My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images

Update

Update

Okay, here's my thinking...

Whatever brought the AEFW in, it was recent. This wasn't something that has been in my tank for a while and suddenly woke up and caused some minimal damage. :(

I have a feeling it was the RTNing frag a club member brought over that died overnight in my system. I can't prove it, and it doesn't really matter. All I care about is getting these things out of the tank.

I've been watching my other corals like a hawk. I had two other tri-color acros fade, and they were dipped in Betadine solution for 25 minutes. This doesn't solve the problem - it is a stop gap to get more time to circle the wagons. One piece of green slimer has been losing color and less polyp extension. And another pretty piece with blue tips also reacted the same.

So these pieces were dipped today in Betadine solution again, to get the flatworms off. I was hoping to deal with this when I get back from MACNA, but I have a feeling this is a ticking timebomb and I'm already near the 60 second mark. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but rather to indicate the urgency of resolving the problem quickly.

The Tyree frag was dipped again today to see what came off. As far as I could tell, only one flatworm, if at that. Huge ones came off the other three corals I dipped, and I simply can't believe I don't see them prior to the dip. The one that blew out looked like a freakng sail as it tumbled about in the medicated water. :eek2:

The fluke tabs arrive tomorrow, I've been told.
 
Marc- you think the AEFW are everywhere in your tank? .
Are you going to treat the corals in a quarantine tank ?
I don't have them in my tank i did some more dipping on some SPS and O none no AEFW at all :cool: But i got cyno :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8098654#post8098654 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Stoney Mahony
Do you know what the PAR or lumen output is on those lamps?

Neptune: Thanks man! :beer:
Click to expand...

I looked at the manufactures site and all it stated was high lumen output. But, after reading more about them on the manufactures site it appears that these are designed to be throw aways. When the bulb is exausted you throw it out. To that is why it is priced around the same price as a bulb.

Since I plan on keeping the QT tank. I will look for another option.
I don't want to have to change fixtures everytime a bulb dies.
 
I'm going to do some water tests tonight to see if anything else is going on in the system. I don't know that the flatworms are widespread at this time, but they definitely have the ablility to get around.

I received an email from one person who said his Six Line Wrasse helped consume them. I don't know that mine has even seen one, let alone eaten any.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8100171#post8100171 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev


I received an email from one person who said his Six Line Wrasse helped consume them. .
Click to expand...
May be if you have a dozen of them :D
 
When I blasted mine off of the rocks, my purple tang and PJ cardinals ate them with gusto. I never offered any to the mandarin, but I'm sure he'd have loved them, too. They just didn't pick anything off. Good luck with this, Marc. I was there back in March. It's no fun.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8100300#post8100300 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zoom
May be if you have a dozen of them :D
Click to expand...
This is why I have so many wrasses in my 180.

Melev I hope you get them guys before they get over populated.
 
12 right now . The work crew is 10 lubbucks, a ruby head and a orange stripe velvet. As I was going thru pics tonight I reminded myself that I started dealing with the flatworms in April 05
 
Don't know what you mean ? I always had some wrasses and added more during my AEFW episode. I was blowing my corals off daily and they would chase down everyone that flew off.Also all day long they are hunting and they can fist in and thru colonies.It was during this time frame I found TMPCC in a LFS while reading the bottle I noticed it said flatworms and talked about acropora. I reported back here in the sps forum and no one ever heard of it . Anyways I bought some and during a tank reaquascape I treated every coral in 10g tanks and a 20g tank. Been loving life since.
 
So after the TMPCC treatments (and the wrasse brigade), you've been AEFW free, right? I was thinking maybe they had come back after some time. I treated in March and have had no signs since, so if they came back on you, I was just wondering over what time frame.
 
Just adding a small datapoint. I removed and treated all of my sps night before last using a similar method as provided by Stoney. I actually used 1.6 tablets of the same brand in a 2 gallon bucket (same ratio) for about 50 min to 1 hour. As he mentioned there was no color loss at all and most of the corals had good polyp extension within an hour. It's an absolute night and day difference from the levimasole. The fluke tabs at these levels appear to have no impact at all on the corals.

I didn't have much in the way of adult flat worms as I'd been treating anything that appeared to have real signs of them in levimasole but found a lot of what appeared to be juve's. Now it's 2 months in a little 20 gallon tank, oh boy.

Think I'll dip every week and a half or so since they don't seem to mind at all.

The only annoyance is trying to kill off the base of a lot of encrusted acros from the display tank. Scraping with a razor blade doesn't do it. Polyps were coming ou from some of them the next day. Maybe I'll super glue over them : (

Kevin W.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8109094#post8109094 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gflat65
So after the TMPCC treatments (and the wrasse brigade), you've been AEFW free, right? I was thinking maybe they had come back after some time. I treated in March and have had no signs since, so if they came back on you, I was just wondering over what time frame.
Click to expand...

Yes . I never ever found more than 10 eggs in any one spot . So I may have caught it early . I like to observe every coral daily so any changes are noticed right away.

Also I will add that I had an emerald that would hang out in the first acro that showed signs . It has been dismissed that it wasn't eating the FW but I think it ate the eggs as I never found any in that colony. Another reason I think this is because I removed that crab because it was nolonger green like an emerald but everything eles pointed to emerald/mithrax. I had 2 emerals at one time and haven't seen them in a long time . Well the other day I had a mille rtn because of low alk . I found that second crab eating the flesh that was sloughing off. It also looked like the other crab which is in the sump .

So maybe they could have helped a bit also .
 
Well I finally treated all my acros tonight and I confirmed positive for the AEFW and not just a mis-identification of red planaria. One of my larger Milli colonies had an egg cluster at the base....and I found dead AEFWs after treatment.

The Fluke Tabs definitely seem to work on these buggers.....they were DEAD after a 20min dip......same as Stoney mentioned....and my corals all have polyp extension after treatment and placing in my 30 cube QT.....
 
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