My aefw treatments 3 weeks in.

[jjoos99]

I thought that I would share my experience with treating for aefw so far. After wondering and fighting coral rtn and color loss thinking I had water issues I discovered that i had aefw. I decided to treat my corals rather then deal with it. I removed all the frags and corals that were not totally encrusted and placed them in a small frag tank. I had several corals that I just didnt want to hack up and start over with them. I decided to dip them on the rock and return them to the display tank. I did my first dip using bayer mixed at 5ml per cup for 15 min. I ended up damaging quite a few of the corals while moving the rocks into the dip then into the 2 rinse buckets that I had set up. (lots of small frags) I found quite a few eggs on my red planet and the coral was in real bad shape. I just broke it off and took a torch to the encrusting part of the coral. I took the torch to several corals that were well encrusted that I didnt much care for also while I was at it. with in about 15 minutes of putting the rocks and corals back into the tank my 2 cleaner and 1 peppermint shrimp were stone dead. I had thought that I had rinsed the rock real well but apparently not. My fish seemed unaffected. For my second weeks treatment I used bayer again. Treatment went much better with just a few more broken pieces. Just before I started all this I had added a new powder brown tang and a moorish idol. Well guess what, a total ich outbreak with most all of my fish. So I had to totally tear apart the tank to remove the fish and move them into rubbermaid tubs to treat them with hypo. I went on a craigs list binge and found a great deal on a 75 which is now my hospital tank for another 65 days.
At this point the corals were doing pretty good. Regaining their colors and repairing some of the aefw damage. For the third dip I tried coral rx after reading several posts. After using coral rx the corals in my frag tank have lost some of their colors and lost their p/e. The coral rx had a smell of house hold disinfectant cleaner. I will be going back to bayer for the last treatments.
Lessons learned so far has been if you are going to use bayer keep the fish and inverts completely separate. The corals seem to fair better while using bayer over coral rx. Next lesson would be to not trust any new corals no matter who or where they come from.
Jeff

 

[Reel North]

Unless you take all your sps out and keep them out, you will never ever ever be able to eradicate aefw. I have all mine in a qt system now. Over 150 frags and colonies. I'm beginning dipping 2x a week tonight.

 

[Reef Bass]

It is possible to completely clear a tank of aefw without giving up on acros. I have done it. My tank was heavily infested. Imagine 300 aefw coming off one volley ball size colony. I had more than 50 frags and colonies, some of which were encrusted on rocks and as such had to be dipped in 2 and 5 gallon buckets.

The key is to break the life cycle of the aefw by killing all egg laying adults and then all hatchlings before they mature enough to lay eggs themselves. It took weekly dips of all acros for 6 weeks straight. A giant pain in the behind but oh so worth it. I have been aefw free for years now.

 

[jjoos99]

Unless you take all your sps out and keep them out, you will never ever ever be able to eradicate aefw. I have all mine in a qt system now. Over 150 frags and colonies. I'm beginning dipping 2x a week tonight.

I went with a total of five weeks worth of the above treatment schedule and was indeed able to get rid of the aefw. My corals all recovered, colored back up and were putting on good growth. I treated with chemiclean a month or so ago and have been fighting rtn over the last 2 weeks. I have lost several nice pieces and have been coming home daily to several more with fresh rtn damage. Havent been able to stop it yet. I do know that it isnt the aefw, there isnt any presence of them and the symptoms are different then when I had the worms.
jeff

 

[Reel North]

I bet they are back

 

[Piper27]

Unless you take all your sps out and keep them out, you will never ever ever be able to eradicate aefw. I have all mine in a qt system now. Over 150 frags and colonies. I'm beginning dipping 2x a week tonight.

If you dip all acros, including encrusted rocks, there is no reason to have to qt. Many people have rid aefw from systems by filling once a week to break the life cycle. Why would you say it's impossible to rid a tank unless you take them out?

 

[Reefstarter2]

They can be beat by dips now that bayer is around

 

[sprite]

I have been dipping for 5 weeks now and I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm ready to start tossing frags

 

[jjoos99]

I have been dipping for 5 weeks now and I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm ready to start tossing frags

How are you dipping and at what strength? I went through 5 weeks and feel that I beat them. Are you keeping them in a different tank or dipping and putting back into the display. Also any corals that have died or have some dead areas need to be removed and inspected for eggs. If you are loosing the battle you need to ck for eggs that are just repopulating the worms. They will only lay on the dead parts of the coral they are hosting on. I actually took a torch and burned several of the pieces that I had that were infected with eggs.
Jeff

 

[ifarmer]

I dipped once a week for 10 weeks in a row.
The hardest part with bayer is it is not easy to clean the bayer off. Does not matter how much you rinse them. It will be worse if you dip the rocks.
Chances are if you using bayer, your shrimps and pods will eventually die from the bayer.


Sent from my GT-I9192 using Tapatalk

 

[sprite]

How are you dipping and at what strength? I went through 5 weeks and feel that I beat them. Are you keeping them in a different tank or dipping and putting back into the display. Also any corals that have died or have some dead areas need to be removed and inspected for eggs. If you are loosing the battle you need to ck for eggs that are just repopulating the worms. They will only lay on the dead parts of the coral they are hosting on. I actually took a torch and burned several of the pieces that I had that were infected with eggs.
Jeff

All my pieces are frags still on the plug. I drained my display and moved all frags over to another tank. I have been doing already once a week, most times twice a week. I use 10 ml of Bayer to one cup of water for at least 12 minutes. I haven't lost a frag yet, but I'm still getting those bastard's in my dip after 5 weeks.

 

[Piper27]

All my pieces are frags still on the plug. I drained my display and moved all frags over to another tank. I have been doing already once a week, most times twice a week. I use 10 ml of Bayer to one cup of water for at least 12 minutes. I haven't lost a frag yet, but I'm still getting those bastard's in my dip after 5 weeks.

Keep at it, you probably missed some eggs at some point. I used revive and melafix on different weeks to beat them.

 

[Reef Bass]

sprite, ifarmer, I suggest changing your dip. I used Melafix. 6 weeks, all gone.

I also rinsed the frags in another container of reef water after dipping before returning them to the tank. Vigorous agitation during rinse helps not only to remove remaining traces of dip, but to dislodge any stunned but not necessarily terminated aefw still clinging on before they go back into the tank.

It can be gratifying to start seeing few to no aefw in the rinse bucket as one progresses through the course of the 6 week treatment.

 

[sprite]

Reef Bass, if melafix kills them, why couldn't it be used as an in tank treatment? Stupid question?

 

[Piper27]

I did the same thing as reefbass. I agree it's critical to use second container to rinse the colonies in to make sure everything is off. Using Bayer made it to hard for me to see what was left in the dip as well. I used revive one week and melafix the next just in case the aefw got accustomed to one type of dip. I had to dip for 12 weeks because I found eggs after week four that were missed.

 

[Reef Bass]

No, not stupid. I don't have an exact answer, other than I would postulate that while coral can tolerate the dip for brief periods (like 5 minutes), the dip is sufficiently harsh that they would suffer if left exposed to it continuously, like a full tank treatment.

I know from experience that iodine is like that. 20 minutes in a mild solution can be a good post fragging disinfectant or even an introductory anti pest dip. But leave that same frag in the same concentration of dip overnight, and the flesh will be completely burned off the skeleton. That taught me to always set a timer for the dip time, and to not fall asleep while dipping.

 

[sprite]

Gotcha

 

[sprite]

Got me some melafix and dipping as we type

 

[sprite]

After dipping with the melafix,,, I don't have near the aefw some off as the last time with Bayer. Does that mean it's not as effective it in winning!! Lol