Hospital tank: Concerns over cross infection during treatment for AEFW, please help

[Tony B (UK)]

Hi guys,

I am planning a hospital tank, for the treatment of AEFW and I would be grateful for any input you may be able to offer.

Hospital tank details: The tank is 100cm x50cm x 50cm and will be lit with a 400w halide, skimmed with an Aquamedic TF1000 multi sl and I have two adjustable flow dosing pumps that I will use to ball calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate, cooling is not needed but heating is and I will use a 300w heater. For internal water movement I have a Tunze nano stream. To aid the course of treatment I will also use x2 25w TMC vecton UVs.

Treatment procedure: I plan to use a small header tank to treat multiple corals in at once, I am not 100% decided on how frequently to dip/treat the corals yet, but I am thinking once a week should be enough (eggs take about 2 weeks to hatch, although I plan to remove any eggs buy hand - afaik eggs wont be killed by the treatment). As far as what meds to use to treat the AEFW, Aquarium Products Fluke-Tabs apparently work well, http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...amp;pcatid=4760 as does TLF Revive Coral Cleaner - think it might be 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, if you know what I mean.

My concern is with cross infection; when I take all the corals out I am concerned that there may be some AEFW left in the hospital tank, maybe stuck on the glass or sitting on the small amount of live rock (LR used will be the biological filter) so even after I've dipped everything, the AEFW can hop back onto the corals, thus avoiding treatment. Any ideas how I could reduce the chance of cross infection? I am thinking that I could set up another holding tank, with 6 bits of live rock (or sponge) to act as my bio filter, after each treatment I bin the old filter media, drain and wipe down surfaces of the hospital tank and then re-fill with the same water. Although I have also considered that the AEFW may also become 'water born' during this movement, so to catch the little sods, I would pump the water through an Aquamedic bypass filter, filled with new/fresh filter floss to act as a trap.

Is cross infection likely? Do you think the above measures to reduce cross infection are honestly needed?

Any comments or further considerations/suggestions welcomed.

Regards,

Tony

 

[sugartooth]

Yes, there is always risk of AEFW being elsewhere in the tank and getting the opportunity to get back on after your treatment.

I had these in one of my QT systems and I wanted to treat the whole system only as a last ditch effort.

I dipped using Coral Revive, every single piece, once a week for two weeks.
Then I dipped all of the pieces once every other week for 2 months.

Each time you dip, you inspect for eggs. What I did, because I wasn't confident I could scrape off all of the eggs, was superglue the entire area.

After the 2 1/2 months, I was very tired of dipping, and the last two dips I saw very little sign of AEFW. So, I left everything alone to see if I did indeed get rid of them all.

It has been another 2 months and I haven't lost any pieces.

So, leave your pieces in the hospital tank long enough to be certain there are no more, then you won't worry about any strays.

Of course, there are others ways to rid these guys. I'm just telling you of one option, because I did not want to treat the whole system.

Good luck!

 

[Tony B (UK)]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12023431#post12023431 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sugartooth

Of course, there are others ways to rid these guys. I'm just telling you of one option, because I did not want to treat the whole system.

Good luck!

Thank you for your reply.

Please, do tell more, I am very interested to hear all possible ways to rid this pest.

Your input is welcomed.

Regards,

Tony.

 

[flyyyguy]

how i beat them was cut the tops off of all my corals and toss the rest.

dipped these tops before going ito a qt tank so i never introduced the FW to the qt tank in the first place.

Then I killed everything less than a year later and wished I never went to the effort of paying attention to the FW in the first place. lol

 

[Thales]

Some people are living with them. Once or twice a week, use a turkey baster to 'blow' them off of the corals and once they are in the water column many common tank fish eat them. At little bit of extra work over time, but you don't have to decimate your tank.
I went this way because when I had them two years ago, I lost a lot of corals to treatments and, of course, slowed the growth of the corals way down due to stress and breakage. And, it is quite unclear if I got all of the the two years ago or not. Its been a couple months for me, and everything looks great.

 

[Tony B (UK)]

Thanks for the replies - all interesting.

Any more solutions worth considering?