AEFW: In-Tank Whoopin

[Tyreef]

Potion Prep - Mixed up gently packed-and-leveled 1tsp of Phohibit (Levamisole Hydrochloride) in a 500ml water bottle filled to the top with RO.
Dosed 1.5 ml per gallon of water volume (200ml in my 120 - guessed about 100G of water volume) of the potion. If you have 100G of water volume why did you dose 200ml? 1.5ml per gallon x 100g is 150ml where did you get 200 ml from?

 

[jda]

I am not sure if that is a typo or if I really did dose 200ml. That is a good question - I will need to take it up with my QC department. You can dose quite a bit more than the 1.5ml per gallon and have stuff live.

I have no idea how this compares to other doses. I don't have a gram scale and I was never quite sure of which product these people were using and if the purity levels were accurate.

 

[ormet]

I am now on hour 7 of above described treatment using Prohibit Levamisole HCL.

I have dosed 1.5ml per gallon. A lightly packed teaspoon, 5ml, weigh just under 4 grams according to my scales. A touch more packing and it would stay right on 4g.

All my brittle stars seems to have died. AEFW came off easy with basting.

 

[dadummy]

thanks Ormet keep us posted on the progress

 

[Elibeans]

Anything to report Ormet?

 

[ormet]

I just woke up Its 9:00 am here and lights just went on.

Everything looks fine except for the brittle stars that all have died. I tried to feed the fish yesterday 7:30 pm and they would not eat. My YT has been _very_ skittish.

Gonna take a small powerhead to the acros now.

 

[jda]

Anecdotally, please let us know how long before the fish are somewhat back to normal.

 

[scoly]

Tagging along

 

[ormet]

jda: 30 mins after i started the skimmer and reactor with active carbon (fast working kind idk its correct name in english) the YT started to graze on rocks, i fed the tank and everyone ate with gusto.

I have also seen live brittle stars so it seems they didn't die but got knocked out for awhile.

Tank looks normal. I had really really hoped for some colonies to show some more PE as you, jda, report in your log that your Oregon Tort quickly showed signs of improvement.

I have a detailed log, unfortunately its in swedish

Inhabitants:
2 bangai, male is holding eggs
1 YT
1 fm picturatus dragonet
1 small wrasse
1 small goby
2 maxima clams
some snails
1 cleaner shrimp
a few acro crabs
lots of Acropora, including some deep water type, dragons and others.
lots of Acanthastrea
some other SPS
brittle stars
Red planaria
AEFW

I have not seen any planaria since dosing, but i don't always do.
AEFW was clearly affected as were Brittle stars.
Acros did react at first with mesenterial filaments.
Fish refused to eat but have since then recovered and i feel everything is back to normal.

 

[jda]

So 24 hours with the med in the tank along with good flow in the colonies where the worms would hunker down?

 

[msderganc]

jda: 30 mins after i started the skimmer and reactor with active carbon (fast working kind idk its correct name in english) the YT started to graze on rocks, i fed the tank and everyone ate with gusto.

I have also seen live brittle stars so it seems they didn't die but got knocked out for awhile.

Tank looks normal. I had really really hoped for some colonies to show some more PE as you, jda, report in your log that your Oregon Tort quickly showed signs of improvement.

I have a detailed log, unfortunately its in swedish

Inhabitants:
2 bangai, male is holding eggs
1 YT
1 fm picturatus dragonet
1 small wrasse
1 small goby
2 maxima clams
some snails
1 cleaner shrimp
a few acro crabs
lots of Acropora, including some deep water type, dragons and others.
lots of Acanthastrea
some other SPS
brittle stars
Red planaria
AEFW

I have not seen any planaria since dosing, but i don't always do.
AEFW was clearly affected as were Brittle stars.
Acros did react at first with mesenterial filaments.
Fish refused to eat but have since then recovered and i feel everything is back to normal.

Did your pH drop with the skimmer off? Maybe they were stressed due to low oxygenation?

 

[ormet]

So 24 hours with the med in the tank along with good flow in the colonies where the worms would hunker down?

22 hours was all i managed before i had to start skimmer and GAC.

As good flow as possible from 2 Tunze 6095 without sand going everywhere. (my tank is 60-65g something).
Turkey based after 2 hours. Took a powerhead to the colonies after 18 hours.

Did your pH drop with the skimmer off? Maybe they were stressed due to low oxygenation?

I dont monitor pH nor do i measure oxygenation. I had an airstone running in the sump but its not much compared to my Vertex Omega 150 in terms of oxygenating.

Ive had my skimmer offline for equally long periods without the YT and other fish refusing to feed.

Basically, i have no idea what made the fish refuse to eat but it did also happen to jda if i read his log correctly.

 

[jda]

The same meds on a FO system did nothing to the fish. It was not my system, but a LFS employee treated a FO system in KC to see if the med would work for flukes - the med was in there for days before the put any carbon on. The fish never even noticed.

My supposition is that like regular red planaria, the worms give off something in their slime that can be toxic. In the case of AEFW, there are not enough to do any damage. In the case of typical red planaria, there can be tens of thousands of them and you need to get the carbon in the tank as soon as possible. I think that with a pair of 6105s vigorously agitating the surface of my tank, there should have been more than enough oxygen. Of course, my supposition is worth nothing.

Some of my fish were interested in eating, but not really going after it. They did hide more. They quickly rebounded, like Ormet's did.

 

[jda]

I am also interested to see if you have complete kill after the first treatment with vigorous flow to try and remove the slime. I did not come up with my slime supposition by then and I have a few bigger ones survive until the next treatment.

 

[xtlosx]

This is an amazing thread if it works and completely removes these evil things. I recently found two frags that had AEFW (randomly just by seeing bite marks), and I tossed them completely. I have since dipped a bunch more, and found nothing, no bite marks, no color issues, nothing, so I'm hoping I dodged a bullet and got them before they spread.

Otherwise if that isn't the case... I'm following along, very closely.

 

[BrentH]

Great thread! I to have had aefw for 2 years they dont kill my colonys but do stress them. !

 

[ormet]

The same meds on a FO system did nothing to the fish. It was not my system, but a LFS employee treated a FO system in KC to see if the med would work for flukes - the med was in there for days before the put any carbon on. The fish never even noticed.

In 2003 i treated my fresh water tank with Levamisole for Camallanus. I have no recollection of it affecting the fish.

I am also interested to see if you have complete kill after the first treatment with vigorous flow to try and remove the slime. I did not come up with my slime supposition by then and I have a few bigger ones survive until the next treatment.

Well thats the thing isn't it .... who knows and how to make sure? I will do 2 more treatments just to make sure.

Since it seems to kill the eggs and a mature AEFW don't live that very long anyways (i think i have read 2-3 weeks after laying eggs?), 4 treatments 1 week apart would pretty much guarantee eradication. And 3 treatments would give a high probability.

But thats a lot of assumptions going on. Hopefully Tektite will be done with her research soon and we will get AEFW life cycle data.

 

[trueblackpercula]

This is an outstanding thread five stars, it's about time that someone has finally had the guys to do a in tank treatment. Thank you for all you help, I do have a question, in tanks that are heavily infected with aefw should the dose be lower? Just asking. I don't have them but I try an learn as much as possable when it comes to reef keeping.

 

[jda]

In the 4 hour treatment thread, some of the people could still turkey baste AEFW off of their acros a day or two after treatment. If yours are clean in a few days, then this is a really good sign.

tbp: there were successes in the other thread posted on page one. It needs to be read with soft eyes, though, and filter out the noise of supposition without experience (watchers/lurkers), utter lack of control or basis (which we all have to some degree in our homes) and other banter and results that could not be somewhat qualified/quantified. I PM'd a few of them to ask some questions and the quality of the reefer really stood out in the response, at least on paper, and some of them were really helpful - I know that this sounds harsh, but it is a reality that we live in where not everybody is as talented or helpful as others, but most mean well and have equal posting ability on a message board. Most of the failures with dead fish and stuff were in conjunction with organic carbon dosing and a supposed lack of oxygen... but not all, so this was tough to weigh.

Here was my bottom line with the failures... this is the same med that is in FWE that is quite safe when used appropriately by a detail oriented reefer, but can be no bueno when used wrong. The coral and fish losses from that thread were about in line with the "this stuff crashed my tank" posts/treads from MBE treatments for red bugs of FWE treatments... so I decided to give it a try since I have seen both MBE and FWE work great if done right. Heck - we get threads on here about Instant Ocean or some other salt crashing a tank, so not all failures are direct... but knowing which are direct is quite hard.

The only thing that was missing was how they were still alive after 4 hours. About a month later, I was talking with one of my friends and he said that all of his died after his last FWE treatment for typical red planaria where he left it in the tank for more than a day... so the "longer time" theory came about.

Lastly, I went into this thinking that the acros in this satellite tank were dead anyway, so what is the risk?

All of this put together is why I only gave my experiences and notes and not a formula or instructions. My hopes were that a talented reefer could do their own research, read between the lines of other threads, decide what will work for them and then execute it if they could handle the risk. As far as I am concerned, this type of treatment is a LONG WAY from being able to be given as fail-safe instructions.

As for the dose, it needs to be strong enough to kill the AEFW, but not too strong to kill the tank. I wish that I knew the idea dose, but weaker took longer to kill them in my mixing bowls... which was not too scientific.

 

[xtlosx]

Is it naive to have found one frag with AEFW, and just removed it hoping it doesn't spread to others? I've dipped others, observed, and seen nothing..... I'm hoping that I am not dealing with a full scale breakout of AEFW.

Also not sure how they got past Bayer dipping, which everything entering my tank goes through, unless they came in as eggs.