Acro Eating Flatworms in a Bowl: Test Time!

[TA]

Originally posted by Kent E
Ta,
I don't have any crabs, I had shrimp and they were stunned from interceptor but soon recovered. Run carbon later and all should be fine, not the crabs though.

Thank YOU Kent E.

[Travis]

Originally posted by Sparkss

3) Turn off UV, ozone and remove activated carbon. Keep the skimmer turned on.

This did not say anything about leaving the water running through the skimmer but disable all skimming functions. Towards the bottom of the pamphlet it states this :

- After an hour or so you can turn any UV or ozone on again..

Again, nothing about re-enabling the skimmer, etc.

Someone could check with Habib on this. I don't know what the active ingredient is in FWE, but it could be that it is not removed from water via foam fractionation. If that is the case, it would probably be best to leave the skimmer running to provide air exchange. This may help with the reports of "gasping" fish.

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by Kent E
It seems as though no one really knows the chemestry behind fluke tabs. If it was certain that carbon removed it, and we didn't have a sandbed, we could dose in low levels and then remove it with large quanties of carbon before mass deaths occured across many species.

I saw in a search that a guy had some rtn but he too left it in the system for days. Has anyone used this tank-wide and then removed it?

I also heard the same thing about what happens when FWE is left in tank for days, the RTN I mean. I wish I could recall the thread I saw that in. It was an AEFW thread that I participated in (not like that narrows it down any )

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by Travis
Someone could check with Habib on this. I don't know what the active ingredient is in FWE, but it could be that it is not removed from water via foam fractionation. If that is the case, it would probably be best to leave the skimmer running to provide air exchange. This may help with the reports of "gasping" fish.

We had gone over 4X treatment (barely over) and do have 3 large fish (Kole and Purple tang and a Foxface). The only mild distress was the Foxface, but then again anytime I do any work around the tank he goes into distress, so it was hard to tell if this was a reaction to the FWE. We did leave the skimmer running, and it is way oversized for our tank, so it would have/could have greatly aided in the gas exchange. Maybe this is why we didn't experience the labored breathing in our fish to the extent that Bigred and Weatherson did. I really am only guessing here though.

I will post the question to Habib about the skimmer during an FWE treatment and relay the response here.

[weatherson]

Following the FWE instructions, I left my skimmer up and running during all the treatments. It wasn't until the 2-bottle and greater treatments that the fish reacted in the negative way mentioned. And... my skimmer is extremely efficient.

[Sparkss]

I think Steve commented that he had turned his skimmer off during the treatments, which is what started this whole converstaion

I also left ours running, but goofed this last treatment and forgot to turn off the ozone until about half way through when I realized my mistake *sigh*.

[Sparkss]

Here is the response from Habib over at Salifert about the "skimmer question" :

Originally posted by Habib
3) Turn off UV, ozone and remove activated carbon. Keep the skimmer turned on.


The skimmer should not be turned off. The last sentence of that line emphasizes it.


The active ingredient(s) are removed by skimming but is not problematic. It is of more importance to use various means to lower the toxins released by the flatworms. A skimmer is one of them.

A nano (or a bowl) will normally not have a skimmer but in such small systems it is much easier to remove the dead flatworms and do a water change.

Here is from another post of his in response to a question about FWE resistant FWs. I think someone here had asked a similar question so I thought to post it also. Habib started out by answering yes, then the rest of his response is below :

Originally posted by Habib
however it would require several treatments being unsuccessful on the same flatworm.

It is also not unlikely (but there are no real data) that a resistant flatworm could produce a generation which is not resistant.

Also, the ingredioent(s) have to be taken up and it is possible that in some cases in some of the aquarium water there is "stuff" which prevents partly or fully the uptake of the FW by the FW.

Such a situation can be misinterpreted as the FW being resistant.

I therefore suggest in such cases to take water change water which was never used and put that in a jar and add some flatworms to it. To this the FWE can be dosed and mixed, if the FW dies then it was not resistant.

[blue7]

I just did my own test with FWE on those pests AEFW. I added 10 drops of FWE to a three cup container and added the affected sps. The FWE only loose the AEFW but did not kill after 1 hour of treatments. It only killed the pods, starfish, bristle worm, and the micro stars.

If anyone whom is planning to add an overdose of FEW to the reef tank, I would caution that it will kill your other bugs that are good for the reef tank.

Don't take my words for it; complete your own test before trying it on the whole reef tank.

[blue7]

I just did my own test with FWE on those pests AEFW. I added 10 drops of FWE to a three cup container and added the affected sps. The FWE only loose the AEFW but did not kill after 1 hour of treatments. It only killed the pods, starfish, bristle worm, and the micro stars.

If anyone whom is planning to add an overdose of FEW to the reef tank, I would caution that it will kill your other bugs that are good for the reef tank.

Don't take my words for it; complete your own test before trying it on the whole reef tank.

[blue7]

Sorry for the double post.

[weatherson]

I have pods after the four treatments. The tiny starfish were stunned but recovered after the carbon and water changes. While this heavy dose treatment may kill some wanted small critters, as unfortunate as this is, the additional killing of AEFW is worth the sacrifice, in my opinion. These wanted critters can rejuvenate in my tank whether through re-population of the remaining or through reintroduction on my part, just as they did from the tank's inception.

Also, keep in mind that 10 drops/3 cups of water is considerable more than the ~3 - 4 drops/gallon we are doing.

[Bigred]

I still have pods after 2 treatment and like Weatherson said it only stuns the tiny brittle stars until they get eaten by my wrasses but FWE doesn't kill them. As for Bristleworms I have seen them float around the tank after a treatment.

[Sparkss]

Ditto to what Steve and Joseph reported. Pod were fine, tiny brittle stars stunned, but recovered. Bristleworms.. some smaller ones affected, but no major die off at all, still plenty running around after lights out that night when I fed the corals. And as for killing starfish, our formia has been through multiple treatments and appears to be none the worse for wear.

[Dog boy Dave]

Great thread, Just tagging

[Bigred]

Well so far no more have shown up but I'm still going to do the last 2 treatments just in case I have a few straggles roaming around or eggs that haven't hatched yet.

[Sparkss]

We appreciate the accolades, but pls don't post just to let everyone know that you are "tagging along". All it does it spam everyone's Inbox unnecessarily (for those that are subscribed to this thread). Thanks


As for the AEFW battles :

Did our third treatment today. Started off with 4x (turned off ozone and removed all carbon). Waited 30 minutes and saw no major signs of distress from coral or fish and added another 2X dosage (for a total of 6X). Let this sit for a another 2 1/2 hours before starting up the canister filter with carbon, replacing the "in stream" carbon in the sump, re-enabling ozone, doing a small water change, and replacing the filter sock. Saw some large bristleworms laying about stunned. I removed the ones I could easily get to and the rest eventually recovered and moved on.

I didn't notice any AEFWs before, during or after the treatment. During the treatment I used a turkey baster to blast the medicine into the nooks and crannies and dead spot in the tank.


Has anyone seen the AEFWs migrating from one system to another through a shared sump ? I know that the LRBs did, but don't recall reading that the AEFWs would make that "journey".

[johnvu713]

Tagging along
i found this thread and wonder if this is the same FW everyone's talking about. According to WWM these are harmless.

Amphiscolops sp

[one eye]

yes, they have been seen to migrate through shared sumps.

[imbuggin]

Originally posted by johnvu713
Tagging along
i found this thread and wonder if this is the same FW everyone's talking about. According to WWM these are harmless.

Amphiscolops sp

no read the thread

I think I may have beat them. I have not seen signs of them for months and my corals are growing over the previously infected spots. I did all this before people started using FWE at high doses. I pulled everything out of the tank. Tossed 7 years of growth of corals scrubbed everything (all rocks out of my 300 gallon included it took 40+hours) left only encrusted flat spots of sps after ripping off corals. I added lots of wrasses and blast my corals twice a weeks with a turkey baster and tunze at 100%. months later colors are coming back and corals are growing. I think I will do a FWE treatment or 2 for extra safety. I also have not seen any eggs in months. My fingers are crossed at this point, but I am winning finally

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by johnvu713
Tagging along
i found this thread and wonder if this is the same FW everyone's talking about. According to WWM these are harmless.

Amphiscolops sp

Please post responsibily and read the entire thread before posting a response. Thank you.

[Bigred]

Well found some more of the bastards tonight. Well atleast I had it planned to do a treatment tomorrow. I'm thinking that the treatments might need to be closer together then a week apart. I don't see any AEFW's for 5-6 days and then they pop up like they've been there the whole time. I found one huge one and about 15-20 small/tiny ones. So it looks like one made it threw the last treatment and the rest are from a hatch. So time to bump up the dose. Going from 3.5 bottles last treatment to 4-5 bottles this time. Well see how everything acts depending on the dose.

[clkwrk]

Then maybe I am in the clear . I have yet to see any and I am looking and blowingmy corals off in front of the streams .

fingers crossed

edit:

BTW I have never found any eggs ever and I have inspected all my corals more than once . Maybe I caught it early .

Fingers still crossed

[Sparkss]

Steve,

We went for 3 total bottles for 150 gallons total water volume (roughly 6X), for 3+ hours this last time. That was 3 days ago and everything seems fine in our tank(s) (prop and display). To be honest I have not seen evidence of AEFWs since after the first treatment, but would rather be safe than sorry... I also never found any eggs, similar to what clkwrk reported.

[loc01]

Any negative effect toward the corals and inverts when dosing that heavy?

Thanks,
Loc

[mjcarl]

Originally posted by clkwrk
BTW I have never found any eggs ever and I have inspected all my corals more than once . Maybe I caught it early .

I believe there are a few different species that we are dealing w/. The flatworm I dealt w/ never laid eggs and didn't do near the damage the clear flatworm that lays eggs does. It also had a different shape. So if there could be different species, they could react differently to treatments. Just a thought.

Mitch