AEFW new info and photos

i am using tropic marin pro coral cure.the two corals i lost to the dip were a ORA purple plasma and a coral that resembled a chips acro.both of these really did not look so bad before i dipped them but they did not have good PE as usual.after the dip they RTNed within minutes.everything i dipped last night look fine today except for those.Today i will dip the big validia.it has some bite marks on it that i can see are getting worse,then i may take a break and see what happens.
 
That's a bummer, Dan. Hope everything turns out well. If you need help with anything, let me know. I'm only about 1/2 hr away.
 
To be successful with eradication, a person really needs to remove all acros from the display for a 4 week period and treat them weekly in a quarantine tank. If that is not possible, then I would suggest at least dipping all acros at the same time before returning them to the display. If you leave one acro in the display to dip the next day, there could be FW's on it that could move to another acro before you dip that acro. So you never really erradicate them from the tank and end up fighting an ongoing battle.
 
thanks capt i will let you know if i can use some help.i appreciate the offer.Travis i was going to go that route but i got some advice from a few people that said it would be bad to do so many and such large colonies all in one day.they said it could prove to be a complete tank meltdown.The advise came from the director of live aquaria (Kevin Kohen) and our own Melev.they both gave the same advise practically and said to do the colonies that looked the worse and proceed with caution.Before i dipped all my sps looked pretty good with only a couple having the tell tale bite marks and even those had real good color.The thing that made me want to approach it agressively was the thin line of recession on just about 80 percent of the acros in the tank.It was also suggested that the recession could have been caused from a alk shift that occured when i changed my reactor media as it took me a week or so to get it dialed back in.well at this point i dipped all but about 15 of the 40 acroporas in the display in the last three days and i am quitting there for at least a week.next weekend if things still keep getting worse i will probably do a dip on all in one day like originally planned and you suggest.
 
here is the validia on a TV tray so you can see what i am dealing with here.

table.jpg
 
That is understandable. I can see the reasoning as using the first dip as a trial to see how the acros react. Certainly wouldn't want to find out the corals couldn't handle the dip after killing them all first. I agree about the alk swing. Alk seems to be the most sensitive parameter for sps. Any drastic swings and you WILL see signs of it. Usually the signs are a slow STN from the base. Sometimes the STN won't even occur until several days after the alk has restabilized. Usually the STN stops shortly after things have stabilized again. The effect of the alk swing could have been more drastic if the corals were already stressed by AEFW's. Good luck on your subsequent dips.
 
thanks Travis,you sound like you are reading from the same book as the other experts i spoke to.Kevin said it could take a week or two for the stn to start after the alk swing and this is what seems to have happened.when i dipped the acros that had no other signs other than the thin line of recession,i did not find a single flatworm so i am really wondering if the recession was a result of the flatworms or other factors such as the alk swing.i only really found aefw on about three of all the corals i dipped.only time will tell i guess.
 
I hope this is not a false sence of security,but everything looks good today.good PE and i think the advancing recession has stopped.the last two days i have not notived any new recession.
 
Dan - best of luck on the battle. I don't know if I got rid of all of mine but I dipped in fluketabs and Revive and Qted the worst of them. I Qted for about 10days and lost some corals in the process, so far no signs after 2+ months. I also think the natural predators and turkey basting helped. I even think adding a bunch of small blue leg hermits helped. I ended up busting up a large nana that was encrusted on a huge rock. Going forward I'm pegging all my acros'
 
Thanks man,good luck to you also.fingers crossed.i really cant tell you guys how much the encouragement and advise has helped.when stuff started going bad i was so paniced and distressed that i could not even think straight.And to think i am the guy that is usually asked to give the advise.what predators have you added that you feel has helped.
 
I'm sure this has been addressed, but how hard is to see AEFWs with the naked eye, I picked up a Deep Water acro and it has some very odd patterns of tissue rescission. They are perfect little circles. I've inspected, and inspected but I can't find any sign of AEFWS on the piece though..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13086323#post13086323 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MammothReefer
I'm sure this has been addressed, but how hard is to see AEFWs with the naked eye, I picked up a Deep Water acro and it has some very odd patterns of tissue rescission. They are perfect little circles. I've inspected, and inspected but I can't find any sign of AEFWS on the piece though..

IMO; just about impossible while in the tank. Even when out of the tank its almost imposible, unless you know what you are looking for as they blend in with the coral skin. The circular bite marks are usually a sure sign you have them.
 
Last edited:
they are near impossible to see .the way we are finding them is to dip the suspected coral in TMPCC,fluke tabs or revive coral dip and turkey baste the coral to see if any fly off.I use a pair of 3X magnification glasses to inspect the coral as i am basting .also the eggs are more visable at times and appear to be small clusters of orange to brown eggs at the point of the recession.the bite marks appear to be as you describe with the with round or oval spots and the tissue removed right to the skelton.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13086290#post13086290 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rigleautomotive
Thanks man,good luck to you also.fingers crossed.i really cant tell you guys how much the encouragement and advise has helped.when stuff started going bad i was so paniced and distressed that i could not even think straight.And to think i am the guy that is usually asked to give the advise.what predators have you added that you feel has helped.

I added a yellow wrasse, he was doing great but mysteriously disappeared (may have jumped but never found him). I actually added a couple wrasses another small pair of yellows never made it and my six line killed a Christmas wrasse. I plan on picking a couple more up and giving them another try.

I have a couple pictures of a coral recovering here
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1443621

and there are a bunch more, including what I did, on my build log
 
hmm.how fast do they spread? I've had these piece in my tank for less then a week, i'll do another tmpcc dip tonight i don't recall seeing anything out of the ordinary the first time around.
 
not real fast.it can take weeks and maybe months before you see other acroporas with the signs.poor PE ,loss of color , bite marks and recession.hopefully you dont have them and you are just being careful.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13087562#post13087562 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MammothReefer
hmm.. well I guess i'll pull it and put it in another tank for now and see what happens.

that could cause undo and extra stress depending on how close the other tanks parameters are your main. I'd pull it out and dip it in something known to knock down the AEFW's (eg; lougals, fluketabs, ReVive, TMCC, etc). While it's in the dip, hit it with a blast of tank water using a turkey blaster and closely inspect for AEFW's breaking loose. The AEFW's will look like oatmeal flakes and can be about 3/8" long as adults (and as small as 1/16"if juvi's). Then inspect all around the base of the coral real close for eggs. Use some reading glasses or a magnifying lens and look for small round orange/brown balls, if you see any, scrape them off. If the coral has places that you can't see or get to, then consider isolating it in another tank and repeat every few days until it is clear of the AEFW's. Good luck and HTH
 
So I dipped it in a INSANELY HIGH DOSE of TMPCC (lol the water was pretty much red), and a few flat worms did indeed come off this piece.. 2 from what I could tell 1 was much bigger then the other (1/4"), and they don't look anything like the FW's in any of the photos I've seen. They look like Clear Red Plana. I basically had 2 cups of SW one with TMPCC and one that was clean. I would leave it in the TMPCC swish it, then dunk it in the other and swish it. I left it in there for about 15 mins.. After nothing more came off I inspected (didn't find anything) and put the piece in my frag tank / holding tank (it's plumbing into my main, but goes threw a filter sock ect before it makes it back into the sump. I've checked all over my other pieces and all that normally seems healthy is healthy.. (including my multiple validas and milliporas).. I wanted to take some photos of these flat worms as they looked much different then those in these threads.... ....but they melted by the time I got around to it..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13092792#post13092792 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MammothReefer
So I dipped it in a INSANELY HIGH DOSE of TMPCC (lol the water was pretty much red), and a few flat worms did indeed come off this piece.. 2 from what I could tell 1 was much bigger then the other (1/4"), and they don't look anything like the FW's in any of the photos I've seen. They look like Clear Red Plana. I basically had 2 cups of SW one with TMPCC and one that was clean. I would leave it in the TMPCC swish it, then dunk it in the other and swish it. I left it in there for about 15 mins.. After nothing more came off I inspected (didn't find anything) and put the piece in my frag tank / holding tank (it's plumbing into my main, but goes threw a filter sock ect before it makes it back into the sump. I've checked all over my other pieces and all that normally seems healthy is healthy.. (including my multiple validas and milliporas).. I wanted to take some photos of these flat worms as they looked much different then those in these threads.... ....but they melted by the time I got around to it..

sounds good - did you see the pictures of the ones I had? sorry - I can't post from here, but they are on my build log - they were rather clear but had some brownish coloring in the center
 
Back
Top