I have a 90 gallon SPS dominate and today I dipped a Pink Lemonade and a Blue Milli and a bunch of AEFW came off so obviously I have them. Now I want to take action and I'm going to take out all my corals and dip them since they are all frags. My question is how long do I have to leave my tank empty before they all die?
I have AEFW I want to take action!
- Thread starter jfingers8
- Start date
LifeAquatic
New member
I have read that the life span of AEFW is 2 weeks without any food source. I have been dealing with this same problem for a few months. Based on my observations these worms are very risillient. I have pulled an AEFW out of water for an hour. Placed it back into water and it was still alive! I have experimented with different methods of killing them. I have used Iodine and revive dips. Even fresh water. For the most part iodine treatments seem to work best, but it doesnt exactly kill AEFW. My observation shows it just stuns them and they fall off the coral. If you can preapre fresh water to have the same temp and PH as your tank that might work best. After testing with many AEFW worms the longest Ive clocked them to live in fresh water is 45 seconds! I have dipped atleast 50 worms in fresh water to get that average. My ultimate goal is to move them into a tank where I can control their food source. I am very interested to see how long they can go without a food source. I also want to breed them. Would be nice to get some exact answers on life cycle of this pest. To answer your question I am pulling my remaining accropora out of the tank for 30 days. I hope that is long enough to rid the tank of this horrible parasite.
Remember, you cant put your frags back into display tank after dipping. They will be reinfested eventually. Your corals should be dipped and put into QT. During this time check for eggs and any remaining AEFW. If the 2 week life cycle is true you should have hatched AEFW in your QT tank incase you missed any eggs. But better in QT then display. Im sure they will all be gone from the display after 30 days. 30 days might seem like a lot but Im not risking it again. AEFW ruined my tank. Good luck!
Remember, you cant put your frags back into display tank after dipping. They will be reinfested eventually. Your corals should be dipped and put into QT. During this time check for eggs and any remaining AEFW. If the 2 week life cycle is true you should have hatched AEFW in your QT tank incase you missed any eggs. But better in QT then display. Im sure they will all be gone from the display after 30 days. 30 days might seem like a lot but Im not risking it again. AEFW ruined my tank. Good luck!
scottwhitson
New member
Revive works extremely well. With the standard dose it takes about 3-5 minutes for noticeable discomfort of the flatworm and then they can easily be basted off of the coral. With double the recomended dosage there is almost instant reaction with the flatworms. Iodine based dips such as TMPCC do NOT work as well. In my tests I have found AEFW to still be alive after 10 minutes in a standard dose of TMPCC.
remember to cut off the plugs and the base of the frags after you dip. My understanding is that they don't lay eggs on the live tissue, but near it. Therefore if you clip off the bases and discard them, you will have less chance of having eggs. I have been 7 weeks of my acros in QT and am dipping them in revive or tmpcc every 7-10 days just to be sure.
