My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images

Travis,
I have not done levimasole tratment yet, but do corals get brown out after this treatment?
Every time i dip corals in TM procure ,my corals looks sad and bad..take atleast a week for them to recover..And of cause i lost a quite few..

mike
 
I have not done the levimasole treatment yet.

I have tried the TMPCC at twice the recomended strength - corals turned brown.

For the past couple of weeks I have been using betadine as a dip. So far the corals have turned brown, but no aefw that I have been able to see for the past two weeks.

On the other hand I have lost almost eighty percent of the sps as well. These flatworms go through your sps like wildfire.

The ones that I still have left are just starting to color back up even with weekly dips. Gaining color as in not turning white - lol - actually they are gaining some green back in the tips.
 
Ill do another experiment this week when I dip again. If there are any AEFw's visible in the bucket after I dip, I will gather them with a rotifer screen and then stick them in a different QT. The Ill go out and get a new valida frag from my LFS and stick it in with the dead or stunned flat worms...well see what happens. Its worth 20 bucks to me just to see if they come back to life or not. I really hate the sound of betadine, yuk. Flatworms suck!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'm no doctor, but know that Betadine is used to kill bacteria. Our corals have all kinds of beneficial bacteria in their core as well as on their surface. Apparently the zooanthellae doesn't fare to well against the antiseptic, but it seems to me that you'll lose a coral one way or another.

Iodine and tank water seems to help shock them enough to blow off a couple, but the Betadine sends them out en mass.

Travis, I want to treat one coral (A. granulosa) for red bugs. I have Interceptor, but don't know how much to use with 1 liter or perhaps 1 gallon of water. Can you figure up the dosage and PM me? I don't want to get this thread off track on the other subject of redbugs.
 
The suggestion that flatworms must be curled up or dissolve to be dead doesn't make sense. It should be entirely dependent on the mechanism that kills them and since we're talking about two different chemicals the odds are that they're working on two different functions to kill the flat worm. Some might lyse the wall, some may restrict a critical metabolic process, some might stop uptake of neurotransmitters and so on.

It's like suggesting people all have to be in a fetal position to be truly dead, otherwise they must just be stunned.

My experience with Levimasole at close to 80ppm for 8 hours it tends to turn the coral white. Polyps stay intact but take weeks to fully come out again. I wouldn't be surprised if people are throwing away corals that aren't actually dead but just lost all color. Brown color starts to come back after a few weeks and a month or so later normal colors will start to appear again. I'm going to pull all sps out of the tank again and treat in a Q tank for a couple months soon so I'm very interested in the fluke tab results.

Kevin
 
How susceptible are mille's to AEFW and red bugs??? ARe they more resistant than say A. valida etc etc....????

Would you all suggest the treatment gambit with milles mujch like other acropora???
 
Serioussnaps- Milles are just as susceptible AEFW as any other acro is. IME milles were the first to get infected. as for RB i have never seen any on my milles but would recomend treating them as if they had them just like any other acro.


the browning out part doesn't scare me to much. What does is that there is little to no PE and some are strating to RTN. in fact the three i lost RTN and 8 other started to be it seem to be slowing down.

When i treated i had multple acro w/ each other. some acro slimed really bad. i am wordering if that is playing a major role in the RTN. IME newly shipped arco that slime alot have a tendency to RTN a little. Any thought?
 
My were definitely dead after the Levamisole treatments.
purple-tipped-stag.jpg

tricolor-loripes-under.jpg


All of mine that didn't make it did this (RTN). I did the recommended dosage of Levamisole for the recommended time frame. No whitening of tissue, just tissue lose...
 
IMO having a reoccurrence of FW's after treatment doesn't necessarily mean the treatment doesn't work......most likely it means the QT protocol was not not followed or the treatment didn't last long enough with enough iterations
Also, the position doesn't matter.....more important: are they motionless forever? That's what counts....Stoney I look forward to seeing what you find during the next round.
I did a search for the last year on RC and 90% of the posts had a positive mention of Fluke Tabs. Funny thing is it seems to go unnoticed and not thoroughly explored. Those that did have issues had really long dip times.....here are a few threads where it is mentioned:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=906086&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=898106&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=906195&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=642959&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=684069&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

One of these threads mentioned using Fluke Tabs and Interceptor (for RB's) and that they beat the FW's. Perhaps ther is some interaction with these 2 drugs that gives them a one two punch.
 
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Ok, heres a few pics......Melev, if you want me to start another thread let me know, I don't want to post too much on yours if you meant to discuss your tank mainly and not others.....:)

Heres a pic of the QT:
QT26.jpg

QT24.jpg


Heres are a few pics of the valida frags, keep in mind all damage you can see was there before the dips...
e6324768.jpg

2f41a9e2.jpg

f6ff1215.jpg


Here is a pic of a Valida frag that was totally eaten by the fw's but I treated it any way and the polyps came back out!
QT23.jpg


Here is a valida frag I kept on the other side of the tank from the colony. I don't think the fw's found it till a few days before I noticed them b/c there was minimal damage. This is also a frag I dipped a total of 4 times already, 2 of which were 50 minute dips. No color loss whatsoever. This was one of my test frags I spoke about earlier.
QT08.jpg
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8039159#post8039159 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Neptune777
IMO having a reoccurrence of FW's after treatment doesn't necessarily mean the treatment doesn't work......most likely it means the QT protocol was not not followed or the treatment didn't last long enough with enough iterations
Also, the position doesn't matter.....more important: are they motionless forever? That's what counts....Stoney I look forward to seeing what you find during the next round.
I did a search for the last year on RC and 90% of the posts had a positive mention of Fluke Tabs. Funny thing is it seems to go unnoticed and not thoroughly explored. Those that did have issues had really long dip times.....here are a few threads where it is mentioned:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=906086&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=898106&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=906195&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=642959&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=684069&highlight=Fluke+Tabs

One of these threads mentioned using Fluke Tabs and Interceptor (for RB's) and that they beat the FW's. Perhaps ther is some interaction with these 2 drugs that gives them a one two punch.

Thread 1:
Nothing but 1 comment from a guy that "heard" from someone else that fluke tabs work.
running tally = 0 positive, 0 negative

Thread 2:
1 guy talks about his success with treating with fluke tabs.
running tally = 1 positive, 0 negative

Thread 3:
1 guy tells someone to use fluke tabs but says nothing else. Another guy states that he has "heard" the fluke tabs work.
running tally = 1 positive, 0 negative

Thread 4:
1 report that it worked for someone.
1 report that a coral treated with a fluke tab bleached.
1 report that the corals do not fair well to the dip
running tally = 1 positive, 2 negative

Thread 5:
1 report that fluke tabs were used and several corals died
running tally = 1 positive, 3 negative

Thread 6:
1 report of a coral killed by the dip

total tally = 1 positive response, 4 negative responses.

Sorry, I didn't count the couple responses of I heard from a guy that heard from a guy that heard from a guy....

I stand by my original post that overall, the experience that people have had with the fluke tabs in the past has been more negative than positive.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8037828#post8037828 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MSHUR
Travis,
I have not done levimasole tratment yet, but do corals get brown out after this treatment?
Every time i dip corals in TM procure ,my corals looks sad and bad..take atleast a week for them to recover..And of cause i lost a quite few..

mike

Hey Mike:)

With levamisole, some corals will lighten up a little and some will lose a little color but I did not experience anything I would call bleaching or browning out. About the same effect that you get when you move a coral from one tank to another, it has to adjust to its new environment.
 
fluke tabs definitely need more testing by deferent people to see if it works as good as the pictures showing , if it works Stoney Mahony need to get a good :thumbsup: :love1:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8038047#post8038047 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Stoney Mahony
Ill do another experiment this week when I dip again. If there are any AEFw's visible in the bucket after I dip.....

That will make things easier to determine if this a good treatment or not. If you find FW's during subsequent treatments, that confirms that the original treatments were not 100% effective. The first treatment should kill all adults. Any live FW's that make it to subsequent treatments will be babies that are too small to see anyways.

BTW, the corals you just posted look healthy and colorful. That does confirm that the corals are handling the treatments well!
 
Neptune- Yes, they were motionless forever...at least for 6 hours. I took a picture of the bucket after the last coral was out, then another 4 hours later and the pics are identical, they didnt move.

Also Travis, all those people could have been using different doses, had bad water quality or a million other factors. I would rather try it for myself than swear it off b/c others have reported numerous conflicting results. From what you have posted it seems I am using a completely different product or method b/c I have not seen ANY of the adverse effects you describe the other people having. Remember, people thought the world was flat for a long time......:eek2: :D
 
Travis

Travis

Did you check and see after you redone your tank if you have any FW after the treatment?
 
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