AEFW new info and photos

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=899108&perpage=25&pagenumber=9

In my first test I did not use a pump for circulation and it still killed them so....... who knows? They were falling off the coral before I ever even touched it to remove it. I hate the idea of a FW that eats SPS, LPS whatever....freakin scary! I havent seen any since the first dip(which limits my availability to do tests) but Im still very interested in seeing others results. Many have posted succesful results and I have recd tons of PM's(thank you) about the treatment working for people but I still havent seen any pictures of the fluke tabs in action other than mine.

You also said that you didn't see any eggs but if you can see that many fw's...theres gotta be some eggs. Then again, you could have the species I have been reading about in here that have free swimming larvae so who knows??
Good luck! :)

PS.... the Fluke tabs don't harm snails b/c Ive dipped my stometella army over 6 times with no effects. I also dipped some turbos and hermits and they were fine too. This is very good in my opinion b/c it could eventually lead to an in-tank treatment.
 
Thanks Stoney,

Right now I've got access to tons of AEFW so I'll try the Fluke Tabs again and report back. I'm guessing the eggs are somewhere else in the tank. I read that they don't always lay them on the SPS so this aughtta be real fun. I guess if I can rule out food sources I can eventually starve them out of the display by QTing and dipping all the Acro for a month. Fun Fun...little devils. I would love to find an in-tank treatment but I suspect all the micro-organisms would die as well. Thats something I'm not ready to sacrifice at this point but I could see where one would decide to do that.

Once again..if anyone knows where I can find info on Acro's ability to withstand freshwater dips I would love to know!
 
as far as data on freshwater dip is concerned, I am not aware of specific data as far as how long is safe etc - basically it is a pretty big stress on a coral though - it presents a huge osmotic shift of fluid into the cells and can kill the colony if done too long - you can do it but if too long you risk losing the coral - and also repeated short dips can have the same effect if the coral does not totally recover in between
as far as the intank treatment is concerned, I again totally support that and think it is very important - I have heard way too many things lately that concern me that QT treating is not enough such as: AEFW may lay eggs on non-coral places (rocks etc), the possibility of the AEFW to survive off of the ingested zooxanthellae until acros are reintroduced (who knows how long this can last though), and the free-swimming larvae I witnessed - if those were in your tank you would not remove them obviously when you remove pieces to treat and who knows what their life span is
 
I think he is suggesting it COULD be parasitic to euphillia. I find this pretty interesting/scary and would love to see some pictures with bite marks.

There is a guy in Dallas who advocates using organic tea extracts such as Pimafix and Melefix.

Have you tried any of these Matt?
 
no - have never even heard of them (for this or otherwise) - I'm not sure what is even in them - maybe the teas just make the worms so mellow that they forget to eat the SPS?
 
I am definately not saying they are parasitic to Frogspawn. I just noticed them possibly along for the ride and that there was an unhealthy tissue line where the tissue meets the skeleton and it looked like the same bite marks we see on SPS. I will try and do some tests with the frogspawn isolated with AEFW and see what I can come up with. Pics to follow as soon as I get a camera over there.

Just to update...the 3 slimer frags and the 3 frogspawn frags all look as happy as can be today after enduring a 30 second dip in RO/DI freshwater at room temp without altering the ph. This is now 24 hours after that dip. Once again this dip caused the AEFW to start moving instantly and they fell off, shrivelled up and died at about 20 seconds. Hopefully the corals remain healthy. I am going to continue to slowly test 1 or 2 species of Acro at a time to see how they handle FW dips. Obviously the initial health of the coral and all sorts of other factors will play a huge role in how well they handle FW dips but at least it will be more info than it seems we have now.
 
Any pics barrierreefcf?

Dolt,

Have you been able to wet mount or fix the worms to a slide and send them off to a planariologist?
 
Sorry. I am in the process of opening a new aquarium store, launching an online store, and on top of that my fiance lives 6 hours away in Canada, and we are planning a wedding for Feb 2007, so life is busy. I don't have pics yet but the Frogspawn experiment and pics should get taken care of this week. My business partner reported this morning that all three slimer frags and the frogspawn frags are thriving so apparently the 30 second freshwater dip didn't negatively affect those two species of coral. Only the AEFW died, thank goodness:) I will get exact temp/ph info of the water I used for the dip this week as well. We are still planning to test more species of Acro for how they respond to FW dips but we have so much going on right now its hard to get these experiments underway. I'm trying though.

Should I start a new thread or is it ok to just keep putting the info here??

Thanks for your patience,
Cy
 
barrierreefcf - just put it in here - I think it is best to keep as much info as possible in one place rather than several different threads - it will be easier for people to get more info down the road - after all our goal is to help one another and not get caught up in attitudes etc - I look forward to your info and pics
-servo - still waiting to hear back from Borneman on how to fix them exactly
 
A little update. Went back to the clients where the AEFW were discovered to collect some to experiment with. First I tried getting them off the frogspawn that I was wondering if they were attacking or living on part time. There were none to be found. Then I dipped the Green Slimer colony which I took the infected frags from last week. I also couldn't find any there. I then dipped 3 other small damaged acro colonies including Chip's tricolor, Hoekesemai (spelling?), and one other in FW for a few seconds because this got them moving quickly before and I still couldn't find any?? I know they are still in the tank somewhere. At this point I am inclined to believe they are not associated with the damaged tissue line I found on the frogspawn or you would think the rest of the colony, that shows the same damage, should have some present. Plans are in place to quarentine all his sps in a couple weeks so hopefully I can get my hands on more AEFW to experiment with. I'll keep you posted.
 
I wondered about freshwater dips but ph and temp adjusted however...i think switching to a fw dip with drastically different temp and ph is just plain dumb but to each his own..good idea on fw dip though i am almost positive it will kill the flatworms but the problem being....

WILL IT KILL THE ACRO TOO?

NICE WORK AND WE NEED TO FIND AN AMOUNT OF TIME THAT WILL EFFECTIVELY KILL AEFWS AND NOT ACROS
 
Matt, I posted this same idea in Marc's thread. This may be more difficult for you to do because of the size of your worms, but here is the post

I just had an idea. I came up with this idea in an attempt to possibly find these guys when adding new corals into a tank, but I'm not sure if it will work. It certainly won't work everytime.

First, of all did you pick up the actinic key chain light from Boston Reefers? If so, try to see if the worms will or will not fluoresce. (I have one if you don't.) Since they are eating the zooxanthellae, they may not.

Shine the light at the base of the coral. (The coral has to fluoresce) If the coral fluoresces and the worms do not, it may be a way to see if a coral is infected. You may be able to detect the worms as small patches or even see them move easier. Try it and LMK what happens.

You could always try to use your wood lamp. The only limiting factor is if the coral itself fluoresces.
 
I agree that temp and ph adjusted FW dips would be better but when I did the original dip I was in a bind and the sight of 100+ AEFW for the first time had me not thinking. That said I tested the water I used for the dip. It was a 30 second dip in RO/DI water with a pH of 8.1 and the temp was 68F. At 15 seconds the AEFW were falling off and at 30 seconds you could see them dying and shrinking up into nothing. Like I mentioned before...the three green slimer frags are still doing great. Now on to testing some other corals and the plan is to adjust the temp and ph to match the tank.
 
I feel compelled to share my AEFW-treatment story. :(

A few weeks ago I discovered a few colonies infested with AEFWs and one colony with their eggs on it. A week ago I performed Stony’ Fluke tab procedure. Here’s what I did:

1. Prepared 2 QT 18G Roughneck bins â€"œ one for RB treatment; one for AEFW treatment â€"œ both held exactly 10 gallons each;
2. Had enough 1-day-old salt water to replace 100% of both bins;
3. Removed all across and montis from live rock and started RB treatment â€"œ 30 mins later corals looked fine;
3a. Prepared AEFW treatment bin by dissolving 8 Fluke tabs in it with MJ900 mixing the water;
4. Removed live rock with encrusted coral bases for later “cooking” about 40 #s worth;
6. Treated for AEFWs â€"œ 1 hour later (20 mins longer than outlined by Stoney) corals looked unaffected;
7. Took water samples from both bins for later analysis;
8. Placed all treated colonies into another bin that I cleaned with hot water, wiped and let dry;
9. All corals spent about 30 hours in a QT bin before I started noticing a noxious smell and noticed milky tint to what was crystal clear water just a night before;
10. Pulled several acros out and noticed minor tissue recession â€"œ immediately decided to transfer all colonies back into display tank;
11. Over a three day period out of 11 colonies 8 bleached ghost white, 1 is loosing its battle, 1 still has some polyp extension and last is very light;
11a. As a result of mass bleaching a patch of Pom-Pom xenia began to melt (which I’ve never seen in either of my tanks in three years that I am in this hobby).
12. Following both procedures looked at the water samples from both bins with 30X mag glass and found RBs in both bins (interesting…), and what looked like a slowly settling suspension of micro filaments in AEFW test tube with lots of baby mysis shrimp, copepods and a few alive tiny worms â€"œ the powerhead must have chopped all AEFWs into a paste.
13. The two small colonies of tan and green monti digitatas that I didn’t treat (couldn’t reach them) are 100% unaffected.

I am not blaming anybody. I just don’t know what could’ve gone wrong after the treatment.

Checked the tank’s water today: Alk: 9.6; Ca: 440; Po4: 0.0; No2: 0.0; No3: 0.0; salinity: 1.026; Mg: 1250; Temp: 80.7. Skimmer is still pulling some nasty stuff out, but water looks crystal clear. All fish unaffected, 1 hermit crab dead; 1 gorgonia frag lost its tissue.

The main display still has a trace of the same smell that the QT bin exuded after about 30 hours of QT time.

Arghhhh.
 
Dolt, I too have the same small black ones as you. I have been following this thread because I noticed one of the large AEFW for the first time on a small white spot at the base of a small tri-color. After reading along I saw your description then a pic on marine depots forum and I have them on two other small acro colonies. Have you tried any dips on them- maybe I missedit somewhere in the thread. I was going to try some fluke tab dips on them
 
Well matt, I know that you aren't going to update things here, but I now have these damn things and I am going to use Stoney's Fluke tab treatment, QT everything that I see infected and keep on treating until the coral is dead or the AEFW are. Grrrrrr.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8990287#post8990287 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by argo
I feel compelled to share my AEFW-treatment story. :(

A few weeks ago I discovered a few colonies infested with AEFWs and one colony with their eggs on it. A week ago I performed Stony’ Fluke tab procedure. Here’s what I did:

1. Prepared 2 QT 18G Roughneck bins â€"œ one for RB treatment; one for AEFW treatment â€"œ both held exactly 10 gallons each;
2. Had enough 1-day-old salt water to replace 100% of both bins;
3. Removed all across and montis from live rock and started RB treatment â€"œ 30 mins later corals looked fine;
3a. Prepared AEFW treatment bin by dissolving 8 Fluke tabs in it with MJ900 mixing the water;
4. Removed live rock with encrusted coral bases for later “cooking” about 40 #s worth;
6. Treated for AEFWs â€"œ 1 hour later (20 mins longer than outlined by Stoney) corals looked unaffected;
7. Took water samples from both bins for later analysis;
8. Placed all treated colonies into another bin that I cleaned with hot water, wiped and let dry;
9. All corals spent about 30 hours in a QT bin before I started noticing a noxious smell and noticed milky tint to what was crystal clear water just a night before;
10. Pulled several acros out and noticed minor tissue recession â€"œ immediately decided to transfer all colonies back into display tank;
11. Over a three day period out of 11 colonies 8 bleached ghost white, 1 is loosing its battle, 1 still has some polyp extension and last is very light;
11a. As a result of mass bleaching a patch of Pom-Pom xenia began to melt (which I’ve never seen in either of my tanks in three years that I am in this hobby).
12. Following both procedures looked at the water samples from both bins with 30X mag glass and found RBs in both bins (interesting…), and what looked like a slowly settling suspension of micro filaments in AEFW test tube with lots of baby mysis shrimp, copepods and a few alive tiny worms â€"œ the powerhead must have chopped all AEFWs into a paste.
13. The two small colonies of tan and green monti digitatas that I didn’t treat (couldn’t reach them) are 100% unaffected.

I am not blaming anybody. I just don’t know what could’ve gone wrong after the treatment.

Checked the tank’s water today: Alk: 9.6; Ca: 440; Po4: 0.0; No2: 0.0; No3: 0.0; salinity: 1.026; Mg: 1250; Temp: 80.7. Skimmer is still pulling some nasty stuff out, but water looks crystal clear. All fish unaffected, 1 hermit crab dead; 1 gorgonia frag lost its tissue.

The main display still has a trace of the same smell that the QT bin exuded after about 30 hours of QT time.

Arghhhh.
Click to expand...

This is not "Stoney's" treatment method.... The best way to do this is to dip with Flike tabs and return corals to a stable environment. I had no RTN issues when I did his method to the letter. Several people have had events like yours when they did not keep the corals in a well established QT system immediately after the FT treatment.
 
Has anybody made a dip out of hyrdogen peroxide? I dunno how long of an life it has in saltwater, or it will harm corals but worth a shot. Maybe a level that won't kill the coral and will with the flatworms.
Does anybody want to test it? I can't as i dont have AEFW that i know of. Knock on wood, But i would like to see an effective dip as i see it being a problem.
 
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