Living with AEFW
- Thread starter tmgrash
- Start date
Its been three weeks since I had discovered aefw in my system. I have basted about 5 times and have purchased a melanarus wrasses on top of the others I have. The 4th time I basted I blew off one aefw, my painted fairy wrasses was johnny on the spot and beat the other wrasses to the treat. This was the only other time outside the first time that I was able to blow any off. The bite marks and bleaching in the middle base of my raspberry limaid has completely healed over and it looks healthier than ever.
This has been my experience so far, seems too easy so I have a couple thoughts. One, perhaps I caught them very early (although there was a BUNCH on the raspberry limaid in the beggining) and they were not able to establish in large enough numbers to really get going. Two, I was fortunate and was infected with a far less invasive species of aefw. What are ya'lls thoughts on this?
This has been my experience so far, seems too easy so I have a couple thoughts. One, perhaps I caught them very early (although there was a BUNCH on the raspberry limaid in the beggining) and they were not able to establish in large enough numbers to really get going. Two, I was fortunate and was infected with a far less invasive species of aefw. What are ya'lls thoughts on this?
rogerwilco357
Active member
very true
very true
yes they blend in almost instantly I found some nibbling at my millepora blew them off and they ended up on other acros over the course of me trying the live and let live they killed 8 mother colonies..wow they should be renamed from aefw to the ninja worm they just disappear when they hit the acro..and by the time I dipped the coral it was too late the coral died and the rest of the corals dipped the smooth skinned type like the hawkins just could not handle the revive at even 50 percent the dose and died too..so starting over slowly that is why a QT tank is needed..imo..
good luck hope you win.
Roger
very true
yes they blend in almost instantly I found some nibbling at my millepora blew them off and they ended up on other acros over the course of me trying the live and let live they killed 8 mother colonies..wow they should be renamed from aefw to the ninja worm they just disappear when they hit the acro..and by the time I dipped the coral it was too late the coral died and the rest of the corals dipped the smooth skinned type like the hawkins just could not handle the revive at even 50 percent the dose and died too..so starting over slowly that is why a QT tank is needed..imo..
good luck hope you win.
Roger
Logzor
New member
Honestly I don't think basting with a turkey baster is enough, it's not strong enough to knock off all of the aefw. Use a MJ1200 if you're not already.
BradR
New member
I basted aggressively daily for almost 2 months and got a lime green and two melnarus? wrasses. No sign of any adults or anything at all now with occasional basting. I'd recommend basting the same spot on a coral up to 5 times about point blank unless tissue is really hurting. Had an adult apparently stick on a coral after being blasted 4 times. It flew off the 5th time...GL
They were eating the coral, not just irritating. If you baste them with a turkey baster they will fly off. I do think perhaps there are different species of aefw and some a probably more destructive than others.
slapshot
Active member
In my experience the blowing off method will work for a time but inevitably they will over come the corals and RTN will take hold. I have seen it in several tanks including mine. I ended up pitching almost all my sps. Those things are the worst!
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
ReefBum
Active member
Just to share my experience....I have been basting for over 3 years and it has kept them in check. Of course each tank is different and you can't say for sure what works for one tank works for all.
acesq
Premium Member
I found yesterday I have an infestation of AEFW. Dipped one mille that looked like it had bite marks with Coral RX for 10 minutes and a good 20-30 fell off. Today I decided to blast the other corals because they weren't looking a bright as usual, even though the PE was till good. Another 20-30 flew into the water column. Looks like I've got some work to do to get these in check. Interestingly, my lyretail anthias and royal gramma gobbled them up as fast as my 4-line wrasse.
jc-reef
New member
Suppose you were to add 'acro crabs' to your acro colonies to 'naturally' protect the corals. I happened (luckily) to buy a while back at my LFS a small ORA acropora colony that was still on frag plug that had a small crab that was hosting it. This crab is like the 24 hr cleaning service on mine and I have not seen any issues with this coral since I added to my tank. Isn't that what they do in the wild reefs..kind of a cohabitat?
Brian Chong
New member
I read on another aefw thread here that they go after the validas first. this was the consensus amongst a few reefers
Went through my basting routine again today. Still no aefw on the originally affected raspberry limeaid, and all the damage is completely healed. I did however find 1 on my ora christines pink milli, and 2 on my red planet, and 1 on my pearlberry. My wrasse's quickly gobbled them up. There was no visible damage. I am starting to think that perhaps you can break the reproductive cycle on these if you catch them quick enough, population is obviously WAY down from the initial findings.
NeverlosT
A bit fishy
@ JC-Reef - I actually got a wild colony that had acro crabs in it. Great little critters. Then got red bugs (from the same shipment). Treatment for the red bugs killed the acro crabs (unfortunately), and when they red bugs and acro crabs were gone... boom, AEFW. I guess those little crabs were keeping them at bay because their colony was the outbreak monkey.
@ Brian - I have heard this too but in my experience they went after others first. Maybe they just hadnt gotten to the Valadia yet. just a data point.
In short, I delt with this, removed my colonies, killed all leftover in tank acro, and using a QT tank linked to the main system (but with its feed micron filtered) treated all of my colonies three times (over a month and a half). DT was fallow for three months. No sign of them now, on any frags or colonies. Repopulating DT now.
In the future, I am clipping the bases off of ALL frags and colonies and dipping them all in both interceptor and CoralRX. It was a LOT of trouble to get "parasite free" and I wont be going back...
I wrote a "how to" on my method of beating the worms, PM if interested, I've been too shy to post it to the interweb computernets yet.
The good news is, it isnt the end of the world. I only lost two colonies in my treatment of probably 30, one due to initial infestation, the other due to a mistake in CoralRX dosage strength... The tank is looking good again!
Oh and somone a while back asked about melanurus eating critters in the tank (like hermits, snails, starfish). I have one and it definitely does. My sand sifter starfish has only three arms, my snails and hermits are under constant attack!
@ Brian - I have heard this too but in my experience they went after others first. Maybe they just hadnt gotten to the Valadia yet. just a data point.
In short, I delt with this, removed my colonies, killed all leftover in tank acro, and using a QT tank linked to the main system (but with its feed micron filtered) treated all of my colonies three times (over a month and a half). DT was fallow for three months. No sign of them now, on any frags or colonies. Repopulating DT now.
In the future, I am clipping the bases off of ALL frags and colonies and dipping them all in both interceptor and CoralRX. It was a LOT of trouble to get "parasite free" and I wont be going back...
I wrote a "how to" on my method of beating the worms, PM if interested, I've been too shy to post it to the interweb computernets yet.
The good news is, it isnt the end of the world. I only lost two colonies in my treatment of probably 30, one due to initial infestation, the other due to a mistake in CoralRX dosage strength... The tank is looking good again!
Oh and somone a while back asked about melanurus eating critters in the tank (like hermits, snails, starfish). I have one and it definitely does. My sand sifter starfish has only three arms, my snails and hermits are under constant attack!
Dog boy Dave
New member
Many years ago I had the AEFW decimate my 180 gallon display. This was in like 2005 and we had no idea at the time what was going on. In retrospect, I believe now that my attempts to treat the investation did more harm that the worms themselves. After killing lots of stuff in my tank that wasnt AEFW i managed to destroy most of the bio population in the tank with attempts at chemical erradication. As the corals died I got pretty disgusted and left the tank alone for about a year. I kept the water topped off and nothing else. It was a hair algae patch with a couple of tangs grazing. I didnt feed at all. All you saw was green, no rocks at all. Then one day i noticed the hair algae was beginning to come off of the rocks in gobs. In a couple of days the hair algae was gone and the rocks were covered with a matt of algae. However on several "dead" colonies I noticed a couple of tips with live polyps. Sometimes only one left. I counted 15 colonies that actually had "tips" alive. Still no food but I added a couple of more grazers. In another couple of months the other algae began to peel off and the rocks were pink underneath. I began to add corals again and the tank recovered. I always wonder if I hadnt killed all my bio and stressed the corals with chem treatments if i might have saved more by just leaving them alone. Just some thoughts I thought i might share. When stressed, the corals begin to die from the base. This serves to split the colony and segregate the active living flesh from other infected areas. I have seen corals do this often as a response to stress. It works, often some of the segregated areas survive and others dont. I have seen it with different stress including aefw. It seemed to work for some of my corals as they are alive now and still going strong. I also have a huge blue stag that makes so much slime you cant hardly touch it. This guy never showed any stress from the flatworms and did not die back. Any way, dont give up hope if you have them. They are bad but not a death sentance for your reef like we used to think.
MammothReefer
Active member
I hate to admit it, but I'm in the same boat. All my dipping ect.. no dice. When I first found AEFWs I dipped a few suspect pieces as knee jerk reaction and lost my belenia right off the bat (it does NOT like revive). After that I've just been basting...and well I kinda went a little nuts on the wrasses.
I know some of you may not agree with me putting this many fish in my size tank (i'm in the 20's total now), but wrasses are 6-20$, and my acros are 50-100's of dollars. I eat fish, I don't eat acros. I went ahead and added, 2 6 Lines, a Melanus, 2 yellow coris wrasses, 2 green coris wrasses, and a mystery wrasse, and have since been just basting like crazy, basically when ever I find my self sitting in front of the tank I give a few things a blast. So far things seem to be turning around in my favour I see very few bite marks if any most of the acros that did have them have healed, and I'm not really seeing any fw fly off but It could just be a slow point between hatching. They did unfortunately keep going after one of my efflos which luckily sits in the sand so it's easy for me to pick up and baste the underside of it, and did not go for my valida. I believe I found them first on my hyacinthus which was actually one of the first pieces in my tank, then on a secale, then an efflo, and then on my bonsai. I do think I had one on one of my millis as well but for the most part they have stayed away from the hairiest acros.
Outside of 2 pieces that I've been having issues with for a while (I believe to be unrelated very slow stn due to alk issues) The biggest issue I'm having is a conflict of interest. I can't really baste with maxijet because not everything is glue'd down however If I glue things down I wouldn't be able to lift up the acros and blast them from every angle. The other issue I'm having is due to the increased fish and increased feeding I now have to put my BioPellets back online as my nutrient levels have increased. Ah well fun fun fun.. On the plus side the added basting/blasting has done a great job of cleaning up any settled detrious in my tank and I did start to see a temporary decrease in my nutrient levels however I doubt the levels will stay where they are with the current extraneous bioload in my tank.
oh that and the nutrient swings caused alot of my acros to brown.
I know some of you may not agree with me putting this many fish in my size tank (i'm in the 20's total now), but wrasses are 6-20$, and my acros are 50-100's of dollars. I eat fish, I don't eat acros. I went ahead and added, 2 6 Lines, a Melanus, 2 yellow coris wrasses, 2 green coris wrasses, and a mystery wrasse, and have since been just basting like crazy, basically when ever I find my self sitting in front of the tank I give a few things a blast. So far things seem to be turning around in my favour I see very few bite marks if any most of the acros that did have them have healed, and I'm not really seeing any fw fly off but It could just be a slow point between hatching. They did unfortunately keep going after one of my efflos which luckily sits in the sand so it's easy for me to pick up and baste the underside of it, and did not go for my valida. I believe I found them first on my hyacinthus which was actually one of the first pieces in my tank, then on a secale, then an efflo, and then on my bonsai. I do think I had one on one of my millis as well but for the most part they have stayed away from the hairiest acros.
Outside of 2 pieces that I've been having issues with for a while (I believe to be unrelated very slow stn due to alk issues) The biggest issue I'm having is a conflict of interest. I can't really baste with maxijet because not everything is glue'd down however If I glue things down I wouldn't be able to lift up the acros and blast them from every angle. The other issue I'm having is due to the increased fish and increased feeding I now have to put my BioPellets back online as my nutrient levels have increased. Ah well fun fun fun.. On the plus side the added basting/blasting has done a great job of cleaning up any settled detrious in my tank and I did start to see a temporary decrease in my nutrient levels however I doubt the levels will stay where they are with the current extraneous bioload in my tank.
oh that and the nutrient swings caused alot of my acros to brown.
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