Noo!!! AEFW!!!??

[Bolo Tran]

The day that I dreaded most has come to life. I've dipped every single frag with coralrx that I ever gotten so how could this be??

My Steve Elias stag has been going downhill for the last 2 weeks and at first I thought it was just my water quality. The piece started to stn from the base up so I immediately concluded that it was an all swing problem. Little did I know these little devils have been munching away at it. When I got home last night I saw little tiny eggs at the base that died off. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it wasn't true so I dipped and found about 8 flatworms falling off...cry cry. So I immediately cut off the base and reattached on a new frag plug.


I have about 13 frags so I took all of them out and dipped but seemingly, none of my other SPS were affected. Can this be right? Even my Millie's didn't have any on them. Could I have been lucky to have caught this early on and they haven't found my other frags? When they are in free floating form do they immediately attach to other sps or do they exist in the rocks too? They have had a chance to lay eggs so does this mean that it's bad news for me? This piece did not have not have any aefw when I dipped it when I first got it.

Please advise me on what I should do to eradicate this from my tank. I am so bummed beyond belief that this has happened as I practiced due diligence on newly acquired pieces(except quarantine). Please help! Thanks all

 

[tommer725]

flatworm exit
its a medication for inside the tank
the flatworms will release toxins as they die in the current, so make sure you have a filter sock to catch them in.

 

[aqua80]

do they look like this :

and have you found theses :

and bite marks ?

If so yes it is AEFW and no fwexit won't work...

I've decided to live with them...
Had a medium crash for the last 2 months but now corals are thriving even with the continuous presence of the worms...

But to eradicate them you must get all the acros out of the tank for 6-8 weeks and dip them weekly to kill every worms...

dips don't kill eggs...
good luck !

 

[oscarslr]

Bummer, I think the cycle of eggs is about 28 days or so, and rarely will you find all of them. I have no personal experience thank God, but I have avoided them by not placing any plug base/ rock base in my tank. AEFW do not lay eggs on healthy acro skin. I also use the bayer dip mentioned here and it has saved me once. Looks like you have a manageable amount of coral to be able to move them for the recommended 3 months from your display tank. That would be the best odds off eliminating them completely.

 

[Bolo Tran]

Yes aquaman. They look exactly like your pics. I have no doubt that they are indeed aefw.

I don't have the option for a q-tank. Would diligent weekly dips in coralrx for 5 weeks straight take care of them since I have a fairly small tank (50g)and not so many acros? I can do the weekly dips pretty easily. What is the best method?

Since they I found them only on one single mini colony of the Steve Elias stag, what do that mean for me? Did I catch them on time from spreading to other corals? Those who have had these and have been successful in beating them please tell me your story

 

[karsseboom]

flatworm exit
its a medication for inside the tank
the flatworms will release toxins as they die in the current, so make sure you have a filter sock to catch them in.

That doesn't work on Aefw.

 

[trueblackpercula]

I hear that bayer insecticide works well on them with dips

 

[sahin]

I would setup a QT or temp tank right away. I wouldn't chance your other SPS to have not been infected.

I lost over 30 SPS mini colonies a couple of years ago. I know how it feels.

You need to dip every single Acro in your tank and then keep the tank free of Acros for at least 2 to 3 months.

Or you can live with them in your tank as some people now do; but you need to dose KZ Flatworm Stop and be basting your corals at least every other day.

 

[Reef Bass]

Bolo Tran, I feel your pain. From your description, you caught your infection early, which is better than late. However, with the ability of freshly hatched aefw larvae to swim freely, the treatment is still the same.

I had a bad, nasty, whole tank infection of aefw. It started with one frag and initially I didn't find any signs of infection on any near by frags, so I only treated the one frag initially. Big mistake. AEFW were munching on all the acros in the tank. I spent a year fooling around with dip this, dip that, and watching my acros decline.

Eventually I took a stand. Living with aefw was not an option for me. They had to go. I had to remove every acro from the tank and dip every week without fail for six weeks straight. I had over 50 acros at the start of the outbreak, and was down to about 30 smaller ones a year later.

I had some large colonies which required 2 and 5 gallon buckets to dip. Imagine dipping a volleyball size colony and coming up with 300 aefw at the bottom of the bucket afterwards.

I used Marine Melafix as the dip. In my experience, it rides the line of being harsh on pests and not so harsh on coral. It didn't kill the aefw, but it did cause them to loosen their grip so they could be easily aggitated off the coral after dipping. I had some smooth skinned acros (A. surharsonoi, A. lokani) survive the repeated dip process, which I'd bet they would not have if I had used a harsher dip, such as an iodine based preparation.

As you know, no dip kills eggs. Period. So repeating the dipping every week to dislodge and remove newly hatched aefw before they could start laying eggs was the key to breaking the aefw life cycle and eventually ending the infection in my tank.

I saw my last aefw three weeks into the six week dip regimen. I also kept up the regimen through the six week process to be sure. I'd have to check my dates, but that was roughly a year ago and I haven't seen an aefw or bite marks in my tank since.

Good luck!

 

[ostrow]

I strongly recommend a cosmetus wrasse and/or dancing shrimp. After reading several posts on RC and other forums, particularly European, I got both and watched both work diligently on the buggers. Corals grew back (except for 3 milles) too.

 

[Bolo Tran]

Reef bass. Seems like you put in a lot of work to get rid of these things and much congrats for being successful. I don't think I read any mention of you using a qtank as part of your success. Does this mean that I can be successful in eradicating them without the hassle and cost of setting up a qtank if I do diligent dips? Please advise

 

[Reef Bass]

I did not use a qt tank to resolve my aefw infestation. It was the weekly dipping of all acros that finally broke the aefw lifecycle by removing all freshly hatched aefw before they could lay eggs. It was a pain but so worth it in the long run. I personally could not live with flatworms munching my corals.

IMHO, the only way to prevent aefw infection is with a qt, cuz dips don't kill eggs.

 

[Allmost]

blow the rocks and corals with a power head weekly,

keep corals in Tip top shape [whichmeans water chemistry in top shape], AEFW wont be able to hurt it

 

[Allmost]

blow the rocks and corals with a power head weekly,

keep corals in Tip top shape [whichmeans water chemistry in top shape], AEFW wont be able to hurt it

 

[Bolo Tran]

I think I will be taking the weekly dipping approach to get rid of them. How many weeks straight should I dip? Again I only have about 13 frags/mini colonies so weekly dipping shouldn't be so bad.

 

[Reef Bass]

I did weekly dips for 6 weeks straight. Without fail. No breaks. No skipping the last ones because you haven't seen any in a while.

My process was to dip each frag in Melafix Marine (10ml/l) for 5 minutes, then agitate vigorously to dislodge whatever, then into a rinse bucket for 5, then agitate vigorously, then back in tank. Eventually you'll stop seeing them in the rinse bucket and then none in the dip bucket. A couple more weekly dips after that you should be good.

I agree your situation sounds easier. Good luck.

 

[cpllongjk]

You got the reef equivelent of stds. What have you been doing to your corals?

Flatworm exit works wonders, but be careful, a little bit goes a long way. Less is more, wait till some of them die, then add a tad more. It takes a little while to sea some dead.

Also flatworm exit does not kill the eggs. You need to dip each coral individually with some type of coral cure or iodine solution. I have a product called tropic marin pro coral cure. Get some and before you add anything to your tank dip it in this for a good few seconds. Also shake the frags while dipping from now on to hopefully shake off any eggs on the bottom of the plugs.

Many people do not like dipping their frags because they typically brown out for a few weeks afterwards but I swear by it. It saves my reef from coral stds.

 

[sahin]

Flatworm exit does not work for AEFW's. Why are people making a connection between AEFW's and Flatworm Exit? Two people now on this thread think FE is used for AEFW's...if only that was the case.

Please be careful with the info you give out.

 

[Grant W]

Like Sahin and others have said FW exit is for Planaria(sp) not AEFW. Dipping and or qt so far are the only method for beating these nasty little B&$@%#ds. Gl with the battle.

 

[Bolo Tran]

I've dipped every single sps frag that I've ever gotten in with Coralrx and never found a single flatworm come off and all my frags(which aren't many) have been from very reputable sources. One of them was a former totm winner here on RC. I'm puzzled as to how I contracted it.

Do you think it possibly could have been from another coral other than sps that I introduced to the tank that had a patch of eggs with it? I'll have to admit that I never dip lps corals that I introduced to the tank as I never felt that I needed to.

I've also heard a lot of people suggesting flatworm exit for aefw and I've been in the hobby long enough to know they do nothing. Thanks for trying to help but you really be accurate with facts when stating it.