Well everyone knows the battle those of us in Carmichael have been having with the water. Well the last 2 weeks even with water from your reef my sps have been exhibiting the same symptoms. This is after 2 mos of everything being happy.
Well just so happens that with the big tank move coming up the tank with all my sps in it has gone with 0 lighting for 2 days. Just for giggles I threw the leds over the tank tonight and cranked em up to about 40% on the whites. As I looked down at the frag rack at one of the colonies that was having issues I saw large white patches all over it. I thought hey those look like aefw. But no way they could be because I have inspected and dipped every sps before switching tanks this last time and never saw a dead one in the bottom of any of the dip tubs. And adult AEFW die pretty easy in most coral dips and I use 2 different ones when I dip. Plus I would have saw bite marks. Well folks these guys seem a little different. As soon as the lights came on they started retreating beneath the encrustment of the coral. Never seen AEFW do that either. And instead of bite marks they cleared out skin starting at base and tips just like stn would have. After further inspection dipping and basting I found tons of them under my mini colonies that seemed to not even have issues with exception of a little white area around the base. But I am talking 1 -2 mm. I really have never heard of AEWF that retreated into darkness when the lights came on. They appear to live and lay eggs on the live rock and only come out to feed after hours of darkness. I can only think this comes from being around the wrasses and hog fish I have. My candy striped hogfish was picking these guys off when I started hiring em with the baster. But within 5 minutes there were no more visible on any colony and I could only produce one by blasting the closest Crack in the live rock or if there was a spot in the encrustment where they could hide and I would get 1 to 2 big ones out of there. I even found em under coral that had 0 evidence of being bit. Other then a light discoloration in one area or the other. I can only be happy that I have just a few very small colonies that can be dipped or trashed very easily.
Now after reading this if anyone can give me some advice on how to be 100% rid of them without of course just starting over. And I am not opposed to chucking all my acros and not having any sps for a few months. But I have to be positive that will do the trick. Tomorrow I plan on removing and plug or substrate on all pieces and giving them a double strength dip in coral RX since revive is what I used before. Might even go get some bear. But I saw the coral RX kick their Butts tonight with a 1x dose. Just have to be clear of the eggs. Do the babies need sps to survive. Any help from people with experience would be appreciated. I am really frustrated now. Is the water? Have I always had these guys? Crap.. was the cyno blooms and issues before just part of the cycle and just happen to coincide with these little basterds? I'm not a happy camper right now. Too many questions. And since I have only ever had issues with acropora and none of any other coral monti, pocci, or any other sps this has got me stumped.
There are around 30 AEFW IN THIS PIC. They came off one multi branch 2" frag. That just yesterday looked perfectly healthy.
<a href="http://s177.photobucket.com/user/sjhdeh_photos/media/20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w218/sjhdeh_photos/20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg" border="0" alt="aefw photo 20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg"/></a>
Well just so happens that with the big tank move coming up the tank with all my sps in it has gone with 0 lighting for 2 days. Just for giggles I threw the leds over the tank tonight and cranked em up to about 40% on the whites. As I looked down at the frag rack at one of the colonies that was having issues I saw large white patches all over it. I thought hey those look like aefw. But no way they could be because I have inspected and dipped every sps before switching tanks this last time and never saw a dead one in the bottom of any of the dip tubs. And adult AEFW die pretty easy in most coral dips and I use 2 different ones when I dip. Plus I would have saw bite marks. Well folks these guys seem a little different. As soon as the lights came on they started retreating beneath the encrustment of the coral. Never seen AEFW do that either. And instead of bite marks they cleared out skin starting at base and tips just like stn would have. After further inspection dipping and basting I found tons of them under my mini colonies that seemed to not even have issues with exception of a little white area around the base. But I am talking 1 -2 mm. I really have never heard of AEWF that retreated into darkness when the lights came on. They appear to live and lay eggs on the live rock and only come out to feed after hours of darkness. I can only think this comes from being around the wrasses and hog fish I have. My candy striped hogfish was picking these guys off when I started hiring em with the baster. But within 5 minutes there were no more visible on any colony and I could only produce one by blasting the closest Crack in the live rock or if there was a spot in the encrustment where they could hide and I would get 1 to 2 big ones out of there. I even found em under coral that had 0 evidence of being bit. Other then a light discoloration in one area or the other. I can only be happy that I have just a few very small colonies that can be dipped or trashed very easily.
Now after reading this if anyone can give me some advice on how to be 100% rid of them without of course just starting over. And I am not opposed to chucking all my acros and not having any sps for a few months. But I have to be positive that will do the trick. Tomorrow I plan on removing and plug or substrate on all pieces and giving them a double strength dip in coral RX since revive is what I used before. Might even go get some bear. But I saw the coral RX kick their Butts tonight with a 1x dose. Just have to be clear of the eggs. Do the babies need sps to survive. Any help from people with experience would be appreciated. I am really frustrated now. Is the water? Have I always had these guys? Crap.. was the cyno blooms and issues before just part of the cycle and just happen to coincide with these little basterds? I'm not a happy camper right now. Too many questions. And since I have only ever had issues with acropora and none of any other coral monti, pocci, or any other sps this has got me stumped.
There are around 30 AEFW IN THIS PIC. They came off one multi branch 2" frag. That just yesterday looked perfectly healthy.
<a href="http://s177.photobucket.com/user/sjhdeh_photos/media/20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w218/sjhdeh_photos/20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg" border="0" alt="aefw photo 20150519_222106_zpswfjbzndy.jpg"/></a>
