My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images - Page 2

cward · #26 08/03/2006, 09:02 PM

I'm sorry to hear that Marc. Please keep us informed on what treatment you decide to go with.

PITSTOP · #27 08/03/2006, 09:11 PM

I fear the same in my 120 reef.

Let me know if this a workable procedure for identifying the presence of AEFWs...

1. Remove my A. Valida colony, placing it into a white bowl

2. Fill bowl with enough tank water to cover coral

3. Stir in 5 drops Lugols iodine solution

4. Use a pipette/baster to blast the coral with the seawater/iodine solution.

5. Perform a close (compound microscope) inspection of the detritus that collects at the bottom of the bowl.

IS THIS CORRECT?

There are now a small collection of established SPS systems subscribed to this thread concerning AEFWs; we could loosely coordinate our treatments to perhaps determine which one approach or combination produces best results.

Quasi-scientific at best, however so much of what we do in this hobby is quasi-scientific...

During the summertime I am away from my reef for 8-10 days stretches (my reef is in my classroom - pics in my galllery). Consequently, daily feedings are limited to several rounds of flakes delivered via an Eheim Feedair.

My observation is that my fish population is forced to feed off the reef to an extreme. The grazers feed off the reef structure and my opportunistic feeders (6-line wrasse for example) continually inspect the corals for any potential tid-bits of food.

Are AEFWs temperature sensitive? Could temperature change limit population growth/hasten stabilization. Or, do these devils exhibit J-curve growth eating themselves out of house and home only to perish in a devastating and cataclismic population crash?

AEFWs are mean; I do not like them very much at all.

melev · #28 08/03/2006, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PITSTOP
I fear the same in my 120 reef.

Let me know if this a workable procedure for identifying the presence of AEFWs...

1. Remove my A. Valida colony, placing it into a white bowl

2. Fill bowl with enough tank water to cover coral

3. Stir in 5 drops Lugols iodine solution

4. Use a pipette/baster to blast the coral with the seawater/iodine solution.

5. Perform a close (compound microscope) inspection of the detritus that collects at the bottom of the bowl.

IS THIS CORRECT?

That is pretty much what I did. You don't need a microscope to see these guys, as they aren't that small. Some were about the size of the "T" on the penny I took a picture of, others smaller and a few were quite large.

As regards quarantining corals... I tend to always quarantine fish so they can be healthy before adding them to the reef, but not corals. I inspect them visually, and put them in the prop section to get used to the water, and a few days or weeks later they go into the tank.

I'll have to change my approach now. It's too bad, really. But apparently necessary.

raddogz · #29 08/03/2006, 09:44 PM

Marc - I hope this goes into a ReefCast episode.

sfsuphysics · #30 08/03/2006, 09:51 PM

Don't fret over setting up a quarantine tank, just call it a frag grow out tank

humboldt reefer · #31 08/03/2006, 11:11 PM

Well afer reading this thread I decided it was high time I checked out that crappy looking tricolor in my tank. When I picked him up and looked at its underside I saw hundreds of little circular patches of missing tissue. So I didnt bother with the iodine just dipped it in fresh water. HUNDREDS of the little bastards came off. So I guess my garf tri color and purple bonsai will be next.

Sparkss · #32 08/04/2006, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bryan89
TMPCC= Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure. It took out all the FW from the corals, but does not kill the eggs. It also allegedly works on red bugs, but I have never had to test it (knock on wood). The TMPCC is a dip.

Also from what I read FW exit will not work, but I did read someone had sucess at 2x normal dosing levels. We'll see how it goes.

Bryan

Do yourself a huge favor and read up on AEFWs. There are several very good threads with lots of information to help you avoid wasting your money, time and possibly livestock. As for useing FWE at 2X... we went up to somewhere between 8 and 10 X dosages. It ws very expensive, hard on the fish and even after repeated such treatments still did not erradicate the AEFWs, but all of this is well documented here on RC in just a couple of good threads.

As for TMPCC, while it is stated to work against red bugs, I was told by a coral farmer that it was somewhat less than 100% effective against the LRBs.

tangdiver · #33 08/04/2006, 05:20 AM

IMO you need to treat all corals, and expect losses like Travis said. It sucks but they will be everywhere. Also IMO do not cover eggs. Either scrape or toss. I have a theroy on they can get out at a later time, like being encapselated for a different time. Sounds weird, but we know nothing about this thing yet. COuld be like brine shrimp. Yes, why listen to the new guy, well I pass my info that I get from some more intellegent people in the aquarium trade. Just my thougths.

You could look at more losses than the treatments but on a slower basis. Seeing 1 by 1 drop to these critters would suck.

Good luck and following along. Have gone through it also like Travis, used levamsole.

Grant

gflat65 · #34 08/04/2006, 05:32 AM

I went through the Levamisole treatments around the same time or just before Travis and had similar results. I had higher loses than most others for some reason but haven't figured it out. No signs of them on anything now. Everythign gets a TMPCC dip several weeks in a row before going in the display now...

melev · #35 08/04/2006, 02:30 PM

Where are you shopping for Levamisole?

gflat65 · #36 08/04/2006, 02:49 PM

I got mine from a local farmers CO-OP. It is a pig wormer. Mine came in a big plastic bottle (~1000mL) with very little powder. Doesn't take much (still have some and have even done more treatments on my montis (with only one partial loss...). I paid ~$14 for the bottle

Jeffie · #37 08/04/2006, 03:21 PM

Fleet Farms in MN. has it... Also sold as a cattle de-wormer.

Sparkss · #38 08/04/2006, 03:23 PM

barnstocker.com is where we got ours, but that was last year sometime. Right around the time we learned our lesson that "one dip was just not enough".

gflat65 · #39 08/04/2006, 04:17 PM

It was the single most laborious thing I've had to do with tanks. Watching losses pile up only made it worse. I completely drained the tank each time and washed the tank and equipment out of paranoia for the ba$tards. I think the worst part was that the time to clean and swish everything always came at around 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning... What made it looks good, though.

clkwrk · #40 08/04/2006, 11:35 PM

Sorry they had such an impact with your tank. I was able to make it thru with minimal loses maybe a hand full if that . I think I lost more to the TMPCC dip than AEFW's themselves.

just dave · #41 08/04/2006, 11:56 PM

Got mine form a CO-OP and its is called Levasole.

wfgworks · #42 08/05/2006, 06:37 AM

I'm trying to read all the threads going on but my eyes are killing me.

I'm reading that many are removing corals from the main system, setting up Quartine tank and treating with Levamisole in combination with TMPCC. My question is, what about the Live Rock? I'm sure that the AEFW dont all reside on our Acro's

What about removing all fish and setting up a holding tank for them and treating your whole system without the fish in there?

cward · #43 08/05/2006, 06:49 AM

Wouldn't it be funny to find out that the Red Bugs were the critters keeping the AEFW's under control?

gflat65 · #44 08/05/2006, 08:11 AM

There is no reliable in tank treatment. Levamisole would cause some serious issues on an entire tank situation. You'd have a massive spike from killing everything off. All anecdotal (some may have been 'scientifically' derived) evidence shows that the AEFW's die without a host after five days. Removing all acros from the display for Levamisole treatment is a 4-5 week thing, so as long as you get all encrustations (not the easiest task), the AEFW's present in the tank will be dead before you put your other acro's back in the display.

arconom · #45 08/05/2006, 09:36 AM

Marc sorry to hear this. I also what to know what you plan on treating with.

just dave · #46 08/05/2006, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cward
Wouldn't it be funny to find out that the Red Bugs were the critters keeping the AEFW's under control?

I think about that all the time.

So many seem to have outbreaks of AEFW after treating for RBs.

Sparkss · #47 08/05/2006, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wfgworks
I'm trying to read all the threads going on but my eyes are killing me.

I'm reading that many are removing corals from the main system, setting up Quartine tank and treating with Levamisole in combination with TMPCC. My question is, what about the Live Rock? I'm sure that the AEFW dont all reside on our Acro's

What about removing all fish and setting up a holding tank for them and treating your whole system without the fish in there?

It's like clkwrk said, the goal is not necessarily to treat the ones left in your tank, but to starve them out. When you remove the acros, ALL acros, from your tank into the QT/treatment tanks(s), you do so for a minimum of 1 month, many for longer than that, to ensure that any existing AEFWs starve and additionally that any eggs left behind have time to hatch and then again starve. The "guesstimated" egg hatch time is 2+ weeks and the average time for an AEF to starve is 5 days. That is also why we need to do multiple weekly treatments to the corals in the treatment tanks.

The one big problem that alot of us run into is that we need to get every last scrap of acro flesh out of the tank, or else the AEFWs won't starve in the time that we expect them to, and if any survive we all know how fast they can again grow to plague proportions. So chiseling and scraping every last bit of encrusted acro is a necessary chore

On a side note, we finished building the 2 2' square treatment tanks last night, going to water test them then likely start the first levamisole treatment this afternoon, I am just tired of watching one after another coral fall to these monsters.

randy wayne · #48 08/05/2006, 03:17 PM

What will these treatments do to your acro crabs.

clkwrk · #49 08/05/2006, 03:19 PM

kill them

ZURCSREEF · #50 08/05/2006, 03:28 PM

Luvamisol dip is what I hear kills these suckers. A friend used it on these guys with absolute great sucess. Also, green spotted mandarins are know to eat flatworms aswell as black leopard wrasse. Here at the store, we keep black leopard wrasses where ever we have a flat worm problem, in less than a day, the flatworms are all gone. But definately try the luvamisol dip to get rid of the AEFW, and if you want in the end to try and keep them out... the black leopard wrasee... every sps tank should have one

-Mike C.