I understand why some reefers suddenly give up and sell!

[Chaloupa]

This is another little rant for me...sorry!

I treated a few months ago for red bugs in my 150g reef...no biggie, pretty easy to deal with. Now, I have Acro Eating Flatworms :cry:....life can get no worse. Anyone have any experience with dealing with them? I have contacted a few guys on RC to get their input...a softy tank sounds pretty good to me right now!

[marie]

:eek: I had no idea they were even around B.C.. Hope you can get rid of them

[Chaloupa]

me too

[Salmon King]

I talked to a friend and he said dwarf crocadile pipe fish or freshwater dip or iodine dip

[Chaloupa]

FW dip an ACRO??? Hmmmm......I have heard that isn't a good idea with acros. But I'll take any advice and further research it...thanks!

[Der_Iron_Chef]

A few things I've read:

1) Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure
2) Levimasole Hydrochloride - a treatment some people use on AEFW with success in their reef tanks (and can be found at feed stores, apparently)
3) The Chelidonura varians nudibranches (http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=2198&N=0), which apparently exclusively eat flatworms. Not sure how available they are here/there, though?

One thing to mention is that, in my short reading on the subject, everyone seems to be saying the same thing: none of the treatments get rid of the eggs. Those need to be manually removed/scraped off.

This sucks...sorry :( But good luck.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Also found this:

"Dip the coral in hyposaline water, like 1.010 (or less), and have 10 drops of lugols added per gallon of water. Leave them in the water for 3-5 minutes, shake, and then scrape off any eggs you see. Put them back in your QT, and repeat every few days, and see if the eggs keep reappearing. The eggs you can't get, try to cover them with super glue."

[untamed]

Do you have any idea how you came to have them? Did you purchase any frags from somewhere far away? I have also not heard of anyone in BC having these. This is too close to home and could spread through local frag trading.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

i thought that six line wrasses took care of problems like this??

Richard

[Salmon King]

read this http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=17742&page=2&highlight=acro+flatworm

[Delphinus]

Wouldn't Flatworm Exit work on them?

[Chaloupa]

FWE doesn't actually work on them....I only wish! There are no good reports of eradication using wrasses....I have wrasses (several different types)....they don't do the job...again I WISH!

I have been trying to get the Velvet Nudibranch for several months to deal with red flatworms in another tank...but have had no luck....it is something I would like to try but I fear I don't have time to wait....

I have been purchasing through several retailers, and I have purchased some frags from other reefers, plus I bought a large amount of coral from a reefer...I do have an idea of where they came from, but I can't say for sure..I just know that I have them and it sucks. I plan on losing many a nice colony. Thank for the input everyone...and, hey at least I haven't fragged anything and sold it...then I would throw in the towel for wrecking other peoples reefs!

In the end it comes down to my fault for not QTing all my acros/corals as it is buyer beware!

[tang daddy]

*Warning this post has important information and is based on my experiences and is used only as a reference. Use the information at your own discretion, anything that goes wrong will not be pinned or blamed on me and that's why it's called a suggestion thanks*

Hi Chaloupa sorry to hear about your aefw take a deep breath, exhale whatever you do don't freshwater dip unless you want to kill off your sps, the only thing I found that can take fw dips are zoas and paly's.

This article has been discussed more often than not and that's why most buy frags and not colonies-partly because the colinies can hide eggs better. More people have it than you know partially due to trading(even in B.C.) and every where across the world but you just don't hear people openly admitting or sometimes they don't know tell tale signs of infestation they just think it's odd that they're corals get paler and stn and maybe confuse it with alk issues.

You Don't know how many hours I've spent on rc researching these bastards, countless nights up till 4am reading on aefw their the nastiest in the hobby aside to the dreaded nudi that eat monti!

Now you may have read that fwe doesn't work, get it out of your mind and start fresh! If you don't do anything about your acros will die indefinately maybe take a year maybe take a few months depends on your how much infestation you have.

I haven't been in the hobby long and use to think that I was immune to infestations of any kind, When people who have experienced these pests before ask me Chris do you qt I just laughed and said why bother?
They said if you don't QT you may end up with problems and I kinda shrugged it off..... But not anymore if you don't carefully inspect your corals and qt then that's like having unprotected sex with dirties, sooner or later your gonna get something and believe me it won't be good!!

Chaloupa please start dipping everything if you buy anything else from anyone anywhere!!

I can't stop preaching to everyone that it's just common practise and everyone should do it to lessen out chances of getting these pests, when I look at red bugs now it's a joke most of us have it and are not a big deal but let me tell you if you have aefw's be worried, here's my suggestions and I would like everyone to read it that's why I'm posting this:

Pick up some tmpcc I think oa has ordered some check with Wendall.
Now this is what I do regardless of who the frag is from or even where trust no one!
First if the frag is on a plug unmount put in a container like a tupperware with the water it came with in a bag.
If you have a maricultered colony or even wild check the piece thoroughly I usually don't buy pieces that are receded even a little anymore.
So check it carefully for egg masses they look like the eggs that you get with sushi only 1000 times smaller colour is light orange. Remove the algae and everything else off the maricultured plug and I mean scrape it down to rock, I use various tools and do it over a sink cause it gets messy. Tools I use to scrape the larger plugs are an exacto knife butter knife tooth brush and dental pick with the 2 blades on one side a fine pick on the other a scraper thingy.

After plug is cleaned and frags unmounted put it in the container then mix the tmpcc and let it sit for 20 mins. I use a strong dose for about 1 liter of sw I use 5 squirts of tmpcc which first turns the water red Don't freak out just use a chopstick to stir it in and it will slowly dillute to a tea colour and I must add I have not lost one frag or colony to tmpcc dip!

After the coral has sat for 15-20 mins use a turkey baster but not the one you feed your fish with, and swish at the corals from every angle even do the plugs you will see all sorts of stuff fly off if they haven't already ejected themselves. I've seen lots of weird things come off this is after I thoroughly scraped the shiznit off the plug but anyhow that will give you much satisfaction btw you can do this with your colonies and frags in your tank now!!

After you're done put it back oh yeah some people use a maxijet to blast the aefw's off, the tmpcc will only stun them and loosen their grip not entirely kill them that's why we have to turkey baste and blast them off!

Next you probally have eggs that you'll find on some of the infested colonies look on the underside carefully in the crevices, if a colony has eggs on it you can scrape it off but if you ask me frag some of the healthy tips and throw the rest out or what I meant to say was let it dry!

So after this you will have to do the following get a canister filter maybe try to find one used like an ehiem with several compartments inside wash it well take all the media if it has any out then fill it with carbon maybe fill 3 of the compartments leave the other 2 empty. I suggested ehiem you can use any canister filter oh and pick up lots of carbon you will need it no sense in cheapin out and returning for more waste of gas ime for your car. Make sure you rinse the carbon in your filter before using and maybe have a sponge in the exit of your to trap debri from entering back into your tank.

Next buy Fwe by salifert also go see your vet get some penetrator the big dog one 51lbs and up comes with 6 pills enough for you to do a few treatments. To culculate how many fwe you will need is easy 1 ampoule is in 1 box and it does 300g figure how many gallons you have total water including sump don't worry about rock displacement it wont matter.

I have a 120g and a 55 sump so roughly 175g but I rounded up to 200g hehe, Now it's been said that some start at 2x the recomended dose some went with 6x and so forth but it has also been said that fw's especially aefw's can build a tollerance to fwe not something I wanted to hear and this is coming from salifert website by the creator of fwe so I wanted to make sure I made an impact so I used 3 boxes this was for the first treatment. That equals 3x300=900g of treatment for 175g minus the displacement probally 30g which again I didn't care because I was fed up.

Here are the details and expeirience of the treatment:

3 boxes of fwe
1 canister filter of carbon in 3 of the compartments
(culculated 1lb per 50g)
50g of fresh sw rtg approx 25% of total tank size but more like 30%

start by taking your snails out as many as you can get, have extra micron bags on hand just incase if you want and leave skimmer running!

Then dump all the fwe in 1 after another I also used the bottles squeezing it several times with it submerged just to get every drop out.
Then sit back and watch the tank carefully after 10 mins I started to notice fw's fly off and there were many, I read in posts that people were sucking and siphoning it out during the duration but I just watched them fly into the water coloum although other things were following suit.

At 15 mins I noticed snails, bristtle worms and amphipods coming out of holes everywhere so I used a long skinny tong to pick these up and throw them out. Fish and shrimp even my clams were still fine although my clams were not really open much and I dont blame them.

And stuff kept popping out and dying huge copepods more bristle and snails were wiggling so I kept picking and throwing this was after 1 hour fish was stressed and clams were def not happy so I left the fwe in for another hour.

After picking as much dead snails and such I proceded to do the water change after water change I hooked up my canister filter oh and during I changed my micron bag 3 times the last being after the water change as I assumed that there were fw's in it and didn't want dead fw's to pollute the water further.

The next morning I was eager to inspect the tank to see if my rabbit and others made it. Everyone was swimming around fine like nothing happened clams were fully opened it was a success as for the corals they were good too polyps extended and all it was a long evening and night but I was going to get better sleeps the next night knowing everyone was happy and alive 0 casualties for coral fish and clams even shrimp, pistol, fire camel were all good. The only casualties were the fw's, bristlle snails and pods but big deal all can be replaced.

So to conclude I repeated this process for the next 2 months every 2 weeks, again people sometimes ran it every week but I want my corals to rest, rejuvenate and recover I also ran treatments with penetrator at 1 big pill per 300g and I think as a precautionary treatment I will run both every 6 months regardless if there is signs or not because I can't stop buying frags/colonies who knows eggs maybe missed in dips and what have you.

I hope this was helpfull to most and will be glad to answer any questions, maybe I might have left something out and if anyone want to add their experiences of success with ridding aefw's please do share!

Cheers Chris

[Chaloupa]

Hey Chris...thank you for the excellent and detailed information...BUT what is this;
"go see your vet get some penetrator the big dog one 51lbs and up comes with 6 pills"

I manage a vet hospital...what is penetrator???? Do you mean Interceptor? I did just Interceptor the tank 3 times to deal with red bugs.....can you let me know? I have picked up the TMPCC.....ALSO where on earth do you get FWE any more? It was taken off the Canadian Market.....Thanks!

[tang daddy]

hahaha notice my signature! apparently I ment interceptor not penatrator I was up late last night pls do give me a break

[tang daddy]

3 times interceptor How did it go?
um maybe try JL for fwe apparently vancouver can still get it.

[Chaloupa]

I sortof wondered...and then being late as it is tonight wondered what on earth "penatrator" WOULD be for!!

Interceptor is nasty for shrimps and hermits but safe for snails...does FWE hurt snails?

Where can you still get FWE? Do you have any idea?


OK obviously YOUR 12:12 answer came faster than mine!!!

[Chaloupa]

Interceptor was easy to use, and no ill affects other than a diatom bloom...but that's it.....

[tang daddy]

There's a product called Dutch master and I used to work for the company and penetrator was one of the products used to grow the plants but that's another day, anyhow um did you remove your shrimp when intercepting, have you dipped your corals yet aswell as scraped and check colonies?

[tang daddy]

fwe hurts everything I mentioned up in my post, you should try to pick up the remaining snails during treatment they will be doing the salsa dance.
But before you even think about starting treatment pick as many snails out do it just after the lights go off they're easier to catch.

[marie]

fwe hurts everything I mentioned up in my post, you should try to pick up the remaining snails during treatment they will be doing the salsa dance.
But before you even think about starting treatment pick as many snails out do it just after the lights go off they're easier to catch.

What snails does FWE kill?? I dosed my 2 small tanks twice using 1 bottle for each tank (3x stronger then called for each time) the only thing I lost was my peppermint shrimp (It didn't even get the flatworms :rolleyes: ). I have ceriths,stomatellas and astreas in the tanks and they seemed to make out just fine

[StirCrazy]

FW dip an ACRO??? Hmmmm......I have heard that isn't a good idea with acros. But I'll take any advice and further research it...thanks!

I freshwater dipped every acro I had befor it went into my tank. I would take RO water and warm it up to tank temp... grab the acro by the base and swish it around for 20ish seconds. then plop it into the tank. never lost any from that and it was amazing all the crap that came off them.. Just be ready to rescue any acro crabs that fall off.

Steve

[StirCrazy]

At 15 mins I noticed snails, bristtle worms and amphipods coming out of holes everywhere so I used a long skinny tong to pick these up and throw them out.
And stuff kept popping out and dying huge copepods more bristle
Cheers Chris


so what was this treat ment for? basicily you have also killed your live rock.. hopefully enough bristtle worms, amphipods and other stuff made it to eventualy repopulate your rock.

Steve

[Tom R]

(3x stronger then called for each time) (It didn't even get the flatworms :rolleyes: ).

Marie

Are you saying it did NOT kill the flat worms?

Tom R

[Snappy]

Most iodine based dips like Tropic Marin and seachem work as far as I know but I have read on different boards in the States that Fluke tabs work the best if you can get them.
Check this link for some good info on dealing with them.
http://www.melevsreef.com/aefw.html

Here is another link that also refers to Melevs link and gives another reefer's experience with them.
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25278

[marie]

Marie

Are you saying it did NOT kill the flat worms?

Tom R
Well I still have them, so i guess not :cry:

I used half a bottle in each tank, the 50g zoa tank and the 60g cube. A week later they were still there so I treated again. The second time round I didn't do a water change till the next day . I thought that had done the trick but i noticed some a couple of weeks ago.

[tang daddy]

Marie i'm sorry to hear you have not fully erradicate them keep on trying, the eggs may have been missed in treatment!As for snails stommatelles were doing the salsa dance ARIBA!

Stircrazy yes I probally nuked my rock but not everything died and what did I treat for you ask? I used fwe i think it's pretty self explanatory.

some people may be mistaken that 1 treatment kills all fw's but how about if there's eggs everywhere? the only sure way is to follow up with the treatments.

[Aquattro]

I had these flatworms, FWE does not kill them. I had to individually treat each piece repeatedly with iodine dips to get rid of them. Some pieces were so infested with eggs, I tossed them out. These things are a real pain in the butt.
My new policy is that no SPS goes in my tank without dips and a visual inspection under a dissecting microscope.

[cprowler]

That really sucks Sarah! It really has been one thing after another.

[Chaloupa]

yes, yes it has....makes this hobby a bit too challenging sometimes...BUT I will try to fix this..and carry on. I have had some good information from many people...so here goes nothing...tomorrow I pull them all out, dip them and put them into my Q tank....it's a shallow 40g with 250w halide, with their usual tank water in it...I hope I save them....but will start to frag off healthy bits of ones that are not making it. I've also had some really generous offers if I loose the entire collection...to those I thank you, and I will most likely come knocking!

[marie]

Sarah I still have that blue milli waiting for you.

Just think when you get through all this you can be canreefs own "acro parasite expert" :razz:

[Chaloupa]

yeah....that's it!!!:lol: "Meet Sarah, she has had every nasty parasitic life form on corals....and survived to talk about it without weeping"

From the discussions I have had, AEFW don't eat Mille's...so I was happy about that as I have a couple...one gorgeous little frag from Christy, and a small colony from Wendell...but I will be watching them closely! My biggest concern is the 2 acro's I have in my Q tank...I'm trying to find a "safehouse" for them so they don't get infected by my AEFW corals, but haven't yet found a good Q tank to put them in for 6 weeks...UGH...see I learned to Q corals just too d**n late!:redface:

[Aquattro]

From the discussions I have had, AEFW don't eat Mille's

Pretty sure I found them on my millis, if I remember correctly (which I may not). I'd treat them anyway.

[StirCrazy]

Pretty sure I found them on my millis, if I remember correctly (which I may not). I'd treat them anyway.

yes they were on the millis but they were not showing any stress from them

Steve

[Chaloupa]

SERIOUSLY??? :twised: that really sucks...but will just treat them all then.....

[Aquattro]

SERIOUSLY??? :twised: that really sucks...but will just treat them all then.....

Ya, I think it's just harder to see them on millis. I use a scope, and even then it's tough. If you let a coral dry out a bit, then you can see the shiny worm against the tissue.

[Salmon King]

Has anydody tried a Dwarf Crocodile pipe fish

[Chaloupa]

I also heard that they would help...but I don't think they could take care of an infestation....too many eggs hatching and such.

[calkrog]

just a note on FWE...

i had a bunch of zoa eating nudibranches in my tank and i read that a large dose of FWE would rid the tank of them.. it did not help, but it DID kill both my urchins. so take care using the stuff.

[fishmaster]

Well, just did an Iodine dip on one of my acro's and it looks loke I have them too!!!!! There might be a garage sale in the next few weeks...we'll see.

[michika]

Has anydody tried a Dwarf Crocodile pipe fish

I thought it was most pipefish? Is it just the dwarf crocodile that is truely effective?