What does AEFW damage look like?

[asylumdown]

I'm going to invest in a few more bottles of flatworm exit to make super concentrated dips. How many times a week do I need to dip my corals to make sure that any eggs that I miss hatch, but are killed before they get old enough to lay their own eggs?

[aqua80]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm going to invest in a few more bottles of flatworm exit to make super concentrated dips. How many times a week do I need to dip my corals to make sure that any eggs that I miss hatch, but are killed before they get old enough to lay their own eggs?

flatworm exit don't work with aefw...
Rps all-out works well with the adults (as revive and coralrx) and maybe eggs, but that's not proven for now and if you dip many colonies you have to put them in QT tank...
Do as Rice Reef said to eradicate them... dipping 1x a week for 8 weeks is what I would do... keeping all acros out of the main tank...

Or have a couple of wrasse and blast your corals every once in while to live with them (what I am doing)

[asylumdown]

Flatworm exit certainly worked on my AEFW, but I was using a concentration of over 30 times the recommended dose. At that dose it also killed all the pods, bristle worms, and acropora crabs on my corals as well. In fact, the acropora crab's legs started falling off before they died, so I'm wondering if it somehow affects their connective tissue? The worms that were on the visibly damaged piece started curling up and dying the instant they went in the water with the flatworm exit. They fell off after about a minute, but again, we're talking concentrations several orders of magnitude higher than the bottle recommends. I would never put that high a dose in my display, as it would likely wipe it out.

I'm following the thread on Reef Central about RPS all out. I'm going to buy some, and hopefully the guy who's posting close up pictures of the eggs will report that they've all been killed by this treatment. QTing all 43 colonies of my acroporids for 8 weeks in a way that guarantees none of them die to to system instability or poor water quality will require nothing short of a second, fully established reef system with all the lights, flow and dosing equipment I have on my big tank. That's not a cost I'm capable of outlaying ATM, and after my experience with losing every single fish because of a QT system failure, I have little interest in courses of treatment that end up being worse than the disease. Whatever chemicals I use, the protocol will have to be dipping, then returning to the display.

[aqua80]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm following the thread on Reef Central about RPS all out. I'm going to buy some, and hopefully the guy who's posting close up pictures of the eggs will report that they've all been killed by this treatment..

hehe that guy is me
for now after 8 days eggs seems intact... we'll see if they hatch...

I lost a couple of frags from the initial attack but after that everything is doing great, even if I do see some bite marks here and there and some adults when blasting....

In fact I believe there's many more AEFW tanks out there that people just don't know they have it... If you don't do QT on every coral you get you will have them someday (or you already have them...)
I dip every coral I put in my tank with coral rx and revive, removing the original plug etc... and still got them...

my tank is not doing so bad with them for the last 8 months (at least) :



melanurus wrasse, yellow wrasse and sixline are my friends...

but ReefBum is (was) the best looking tank with AEFW for sure :

[asylumdown]

oooh, you're Canadian?! Sweet, I'm really looking forward to the long term outcome of your test. My suspicion is that it won't kill the eggs of AEFW, the wording on the promotional materials is too vague. They list all the things that it kills, and then says in a blanket statement 'and kill the eggs too!'. It very likely kills the eggs of some of the things that All Out treats, but they very specifically never say 'kills AEFW and their eggs', which in my opinion was a very intentional wording choice.

However, the product does seem incredible effective at killing everything else. I only hope I can save some of my acropora crabs. I love those little guys, I have one in every colony large enough to house one.

[Zoaelite]

I don't have experience with this matter but has anyone tried the nudibranch Chelidonura varians?

[Zoaelite]

Probably not the best suggestion as you have flow that would make hurricane Katrina jealous, but in general have these been used?

[Reef Pilot]

If you go fallow with acros, do the AEFW's die off in the tank? I know this may not be practical for most, and there are always acro bits that break off, and end up hidden in the rocks at the back of the tank somewhere. But just curious.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

If you go fallow with acros, do the AEFW's die off in the tank? I know this may not be practical for most, and there are always acro bits that break off, and end up hidden in the rocks at the back of the tank somewhere. But just curious.

They're obligate acro predators, so yes, they'd starve with no food. It looks like their egg's take around 21 days to hatch, and then who knows how long for them to starve to death.

[kien]

Originally Posted by aqua80

Or have a couple of wrasse and blast your corals every once in while to live with them (what I am doing)

With all the AEFW talk recently I did my fair share of googling and did find quite a few nice sps reefs that employ this methodology. They simply accept the fact that the worms are there and keep their population down so that they do not reach plague proportions and over run the colony. This appears to have worked for quite a few people. I myself would probably lean towards this. Once you have them you will probably have them FOREVER unless you throw away your entire stock or treat your entire stock all at once for weeks.