My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images

[zapata41]

yes, weren't is what i meant to say melev

now pull out the fish would defeat the purpose, just like pulling out all the acros, it would be near impossible.

ok well update time.

came in tonight and nothing has rtn'd on me. the chromis' are out playing as usual but are still alive and dont look stressed.

I think there must still be a lot of meds in the water though, as i cant see how a 100g water change would rid the tank of all meds. the carbon i had used last night prolly abosorbed all that it could and is exhausted, so i changed it out with about 3lbs (dry) of fresh carbon.

All corals today look ok, not 100% PE but still look good, colors are better than ever on most everything. the skin in between the coralites does look a little lighter than usual, but that may just be an ollusion since PE is 100% and lights are on so it is a little washed out looking.

The zoas and clove polyps are still angry, about 75% of the zoas are closed up, look kinda how they would after a iodine dip on them. hopefully they will pull through too.

The big tangs all look good as does the clam.

I dont havea amonia test kit but nitrites tested at zero, nitrates drop about 25ppm from last weeks testing, now down under 25ppm

I also think that the large fresh batch of phoslock is al a contributing factor to the look on everything, this and the large amounts of carbon being used might be shocking the corals and fish. Before i changed out the phos media the hair algea in the prop tank was growing like mad, as of current it is all but died back and white looking.

ok well enough jibberish from me. it gets very easy to ramble on since this is something totally new to me and a lots of other.

On the better side though, i wouldnt call this a nightmare either.

Tim

 

[Dudester]

"the chromis' aren't out playing as usual but are still alive and dont look stressed" - Was that what you meant to say?

Thanks for your excellent documentation of your in-tank treatment. How did you dissolve the Fluke-Tabs? We found that the tablets were very difficult to crush, and even in water they remained quite granular. We had a very difficult time getting them into solution, yet your photo shows a nice milky slurry. Did you heat the water? I would worry that this might denature some of the proteins in the medication, although you obviously showed that whatever you did, the drug still had its desired effect. Well, I assume this -- did you see a lot of dead flatworms, and did you siphon them out with your water change?

Again, thank you for sharing your experience here with everyone - I hope all ends well in your tank.

 

[zapata41]

i disloved the meds in hot tap water, as hot as i came from the hotwater heater, not the best source but one cup full wouldnt hurt. i still had some granualar pieces, they made it into the system and i think that is what i am fighting right now, they are kinda still disolving.

Yes that is what i meant to say. I get typing fast and dont post read everything before i post it.

To be honest, i didnt look for any dead worms while siphoning, i was in the sump room replacaing siphoned water and my wife was holding the hose to siphon from in the display.

Well this concludes the first 24hrs from treatment. All looks ok but who knows what will happen in the next few days and weeks, then i have the second treatment to do to rid all the FW that hatched from the eggs that are still in there. So that's why i am paying careful attention to everything so i can determine how i will go about the second treatment and try to make it better.

Tim

 

[melev]

Tim, I would think taking out fish would be important. The idea of doing an in-tank treatment was to avoid setting up a medicated dip tank, obviously. However, fish have gills and breathe oxygen and need lots of it. Corals are made differently.

Pulling the fish out would allow you to still use the product in the reef, and observe how the LR, corals, DSB and all the critters would respond.

You had some losses so far, and we don't know if there will be long term issues from this method. LR processes water, filtering and denitrifying water. It could absorb the meds and release the product later perhaps.

I think taking the plunge was pretty risky myself, and I appreciate that you are documenting what is occuring. Please do double check your posts so that we can learn from them. For example, this paragraph seems to contradict itself.

"All corals today look ok, <b>not 100% PE</b> but still look good, colors are better than ever on most everything. the skin in between the coralites does look a little lighter than usual, but that may just be an ollusion since <b>PE is 100%</b> and lights are on so it is a little washed out looking."

 

[zapata41]

oops that should read isnt 100%. sorry i dont get a ton of time in my evenings so i must type as fast as possible to get on and off the net.

ok well update time, unfortunately

ok well lost a few pieces over the night, in the prop tank a big formosa frag, also the parent colony from the display. A big knobby tricolor and all the frags of it. A. hyancinthus RIP,A.Austera, A.Chesterfieldensis, Big A.Tenuis ( was already showing signs of STN before treatment) and A. Nana ( also showing signs of STN) A. Gemnifera. A. Prostrata.

I am sure they are gonna be more losses as a few other corals look today how the dead ones looked yesterday.

SO hopfeully the meds arent still in the water but i dont know. I also have mixed feeling about doing the second dip in two weeks, as i feel it may lead to a total tank crash, i feel the fluke tabs must really have wreaked havok on the bacteria in the tank.

Tim

 

[Dudester]

Tim, you should give serious consideration to fragging ALL of your viable colonies and placing those frags into a hospital tank of some kind. Those frags will be relatively easy to treat with the dip method that's nicely described within this thread. When we did an in-tank treatment, we saw slow initial losses like you describe, and ultimately we lost almost all 80 or more colonies and frags. Fortunately frags were taken early on and those continue to live in another tank. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[KingfishJohn]

I'll second what Dudester just said.

Frags if dipped correctly can almost certainly be rid of the flatworms and eggs have no crevices to hide in. It's a shame to lose the parent colony but the strain entirely is way worse.

Hope that your tanks turns around as we're all pulling for you.

John

 

[melev]

Sorry to hear that, Zapata. I hope you can save some of your corals.

 

[zapata41]

ok, , well i moved all the corals i could fit into my buddy's 240, darn was that a sad ordeal. The whole time i was breaking off large colonies i was thinking that i only did this treatment in tank to avoid tearing out all the corals, now i am tearing them out, some dead and some alive.

well hopefully the sick looking ones will pull through in his system. tomorrow i am gonna take the prop tank offline and change out all the water and clean the eggcrate, then i will pull all the pieces from the display, all the encrusting montis and such, and place them in there, then the display wil sit acro-less for a month or so. when i am sure there are no more bugs, i will start placing the corals back in the display.

ok well enough rambling again. dang this is starting to really suck now

guess that kinda confirms it, you cant use fluke as a display treatment like interceptor.

tank sure does look horrible empty like this

 

[wentreefgirl]

 

[zapata41]

well everything in the tank here has finished dying, so hopefully all the corals at my friends tank will keep living.

Thank you forthe offer, will pm you when it is time.

Yeah i am sure there are ppl out there saying, " what an idiot and how could he do that." but i didnt just go do it because i felt like it, i was trying to find a method that would work, must have overlooked things like LR sponging up all the meds.

We'll see how everything looks tonight when i go to check them out

TIm

 

[Dudester]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8790256#post8790256 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zapata41
tomorrow i am gonna take the prop tank offline and change out all the water and clean the eggcrate, then i will pull all the pieces from the display, all the encrusting montis and such, and place them in there, then the display wil sit acro-less for a month or so. when i am sure there are no more bugs, i will start placing the corals back in the display.

If I were you, I'd leave the tank fallow of all acro tissue for longer than "a month or so." Let's assume that some eggs are left in the tank. Give them 2 weeks to hatch, then the new AEFW will feed upon any remaining acros that are in your tank. There may be areas of encrusted acro tissue on your LR from when you removed the colonies, and those might be enough to keep newly hatched flatworms alive. If those again lay eggs, then it would be another couple of weeks for hatching and the cycle to repeat itself. As devastating as this has been for you, I would think that you wouldn't ever want to repeat the process, so you might consider waiting 8-10 weeks before putting any more acros in the tank. This would ensure that any remaining AEFW have had time to starve and die. Just my opinion, and I'm sorry that the in-tank treatment didn't work out.

 

[Serioussnaps]

A vinegar or muriatic acid bath(another serious undertaking) of the Live rock would release all the stuff the rock absorbed and clean the rock. Thats what i would do and then let the tank re-cycle if your buddy will hold the corals for a few months zapata. If you want more info on the muriatic/vinegar bath Randy Holmes Farly can give you the rundown on the process. I would start "anew" on establishing the balance in the tank before putting the colonies back in if you have that ability. I forsee more problems for the tank in the future, however, i find your plunge quite commendable Zapata and if one is to ever know about in tank fluke treatment for AEFW;s then the only thing for one to would be to stay the course...me ...i would throw in the towel.

 

[zapata41]

well there is no quiting in me, so i will place the few montis that i have into the prop tank, a bare tank with eggcrate in it. Then let the display run its course and in a month or so start to rebuild it.

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts, on the optomistic side o things, my pg&e will be cheaper this month.


also what other problems do you forsee the tank having in the future.

Tim

 

[Stoney Mahony]

Sorry to hear of the coral loss . I am trying to get some facts from Aquarium products at the moment but everything I have been told by there chemists in the past is that your live rock will not sponge up the meds and the active ingredients will start to break down after a few hours. They are made to use as an in tank treatment in FW and SW and can be used on FOWLR tanks. Maybe since the dose is 4x it could have different effects but I am trying to find out what molecules it actually breaks down into. I was told by two different people in the company that you don't even need to use any carbon for removal, it will break down into a harmless substance at normal dose so I am going to bug them a bit and see what else I can find out.

Is your water still cloudy? Maybe it's just super saturated with the tabs so they can't break down? Did you do anymore water changes? Good luck!

 

[fishypets]

Tim,

Sorry to hear you are living my nightmare. One question though:

Does your buddy's tank have sps? If so how are you sure you did not introduce AEFW to his system?

 

[zapata41]

stoney, the water is crystal clear. i dont know what went wrong, or what broke down into what, i just know that it didnt work out well.

fishypets, he does have sps, but i am not worried about introducing AEFW to his system because nothing could have survived that treatment, i also didnt bring any corals with me that had eggs on them, i left that coral in the display, no AEFW have been seen since the treatment. heck to snails or shrimp or anything but fish have been seen since the treatment.

Tim

 

[wentreefgirl]

Just a question. Why did you choose 4x the dose as opposed to just the dose?Was it tested to not work with the regular dose?

 

[zapata41]

stoney was the one who did a bunch of test and found 4x to be a good dose to kill of the bugs in a 20min dip.

Well even after isolating the survivers in the prop tank i am still getting deaths, must just be too many changes for the already sressed corals, well i just hope i keep a few things in the end.
Tim

 

[wentreefgirl]

Thanks.