AEFW new info and photos

Those little S*&^s went flying everywhere when they were placed in a 5 gallon bucket with Fluke tabs. This morning all the polyps appear extended. I'm going to wait another 2 weeks for the eggs to ripen and then dip again.

I have a tort colony whose branches are thicker than my thumb and is about 14 inches tall. Unfortunately, when I get home from work, I'm going to pull it out and dip it as there are patches on the base that are receeding. The good thing is that the fluke tabs knock the AEFW senseless. They fall right off. Serial baths could get me out of this. The only problem is taking out the corals that are encrusted to the rock. Each piece of rock in my tank is at least a 40 pounder.


So far so good:)
 
Please keep us posted and for the long run also...many have tried but have not reported back...and never do they tell us if they came back or still gone after 6 months.


thanks,

Grant
 
I've been doing this hobby for about a decade and I have too much cash tied up in a 400 gallon tank for me to walk away. I will let everyone know what happens, but I'll tell you what, this stuff really knocks the S*&$ out of them.
 
It is a slow process, but momentum is on their side. The problem is, a coral that might look OK, actually can have a ton of them imbedded in the tissue. Once you treat, you can see about 2/3 of the coral dead.

So far so good for me. I have about 2/3 of the tank treated, and for the most part I have only had a few colonies with eggs that I have used dental tools to scrape off. I'll see what happens. THe fluke tabs to date have been VERY gentle on my Acros. I have yet to lose any. (s/p day 1 and 2) and all my polyps are open. I'll try to post pictures, but they may come at a later date. I have a lot going on.:confused:

The fluke tabs (providing I irradicate this) may be a great treatment if you

1) dip each coral in 5 or 2.5 gallons with 4 or 2 tabs.
2) blow the corals off with a Turkey baster
3) Transfer the corals into a clean SW bucket and re baste
4) Transfer them into a stable QT tank.

I'll let you know what happens to me. It looks like I will not be losing some of my babies! In the future, if I get any more acros I'll be dipping them in Fluke Tabs prior to going into my QT tank.
 
Sorry to hear you've got them too Servo. I think every sps keeper will deal with them at some point. Please keep us updated on how the fluke tabs work for you.
 
Will do, So far so good! I'll post pictures once I can get the time. The corals in the QT tank look good, even the most devestated corals. It is good to have a fresh tank to prevent any algae from forming on the dead spots. I'm only dreading the pending diatom bloom.

One thing that I can say is that these things a very mobile. I haven't added anything to my system in months, but I have placed frags in my frag tank. Some have looked rather suspicious but I thought it could be a temperature swing issue given that I don't monitor it in the frag tank. I think that this confirms Dolt's observations in this thread. This is scary, but others have beat this, and I'm out to as well. You really need to have a spare system set up to deal with this.
 
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Why cant you just treat the entire tank? Handle it like treating red bugs? I would never be able to remove all corals. I would feel better knowing that the system was treated.
 
Too many people have wiped out their whole tanks trying a in tank treatment. As of now, there is no other way. Trust me, for me to pull out my Acros is no easy task. Here is 1/2 the tank. I'm not willing to accept the other possible outcome.

P1220029.jpg
 
Wow, nice blue tort colony! IME and IMO, I think the AEFW's are somewhat "opportunistic". They might lay dormant for a while until something changes in the system and the corals become even remotely stressed and this allows their population to explode. IIRC, I hadn't added anything new to my system for close to a year before I noticed my outbreak. And my outbread was BAD!
 
Well I have just about treated every coral in my tank. I have a few more to chisle/cut out. I am trying to figure out what to do with the encrusting plating Acropora that remains on the rock. I have worked so hard that I don't want to gamble and leave it as is. The remaining corals are kinda a PITA to get out.

So, for those unlucky enough to get infected, how many people noticed their Torts affected?

How many weeks in a row should I treat? I've gone through 2 boxes fluke tabs so far and about 80 gallons of salt water.

:mad:

THe good news, is I have yet to lose a single coral after the dips!:D
 
Well here are some pictures. To give you an idea, this is a coral that was most affected. Unknown Marshall Island Acro. Here is a macro shot to give you an idea about what it looked like prior to the infection, the second picture is the coral at its maximum infectionand the first dip. Look closely in the bucket and you can see the dead worms lying on the bottom of the bucket. Hee he he eh he:badgrin:

IMG_8366.jpg


P4150405.jpg


P4150406.jpg


Things are going well for me as of now! Still no losses. I'm going to start the second round of dipping this Sunday.

Here they are, post dip sitting on one of the QT tanks.

P4160431.jpg
 
Well, I'm a member of the club.

After not adding anything for over a year, and suffering some alk fluctuation due to a string of calrx issues, I have had a hard time getting a few colonies to stabilize. one suffered pretty advances stn. I figured it was all fallout from the alk issues, but decided to dip one to be sure, and I had fw come off in the bucket. All small ones - maybe one mm.

ANyway, I ordered the fluke tabs and am going to start pulling colonies. I only have 4 colonies that seem to be struggling, although I have lost 4 valida/tri-color colonies over the fast few months and apparently that's their favorite.

4 tabs for 5 gallons? Is that the right dose? How long of a dip?
 
4/5 or alternatively 2/2.5 gallons if you want to save fluke tabs and water/salt. This works really well if you can get your corals into a bucket 1/2 filled. I obviously couldn't with my Tort colony, but 1/2 a gallon is convenient for repeat dipping.

You should dip for 20 minutes.

Keep us posted and really look for eggs. I only had two colonies with eggs. One I tossed and teh other I've tried to manually remove. No losses due to the Fluke tabs.:)

Still observing the main display:mad:
 
ok, got the fluke tabs and started dipping.

Absolutely amazing and disgusting how many were on a big tabling milli, this coral was losing color/pe for months and was the reason I decided to dip test.

Holy cow. Hundreds of the nasties came off and I believe every single one died during the dip. I was watching them with a glass during the 20 minutes, and they were adherent and motile at first, but by the end had turned frilly at the edges and blew around easily.

Now I'm decimating the tank, pulling anything thats had any weirdness at all in the past. At least a few aefw have come off each colony.

I'm gonna have lots of frags, but I'm cool with that. I just want to nuke the little monsters.
 
SERVO, you're spot one saying that the corals can look ok, but have a lot of aefw on them. One you dip, you can see that much of the coral is already dead/receded. I'd bet that a huge percentage of sps in the hobby have these things and the owners dont even know it.

All I can say, is if any of you reefers put a coral in your tank without dipping first, you're nuts.

It's really easy and cheap to dip. Do it.
 
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I couldn't agree with you more. Too bad I found out the hard way. I'm doing my second round of dipping now!
 
Servo let us know how it goes.

What i find messed up reading this tread is the fact that some people have flatworms one day and then a week later cant find them?
Also people wont add a thing for months and then come up with the worms?

I just went through bugs and i have one acro that went absolutly beautiful after getting the bugs treated, now its lookin bad. I dipped it yesterday thinking the worst and found nothing, this colony is in a bare tank already with a christmass wrasse. so if they jump off the coral its bye bye time, this wrasse is a skilled hunter and violent to say the least when it comes to his food.

I used Seachem coral disinfectant and lugols in the same dish and i had wayyy to much of each in there. Is it possible that i roached the flats into nothingness with the overdip? Im almost one hundred percent sure i killed the acro, i blasted it and color blew off, it cant be good altho there is some PE in areas. Needless to say i spent all night reading and i really dont feel like im getting anywhere, im ready to just toss the coral out and i did not find anything, as well as any coral that shows any signs of stress, i cant hardly justify the headache...

I thought i knew what i was lookin for with the classic bitemarks but with these little bastards at the base, i dont see them making the classic bitemarks on the stalks.

One other thing.
I have the base of a colony i fragged up before i realized what was messin it up (bugs) and its really doing great. I found something that looked like a limpet on the base with a perfect circle of deadness around it about a 1/4 inch. I peeled this limpet looking shelled creature off the coral with a knife and flipped it over and it looked like some kind of slimy snail/worm, with a limpet shell? Well i looked at the coral next and this limpet/snailish thing was burrowing into the skelaton of this coral! a nice round hole about 1/8" acrossed and looks like at least 1/4" to 1/2" deep into my coral.
Has anyone had an experience with anything like this?
 
I had those suckers as well and stoneys three dip method worked well and I havent seen them back as of yet. Hadnt heard from stoneymahoney lately. I wounder how his system is doing?
 
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