AEFW, but it does appear to interrupt their lifecycle and keep any new ones from being born. I have seen it work on a tank with my own eyes, but it took months while the older, larger worms died childless.

How can you make some? Get some Wormwood Powder from Amazon or a health food store. I had been mixing 1/4 cup in a 2 liter soda bottle. Shake it well and let it sit. Keep the cap loose after you shake it or else it can get some back pressure. The wormwood will settle to the bottom. Shake the bottle and dose 1ml for every 10g of tank water EVERY DAY. It harms nothing. It does not even kill normal red planaria.

For those of you who do not feel like mad scientists, just get some KZ Flatworm stop and use at 2x their recommended dosage. This is what got us going on this treatment. Other than being very expensive, it works well.

Here is what you might see... within a few weeks, significantly less bites. Within a month, only large worms and corals starting to regrow around the infected areas. Within two/three months, only a few worms and not new eggs. Within four/six months, none. Keep dosing for a while after this - it hurts nothing, so why not keep it up for a while?

Future study: it does not appear that the KZ Flatworm Stop has the "grounds" or "pulp" in it. They must filter it out. A coffee filter would probably be fine for this. Somebody would need to test that this is just as effective as keep the "grounds" in the solution.

Here is my thread on this in real time while helping a friend:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2670592

Good luck to all with these basturds.

This is what wormwood looks like after it is mixed up:

Did you remove activated carbon or turn off skimmer while treating?

Travis Stewart · Oct 18, 2019

gabrielpnt said:
Did you remove activated carbon or turn off skimmer while treating?

ive started and on day 2.Slimmer still online.

jda · Oct 18, 2019

He did everything like normal. I have no idea if not skimming or not using GAC is better. I would never stop skimming for more than a few days, though... but that is just in my DNA.