My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images

Neptune777 - My process would be to take about 8 gallons of water out of QT tank and treat in another plastic bin with Levamisole for 6 hours. During that time I would empty the QT tank and rinse it and all of the equipment used in it in hot water & vinegar for a couple of hours and then refill the QT tank with water from the main tank and then add back the corals from the treatment bin. Also, they are not monti nudi's as I know what those look like and these are not them.
 
I think the gasman and myself would prefer to be free of the pests too. I have to do something, and I'm waiting as you are for the cure. Until then, I'll treat acros the only way I can right now. Blow them off.

I actually do trade. I break the tips where I know there is nothing and then I nuke the frags. Not possible on the tank however, and it isn't possible to remove colonies they are encrusted onto very large rocks.
 
Think I'm going to test the fluke tabs using the dosing Stoney has posted using for about 50 minutes once a week or so for 2 months. To reduce the shock on the corals and just make things easier I'm going to use display tank water for the water changes and treatment water. I'll just use a Magnum 350 canister filter with a polishing filter (micron) to suck water from the display into the Q tank without concern of infecting the Q tank. Can anyone imagine a stage in the flatworms lifecycle that's going to pass though a micron filter? Assuming one just happens to be passing near the surface of the display tank as I'm doing the water change.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8061234#post8061234 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Neptune777
Clkwrk....so you are absolutely free of FW's now? If so....cheers to you my friend! :beer:

I plan on being there soon! :)
Yes I got rid of them an they have been gone for sometime . As matter of fact I still see some of those that were posting during the same time frame that are still dealing with them . I also got rid of nudis with manual labor only....
 
SaraB- sorry to hread that threir back. IMO i think using water from your main tank is fine. just as long as you were nnot sucking off the live rock in the display tank. i don't think that AEFW go though a water born stage. The return of AEFW either arised form levamisole not be effcetive as a treatment or AEFW have a longer life cycle. what doseage of levamisole did you use? many people are rethinking that QT time should be 8 week vs. 5-4 weeks. we just don't know enough about their lifecycle, better to be safe and QT longer.
 
We will hopefully have some info in the near future regarding life cycles.As I believe a few people are working on it.

If I had some I would sacrifice a coral to see how long it takes to go thru the cycles myself.

But like everyone else I wan't worried about watching them I wanted them gone.
 
Dejavu - For the Levamisole I used the powder formula filled with RO to the top (500 ML line) and used a little over 50 ML per treatment in about 8 gallons of water.
 
so you treated at 50 ppm Levamisole. i notice AEFW a few days after my first treatment at 50 pmm Levamisole. the next treatment i raiseed to 60 pmm and had better results. treating a 50 ppm might be the reason you have AEFW again. i read that other have had bad result at 50 ppm. it also could be that a few eggs were missed while removing. hard to say.
 
Most stated to use 50ML in 10 gallons of water. I figured using about 55ML in 8 gallons would do the trick ... guess not! I do prefer to use the TMPCC as I can watch them fall off and squirm to their death ... it's more gratifying to me for all the damage they have caused!
 
Yeah. if you have big colonies its gonna be impossible to get all the eggs unless you frag it up. I found eggs so deep within a colony I couldnt reach them with a long barbq skewer. There were like 20-50 eggs inside. It looked like a huge mass of caviar or something.

On a seperate note, Does anybody know what the eggs look like post-hatching??? Do they completely come off or will the new FW just break through the egg casing but leave the shell behind. Im testing egg clutches also too see if they were effected by the dip but I want to know what to be looking for.
 
Weatherson has images of them hatching, and it looked like white worms / larvae coming out.
 
Well I have not been in this hobby to long and just started adding SPS a few months back. But, I joined the club today. Two weeks ago, I noticed that my first SPS, a purple stag with blue tips, started to RTN on me. I thought it was because of old phosban media, and I replaced it. Today I noticed a couple other colonies given me the same issues and my Water was good. Used reef dip and saw the AEFW. Made me sic. Luckily I only have about 15 acro Frags, and after reading this thread I will be adjusting my QT tank to handle SPS. I will be going with the fluke method.

I just have one question. Do we want to remove the eggs before the dips? I say this because since we know so little about the full life cycle of these beast, couldn't treating them with the eggs intact lead to some sort of immunity to the unborn? There are many insects that exhibit this ability to geneticlly adapt when in this larval form. While AEFW's are not as complex an organism as an insect, should we be worried.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread, without your help I would feel pretty helpless right now. At least I feel i will not loose all my Acros.

Thanks again.
 
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