Good/Great In-Tank Option for AEFW

[fishguy597]

How often were you double dosing the tank?

Were you mixing the wormwood powder with tank water or rodi? What's the ratio of powder to water?

 

[fishguy597]

Also were the fish left in the tank and if so how did they do? I remember reading a thread a while ago that sounds similar but he removed all of his fish.

 

[StarF]

Here is a video where someone in the comments (Mo Man) has used wormwood as a intank threatment for aefw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UubUsZ2CSs

It was mostly trial (without any error) 1 table spoon of wormwood powder mixed into a cup of tank water in to 150 gallon of water volume. Repeated ever 2-3 days for about 2 weeks. I did decrease the tablespoon to a tea spoon towards the end of second week. I noticed polyp extension and improvement in colour. Once I felt my SPS looked as they did before the AEFW, I pulled out random ones and dipped in Revive just to make sure. Success! !!!

 

[jda]

I did not use the wormwood powder mix... just the Flatworm Stop.

If I am going to make my own, I might put some in a vial in a hannah checker, take 10 readings and get the average. Then try and get that same average with wormwood/RO concentration. Basically, try and match the darkness/lightness in the water with the photo capability of the wormwood powder.

 

[jda]

It has been a month since we stopped dosing the tank with the Flatworm Stop. No flatworms in sight. I am about ready to declare victory on this one.

 

[StarF]

so was it 6 month you were dosing ?

 

[jda]

Yes. This did not start as any kind of a science project, so there is no strict log or control, but six months of the double dose every day.

Anecdotally, there are few others that I have met in PM that are a few months in and seeing the same trends...massive dieback, no new eggs, no small worms, but still mature worms wandering around that have not died yet.

 

[macdaddynick1]

Yes. This did not start as any kind of a science project, so there is no strict log or control, but six months of the double dose every day.

Anecdotally, there are few others that I have met in PM that are a few months in and seeing the same trends...massive dieback, no new eggs, no small worms, but still mature worms wandering around that have not died yet.

Did you have the FW stop on a doser, or did you dose manually? Also, does it need mixing prior to being dosed?

 

[jda]

You shake the bottle and dose it every day. I did not do it personally, the guy who owned the tank did.

 

[StarF]

Yes. This did not start as any kind of a science project, so there is no strict log or control, but six months of the double dose every day.

Anecdotally, there are few others that I have met in PM that are a few months in and seeing the same trends...massive dieback, no new eggs, no small worms, but still mature worms wandering around that have not died yet.

Good to know.. Now if only someone was brave enough to test the wormwood stuff directly

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Piper27]

I have a friend who is confident they are gone as well. Same scenario, 6 months heavy dosing and basting, 6 months later not a single sign of them.

 

[macdaddynick1]

Good/Great In-Tank Option for AEFW

I have a friend who is confident they are gone as well. Same scenario, 6 months heavy dosing and basting, 6 months later not a single sign of them.

How much was he dosing? Also, did he do anything besides dosing and basting? Does he have a wrasse?

 

[jda]

A double recommended dose.

He has some sort of H. wrasse... but they do not do much. With some colonies the size of footballs, they cannot get into the middle of these. Neither can most crabs and shrimp, which will also eat them if they can reach them.

I doubt that he basted. He does have good flow. This is an unknown to me. I have never seen a turkey baster over there.

We did take the ones out that we could and dip them in Bayer. ...maybe 1/3 of the colonies. They got infested again after the dips, but we saw a worm or two, not hundreds. One large A. Valida might have had 500 worms on it from pin-head size to the size of a rolly-polly bug. It was during subsequent dip that we saw no eggs and no more little worms that I started to get excited.

 

[Piper27]

Some wrasses but they didn't do anything to help. Most fish will end up eating them once they get used to seeing them fly off the acros. Even tangs. Nothing besides basting and a daily double dose of fws. Not many large colonies like jda's friend but enough to where wrasses and shrimp cant get into a lot of them. No dips were done ever. It wasn't a huge infestation because we cought it early and kept them in check with basting until the dosing started. The people who say its snake oil didn't try it long enough or didn't keep their tank stable or something.
I do believe daily basting will remove them from the tank at some point, but results we got with the fws was amazing. We could find a worm every now and then in the beginning and a month in the damage from the random worms was gone and not seen again, even if we saw a worm there, it was not eating much. So the acros would heal right away and the worms faded out. After a few months we stopped seeing worms. It's been about 6 months since he stopped basting and stopped the double dose of fws.
The trick with beating these worms, with whatever method your using, would be to get the population in check before you start trying to get rid of them for good. Jda used dips to knock back the numbers and get the colonies healthier. We used basting yo get the same results. I would not try to do this without basting, I am not sure fws alone will starve out a good worm population without blowing them off the corals and letting fish eat them. It could be possible but basting will knock months off your time you spend with an infected tank.
Aefw are not the worst pest anymore. If someone has or gets aefw there should be no panic or sudden decisions. I see most coral loss from people setting up quick qt tanks that are unstable and losses start when corals are added to it. Dipping from the display tank is still much easier imo and even with large colonies it can be done very effectivly.

 

[jda]

This is right.

We dipped because we did not know that this was a solution. Had I known what I know now, probably would not have dipped the colonies.

There is certainly no risk in basting.

I get who some people are mad since the FWE does not kill the worms... but the tank did not get an infestation overnight, so taking a few months of dosing is not all that bad. It is a good, manageable solution with no known side effects... the FWE is perfectly reef safe even when added daily.

 

[StarF]

i had a friend who had AEFW, i managed to catch 5 of them, and but them in a 20ml container, and added 5 drops of FWS, the worms were dead after 15 minutes (they had disolved??)...

now 5 drops to 20ml of water is a bigger concentration than what we are adding to the aquarium, but it did kill them... just thought it was interesting.

 

[kainic]

I get who some people are mad since the FWE does not kill the worms... but the tank did not get an infestation overnight, so taking a few months of dosing is not all that bad. It is a good, manageable solution with no known side effects... the FWE is perfectly reef safe even when added daily.

Not only this, corals will look healthier. Its tissue will be thicker and colors will look more saturated.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

This is a very interesting thread and I hope more people contribute with their results. I've been lucky (knock on wood!) to not get AEFW yet, but I've been reading lately on dipping with Melafix. It sounds interesting and is likely the same thing as FWS though in a different concentration (and a lot less money!)? I current dip with Bayer, but thinking about adding a Melafix dip to my regime.

 

[f3honda4me]

I can add another datapoint. I received a colony that was afflicted with aefw, and since it was the only coral in my small QT I did a quadruple dose of FWS. 4 weeks later and I see no more bites, eggs, or FW. Haven’t seen them since after the first week actually. I am repeating this test again with another acro frag I tracked down and have switched to double dose of FWS. The original colony is still in QT as well. Will see how this pans out and if it works again. Documenting with pictures this time.

 

[Piper27]

Diving the world, melafix marine is the best dip for aefw ime. And a good all around dip as well. It was used a while back a lot and got pushed out of use by a lot of new products flooding the market made for coral dipping specifically. At least that's how I saw it at the time.