Good/Great In-Tank Option for AEFW

J

jda

Dogmatic Dinosaur
Documented this on the other board a bit, but wanted to post it here.

Here are the particulars:
  • Double dose of Zeovit Flatworm Stop
  • Will NOT kill the worms - but does appear to interrupt their ability to reproduce
  • After about a month, coral health is up, eggs and worms are down
  • After about three months, worms present and no new eggs to be seen
  • After about six months, no worms or eggs in the tank
  • No issues with any other tank inhabitant

I am not saying that this is a cure, only that it looks very promising so far. His tank appears to be cured at the moment.

There are some variable here that need mentioned. I observed this on a tank that I help a special needs man with maintenance and other stuff. He is not very disciplined, which is why he had a massive infestation. He said that he stopped adding stuff back in fall - I do believe him, but there is no way to know for sure. He is religious about dosing and checking things, so I even though I did not dose the tank, I believe that it got done every day.

...do with this what you will. Good luck to all with these nasty basturds.
 
I believe it's possible to rid a tank of aefw that has smaller colonies of acros. Fws and a very strict daily basting routine will do wonders. Once you get down to not seeing any you gotta suck up the one or two worms you find with the baster. I didn't see a need for coral booster but maybe it could help a badly infested tank with rtn and stn happening.
 
So you are saying that basically a religiously added double dose of flatworm stop over a 6 month period reduced what was a fairly bad infestation down to almost no indication of aefw?
And with no basting or other intervention..
do I have his correct?
Too bad the stuff is so crazy expensive on a large system..
 
Yes, all of that...including the cost.

However, I did Bayer dip some of the colonies that I could get out of the tank. There were many more than I could see bit marks that were so encrusted that I could not get them out to dip - those healed on their own. I dipped 6-7 of the 20-25 colonies. Just a single Tricolor had about 100-200 worms come off - I don't even know how to count this high... and it is hard in the milky dip. The majority never got dipped.

I am pretty sure that it is just wormwood powder dissolved in water, but I have no way of knowing that. It smells and tastes the same. If somebody could figure this out, you could make a whole bunch for less than $20. I did buy some wormwood powder and was going to mess with it (from a health food place online), but he can afford the Flatworm Stop so I did not feel like risking it.
 
After I tore down my tank to dip my corals a friend shared that he experienced similar eradication of aefw dosing Flatworm Stop at the normal dose for 1 year. Flatworm Stop won't kill the aefw but it apparently makes the corals less hospitable for them
 
I've had good results with Flatworm Stop in the past and I'm having them again now. I'm dosing it double dose daily and I'll be doing it for 6 months, I'm basting once per month and I do have 1 Halichoeres chrysus, 1 Halichoeres melanurus and 2 Chrysiptera springeri. I've seen the best results when my wrasses were added, after having the C. springeri and dosing the FWS. For me the biological and chemical approach is working wonders.
 
The ultimate test is to stop the double dose and see if they come back. This will happen in a few more months when we run out. I will post back. For now, I wanted to let people know that I cannot find a worm anywhere... even in a TriColor Valida or Tort which are magnets for these things. I even dipped in CoralRx so that I could see them come off... and nothing. The corals are so healthy now that they did not even blink at a strong CoralRx dip.

If they do come back, then I am going to a home-brew version of the stuff using Wormwood powder. If we can figure this out, then this will be sustainable with a $20 supply lasting maybe a year or more. This would not be the end of the world for him, or probably anybody.

Personally, I think that it keeps them from reproducing when used at a high enough for a dose. The egg deposits were dramatically down after the first month or two, and then none could be found a months later even when there were still large worms around. I think that we just had to wait for all of the worms to die from old age.
 
Last edited:
It sure tastes and smells that way. ...of course, this is super scientific and is a dead-on-balls-accurate assessment.

If anybody has an idea how to get close to the same concentration, let me know. Clear vial with a flashlight behind is the best that I can think of.
 
I have used it and know 100% it works. What I observed is the slime coat on my acros became intense, from my understanding, this irritates the flatworms, and ultimately they stop eating acros and the life cycle get broken. I found it to improve the health of acros as well, this could have been a factor too.
 
Hi Matt,
I used recommended dose, but did so religiously daily. I also at this time added several blue legs, as they clean really well around bases of corals. I also added a couple of wrasse known to prey on AEFW. So, it was an all out effort, but literally could not find any AEFW or eggs, after known infestation. I would say that it took my several months to be clear, but I again chalk it up to Zeovit's claims. It does not kill AEFW, it strengthens the corals ability to slime as to repel AEFW. I did in fact notice major sliming from all acros when using this product, most of them had the same characteristics of why we call a slimer a slimer :)
 
Here is where I got the idea for a double dose.... it is hardly scientific...

I am NOT on facebook or any other social media. I had a semi-friend at a frag swap show me a post about a guy who claims to have treated his AEFW with a strong home-made concoction of dissolved wormwood powder. He used it as a dip, but also started to treat his tank. He said that it killed them dead within hours. His claim was that you could not give the tank too much and that all that suffered were the parasite type worms (flatworms including some other kinds) and not even the bristle worms got mad. My friend wrote him for more details and he never answered that I know of. I ordered some wormwood powder for the tank that I help maintain... about the same time that the owner bought some Flatworm Stop. They smelled exactly the same and tasted the same. Based on the facebook guy who claimed that strong doses of Wormwood did no damage to the reef, we started a double dose of the Flatworm Stop hoping that the effects were twice as good. I have no idea if this is necessary, but since it was working so well, we decided not to stop. I cannot remember if we started with a normal dose and increased it, but that seems right... like a few weeks. I did not get into this expecting it to work, so I did not pay much attention.

When we saw the population of worms drop after a few weeks, but still exist, this is very common with all of the reports online. After two months and I saw only a few egg clusters where there were usually thousands (literally), I strongly believe that we were onto something. After another month, I never saw another egg, but the worms lived on in smaller numbers. The worms were large. After about five months, I could not find a worm or egg. After six months, not any worms or eggs still. After a while, we saw no more small worms... this is what led me to believe that they were not reproducing and possibly just dying of old age.

This guy is very capable of dosing every day. I believe that he did this to the letter... I think that this is important.

Wormwood is a natural parasite remedy, so it all made sense.

I hope that this works for somebody else.
 
jda said:
Here is where I got the idea for a double dose.... it is hardly scientific...

I am NOT on facebook or any other social media. I had a semi-friend at a frag swap show me a post about a guy who claims to have treated his AEFW with a strong home-made concoction of dissolved wormwood powder. He used it as a dip, but also started to treat his tank. He said that it killed them dead within hours. His claim was that you could not give the tank too much and that all that suffered were the parasite type worms (flatworms including some other kinds) and not even the bristle worms got mad. My friend wrote him for more details and he never answered that I know of. I ordered some wormwood powder for the tank that I help maintain... about the same time that the owner bought some Flatworm Stop. They smelled exactly the same and tasted the same. Based on the facebook guy who claimed that strong doses of Wormwood did no damage to the reef, we started a double dose of the Flatworm Stop hoping that the effects were twice as good. I have no idea if this is necessary, but since it was working so well, we decided not to stop. I cannot remember if we started with a normal dose and increased it, but that seems right... like a few weeks. I did not get into this expecting it to work, so I did not pay much attention.

When we saw the population of worms drop after a few weeks, but still exist, this is very common with all of the reports online. After two months and I saw only a few egg clusters where there were usually thousands (literally), I strongly believe that we were onto something. After another month, I never saw another egg, but the worms lived on in smaller numbers. The worms were large. After about five months, I could not find a worm or egg. After six months, not any worms or eggs still. After a while, we saw no more small worms... this is what led me to believe that they were not reproducing and possibly just dying of old age.

This guy is very capable of dosing every day. I believe that he did this to the letter... I think that this is important.

Wormwood is a natural parasite remedy, so it all made sense.

I hope that this works for somebody else.
Click to expand...

Great info. Even if it doesnt completely wipe them out (which it seems like it does) it could save a lot of people from tearing down their tanks. I almost tore mine down in panic before going through the hassle of bayer dipping every week. Wish this thread would get more views!
 
tmantaylor18 said:
Great info. Even if it doesnt completely wipe them out (which it seems like it does) it could save a lot of people from tearing down their tanks. I almost tore mine down in panic before going through the hassle of bayer dipping every week. Wish this thread would get more views!
Click to expand...

Agreed..
Personally, I believe that even a good population of peppermint shrimp and various wrasses will have the same effect. Especially if you go in periodically and baste the corals with a power head or something similar.
There are options, now for controlling aefw.. the full tank tear down isn't really a necessity anymore.
And besides, even if you DO do a full tear down, there is no guarantee that your tank won't get infected again.. aefw are pretty much everywhere now.. I've never seen a supplier around hear that is 100% positively aefw free..
 
Hard for shrimp and wrasses to get into a colony the size of a cantaloupe... hard to baste those too. Frags are easier to treat with the easy access, but colonies are really hard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Brian60077
1 and a half month old nano reef update
Replies
1
Views
61
Brian60077
Brian60077
A
What kind of eel is this??
Replies
5
Views
157
wvned
wvned
JChitmon
Anyone quit 2 part and started All For Reef?
Replies
2
Views
301
Reefing102
Reefing102
J
Calcium very elevated
Replies
3
Views
117
jcarlilesiu
J
K
Help: SPS peeling strangely.
Replies
5
Views
181
griss
griss
Back
Top