Leonardo's Lagoon

[LooseHip]

I found AEFW's on my corals too no fun. Not sure if you have seen this or not but I figure I would post it anyways. Also would like to hear what others think of this method as well.

Have you considered dipping the affected corals in ReVive Coral Cleaner?

For giant aquariums with giant coral colonies it may not be feasible to remove entire colonies of Acropora, but for most home aquariums this is a much simpler solution compared to treating the whole tank with Interceptor. There is a misconception regarding Red Bugs that they are all over the tank. In fact they are isolated on the Acropora colonies, and usually only on certain species, while they may be absent on others. If you make a seawater bath with ReVive according to the directions, and dip colonies of Acropora for between 10 and 15 minutes, the Red Bugs will fall off and die, and the colonies can be returned to the display aquarium. This treatment is also effective against Acropora Eating Flatworms (AEFW) (including their eggs).

Some recommendations: Use water taken from the display aquarium to make the bath, to minimize the stress on the corals. The corals should be completely submerged, so use sufficient water for that purpose. The water in the bath should be circulating- a small powerhead can be used for this purpose (be careful about water and electricity of course). Also be careful not to blast the corals with too strong a flow from the powerhead!

If your Acropora colonies have commensal crabs, they will jump off when the coral is dipped in ReVive. Quickly remove the crabs from the bath and put them in clean seawater. They will recover as long as they are not left in the ReVive bath for more than a couple of minutes. The crabs do not host Red Bugs, though it is a good idea to rinse them carefully to be sure that no Red Bugs are clinging to their legs.

While the instructions on the bottle of ReVive recommend only a few minutes for the dip, it is necessary to use a dip of at least 10 minutes duration to be sure to kill the Red Bugs and AEFW.

I have been able to eliminate these pests from display aquariums by simply dipping the affected coral colonies.

It is not necessary to dip all corals from the tank--- only the affected Acropora spp. need to be dipped.

I developed ReVive Coral Cleaner and it is a product of my company, Two Little Fishies, Inc.

Sincerely,

Julian Sprung

link on RC
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1632731

Glass-box
http://glassbox-design.com/2008/treating-for-aefw-with-revive/

So does revive kill AEFW eggs or not?

 

[Leonardo_]

Bax, Dan and Greg, thanks. I will document every step in the treatment with photo's.

LooseHip, thanks for the links. There are much more informative threads about the (succesful) treamtments of AEFW.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=688833

As you can read in my post above, the basic treatment will be a 4-5 hour Levamisole 50 ppm dip. Besides that I will dip the corals in Revive between those treatments.
There is no substance (yet) that affects the eggs, so you have to manually scrape them and more important, break the life-cycle of the AEFW. Didn't hear an experience of Revive killing eggs, and I don't think it's very likely Good luck with the treatment. Inspect your corals well and keep a strict schedule. New hatched AEFW have to be killed before laying eggs.

Leonardo

 

[Oldude]

There is a misconception regarding Red Bugs that they are all over the tank. In fact they are isolated on the Acropora colonies, and usually only on certain species, while they may be absent on others.

This is an interesting remark coming from a reef "expert". Yes red bugs are typically only on acros, however I had an infestation of them a few years back and I even found them on some montipora danae colonies. They remind me of spider mites in that they can make web-like strands between the branches and sometimes go from coral to coral. I am assume Mr Sprung is talking about a pretty small outbreak that has not gotten out of hand. I know red bugs are off topic but I just had to address what I consider to be a somewhat misleading statement. Sorry for the hi-jack Leonardo. Revive has pretty good reviews and I've used it myself as a dip. It is quite aggressive so be careful with it.

 

[Leonardo_]

Thanks for the warning Greg. Maybe I will only use it on the heavier infected corals and just stick to the Levamisole for the rest of the colonies.

Leonardo

 

[Leonardo_]

The first AEFW treatment yesterday went really well.

An old aquarium was filled with 17 Gallon of aquarium water (!) and Levamisole was added to reach a concentration of 50 ppm.
Proper flow was provided by adding two Tunze Nanostreams.

AEFW began to fall off after half an hour, but were still alive. After three hours all the AEFW were dead. (not moving and curled up). They didn't recover after they were brought back in fresh tank water. Remained dead.
After the three hours of treatment the corals were blown off vigorously with a nanostream to remove any attached FW.

The stress on corals really vary depending on the colony. All the corals did brown slightly, but still have their colored tips. Only the Desalwii colonies are quite stressed, because they show poor polyp after one day and expelled about half of their zooxanthellae (bleaching). But I think they will make a full recovery.
All the flatworms I found were smaller and weaker then the FW I had a few years ago. This type seems to be less aggressive and tend to reproduce not as fast. I also suspect my sixline wrasse keeps the population in check because it is constantly hovering between the Acro's searching for something.

This treatment will be performed four times in total, every Wednesday.

Leonardo

 

[Leonardo_]

The corals after treatment.

Leonardo

 

[adddo]

Great news Leonardo! Hoping for a full recovery for your corals!

 

[DanW]

Nice to hear that the war has started. I hope that you're on the road to 100% eradication. Will you be removing the eggs in between treatments?

 

[Leonardo_]

Thank you Bjarne!

Dan, good that you mention that. I have inspected all the corals very carefully using a 70 watt MH spotlight so I wouldn't miss any cluster of eggs.
I only found two small clusters. They were scraped away immediately. I also hope to get rid of them 100%

Leonardo

 

[mpoletti]

Thank you Bjarne!

Dan, good that you mention that. I have inspected all the corals very carefully using a 70 watt MH spotlight so I wouldn't miss any cluster of eggs.
I only found two small clusters. They were scraped away immediately. I also hope to get rid of them 100%

Leonardo

:thumbsup:

Leonardo, as you are well aware of, coals grow when they are in healthy environment. Just my input here, If you are in doubt about anthing, hack off a clean piece. You should not see any AEFW by the 3rd week if you get all of the eggs in the first round :uzi:

 

[Leonardo_]

Luckily the corals haven't really grown to full size colonies so the bases are pretty easy to inspect. If I'm in doubt I will hack the base of and glue it to a fresh rock. Thanks for the input.
The Desalwii colonies still don't look good They show very poor PE but didn't bleach more then right after the treatment. I'm going to bed now, and hope to see some more PE tomorrow instead of RTN'd colonies.

Leonardo

 

[Last Version]

nice to hear that.. you're the man!!

 

[Oldude]

Yeah unfortunately I have also had poor success doing dips with Desalwii. They seem to be pretty sensitive. I hope yours come around for you.

 

[Leonardo_]

Thanks Greg. I also hope that they will make it. After collecting the first colony I became a bit A. Desalwii and A. Plana addictive I really like this coral.
Good news is that I woke up and saw a little bit of PE on the colonies, and all the tissue still on.
I'm feeding my tank heavy right now to darken them up a bit faster for the next round.

Leonardo

 

[Dejavu]

The corals after treatment.

Leonardo

They look pretty good for just being dipped.

 

[Leonardo_]

Brain, I agree. Unfortunately the corals has bleached quite a bit over the week. Considered I only lit the tank with T5 (no MH) the last days (to decrease the stress), the Levamisole is quite aggressive. Not in short term as most dips (iodine etc.) but definitely on the longer term.
This is the same thing Travis, another member on RC, experienced when dipping with Levamisole.

Leonardo

 

[FloformAustria]

hey Leonardo!

how is it going on??

can´t wait to see the first pictures!

Flo

 

[Dave's Reef]

Brain, I agree. Unfortunately the corals has bleached quite a bit over the week. Considered I only lit the tank with T5 (no MH) the last days (to decrease the stress), the Levamisole is quite aggressive. Not in short term as most dips (iodine etc.) but definitely on the longer term.
This is the same thing Travis, another member on RC, experienced when dipping with Levamisole.

Leonardo

Can't wait to see things turn around for you Leonardo!~ Hang in there and be diligent... you'll be fine in the end I'm sure!

Your tank/tanks have been a very great inspiration to me and I look forward to your continued success!

Dave

 

[Leonardo_]

Thanks Dave! I did my second treatment last Thursday. I didn't found ANY FW or eggs anymore. The second treatment also caused a lot less stress to the corals, don't know the cause of that. Concentration etc was 50 ppm Levamisole again.
To be short, finding no eggs and FW's gave me hope. I will perform a third treatment next week, and one right before the corals go into the new tank.

Flo, the new tank will be delivered this weekend, so I'll start the new build(thread) Monday

Leonardo

 

[nUgZ]

It looks great! Be sure to post a link to that thread here please.