Freshwater dipping SPS?..My last choice, but I'm thinking about trying it

[RedAnt78]

I have been battling AFEW for around 4-6 months now and have tried everything. I've used flatworm exit, and tropic marin pro coral cure, revive, lugol's, and flatworm control. And when I dip my colonies/frags, I inspect them for eggs which I have found a few times and cut them off.
I now have all of my sps and the rock in a QT tank and am going to keep them there until I get rid of these stupid AFEW! I've lost at least 10 colonies/frags including my favorite blue/pink mille colony because of them :mad2:
I have put some of the AFEW in freshwater and they start going crazy in just a couple of seconds so I was thinking that maybe I should try to FW dip my acros for a few seconds and maybe that might finally get rid of these stupid things.
I've read differing opinions online and just want to see what you guys think and if you've had success with it and how many seconds I can safely dip the acros...or if I should even try :worried2:
Thanks for any info!

 

[madkeenreefer]

Coral RX is well known to rid of this pest. Fresh water dips are from what I have experienced very hard on corals and fish alike

 

[rtbm]

dont do it man. FW is bad news for sps. +1 on the coral rx for starters

 

[jd474]

Any longer than about a 10 second FW dip on an acro, is not a good idea. Try some coral Rx, or try to get some levamisole.

 

[robsnnny]

fresh water = death for sure

 

[MechEng99]

I wouldn't...never had any luck with freshwater dips and acros.

I had AEFW in my QT tank - pulled out every acro and dipped in Coral Rx every day for a week, then backed off to every 2 days the second week, every 3 days the third week...and after 7 weeks of not seeing any...I finally felt I could say I beat them. Never saw one ever again (knock on wood.) I only lost one coral...and that was only b/c deepwater corals are pretty sensitive to Coral Rx. Anyway, it was a pain the first week, but after that it wasn't bad to dip all the acro's. Seems like a much better route than risking everything to a freshwater dip. Good luck!

 

[allsps40]

Fresh water dip + corals= dead corals. Dont do it. Fish and even clams are fine to do a 5 min fresh water dip
.

 

[watchguy123]

Seems to take a stressed SPS all the way to a dead SPS

 

[watchguy123]

I won't ever try it again

 

[Logzor]

Are you dipping all of your colonies on a daily/bi-daily basis to kill the life-cycle in the first week of treatment?

 

[mcoomer]

Coral RX FTW! I had AEFW on a Purple Nana that I recently bought and that stuff knocked them out. 30 drops to a gallon of saltwater. I dipped the coral every day for a week, 7 minutes each time, backed off to every other day the second week, every third day the third week, and twice a week for the next several weeks. After you dip in the Coral RX put the coral into another container of saltwater to rinse it, use a toothpick to scrape off any eggs and critters that you can see, and then back in the tank. I used a big turkey baster to flush the coral in both containers. First time I put it in the dip the bottom of the container was full of tiny pinkish stuff. I lost most of the coral but saved some nice frags and now I've got several good starts on growing new Nana's.

Mike

 

[MechEng99]

Mike - that makes you and me both that the treatment works for AEFW (daily for a week, every two days the second week, every three days the third week, etc for several more weeks). Too bad it still requires removing all the corals, but at least it works!