AEFW

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Well I thought I would kick off this new sub-forum with the Big Nasty when it comes to SPS pathogens.... Acropora Eating Flat Worms (AEFW).

These little guys have been the thorn in my side for months now and I thought it would be good to start a dialogue about the treatment and eradication of these demon pests, our past histories/success stories, what to look for in identifying them, and proper QT technique.

I have always treated my new SPS additions with flatworm exit before adding them to my tank, but obviously that failed because I recently had an outbreak. I took all my corals off their rocks, epoxied and super glued over the left over encrusting SPS bases, and heavily treated the SPS in a solution of Bayer Advanced Pesticide. I would treat the corals in a 10 gallon tank with a powerhead and heater for about 15-30 minutes, shake them vigorously, shake them vigorously in a 5 gallon bucket of tank water, and shake again in a second 5 gallon bucket of water to rinse any residual pesticide off.

*Even if the slightest amount of pesticide gets into your tank, say goodbye to your shrimp, pods, and crabs. Rinse! Rinse! Rinse!*

I then repeated this treatment once a week for a couple of weeks and glued the corals back down. Problem is, I believe the Bayer treatment only triggered the AEFW to go in to species-preservation-mode driving them to lay eggs when they became distressed. *Eggs are not killed by pesticide dips! And neither are the flatworms, it really just messes with them and makes them spaz out and convulse, but they still survive! Horrible little critters.*

So a couple weeks later, I found this:

That, is a bunch of AEFW eggs that the flatworms laid right under the living tissue of my SPS. A couple weeks of treatment was NOT ENOUGH! I ended up scraping all the eggs off with a knife and beginning another treatment round that lasted for 25 days. I have since completed my treatment, but I feel like I still wasn't 100% successful at eradicating them. I still see one coral with bite marks on it. It's hard to tell if they are fresh or residual bite marks, but to be safe I moved it into my sump away from my other corals and am beginning ANOTHER treatment round on this piece. I will move this SPS to a QT tank whenever I get one completed.

My suggestions to prevent you from crashing your SPS collection from these insidious creatures:

1. Treat heavily with a Bayer dip. Shake well, rinse well, and don't bring in the plug or piece of rock it was attached to. AEFW don't tend to lay eggs on living SPS tissue, so get rid of anything that may have eggs on it! It isn't worth the risk.

2. QT your coral for a couple of weeks away from all your other SPS. If bites do appear, hopefully you can catch it before they spread to your other colonies.

3. Be careful of where you buy from. All my pests have come from LFS, so treat anything out of a LFS especially well, even if it looks perfectly clean and healthy! Don't trust hobbyist corals either, a tank may appear free from harm, but you never know if they just introduced AEFW into their tanks recently and the symptoms haven't begun to show yet. Bottom line is always treat new corals.

Hopefully this is helpful to those of you who aren't familiar with AEFW treatment, but let's hear some other people who have encountered this before and how you dealt with it!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Here is a picture of some bites on the bottom of my SPS. Not sure if the flatworms only stay in the shade, but I usually see bites on the under side of my corals instead of the top.

[FarmerTy]

When I had them in the old 125-gallon, bite distribution was everywhere and random... though it was easier seen from the underside due to the pigmentation of the coral.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yeah I imagine it's probably just easier to see from the bottom than the top,

I bought a 6 line wrasse yesterday to help battle the population of flatworms. I'm hoping the 6 line will help reduce the population of any flatworms that I can't see.

[Mo'sMyName]

The other day I dipped a new acro frag which had obvious bite marks in Bayer before putting it in quarantine, and while it killed every other type of hitchhiker, it seemed that the flatworms were more bothered than anything. Sure, after a few minutes they released and bailed from the frag, but they kind of just crawled around my dipping container. Maybe I should have done a more concentrated dip?

I dipped another frag in a different container and used just Melafix instead and it worked MUCH better on the AEFW. They bailed AND died. Shriveled up and floated around in the container.

I plan to use this dual approach to dipping all frags in the future. What one dip doesn't get, the other will.

[FarmerTy]

I think that's a great idea. I only use Bayer to stun the AEFWs enough to shake them off the acros. If you dose enough though, it will surely kill the smaller ones.

I am experimenting with Potassium dosing to kill off AEFW. Some people have had success with it in some of the larger forums. I'll report back once I actually have a good AEFW infested acro to test it with.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

I had no idea melaflix killed flatworms until I looked it up just now! I always thought it was just for bacterial and fungal infections! I'll have to give it a try for sure while I'm still treating some corals. Did you combine the melaflix in the same water that you had the Bayer in? I've combined treatment products together before, and I believe that can create different compounds that can have disastrous affects... ?

[Mo'sMyName]

I was too scared to combine the two for that exact reason.

I basically set it up as a multi-stage dip. Bayer --> Saltwater Rinse 1 --> Melafix --> Saltwater Rinse 2.

If I don't factor cost, I think Melafix might be the better dip since it's mostly tea tree oil and supposedly the residual won't kill shrimp. I've seen everything from asterina starfish to bristle worms (and stars), as well as pods and other unidentified stuff keel over from it, but I'll still use it in conjunction with the Bayer to try to kill "everything" on a frag.

Haven't seen any stress more than normal on the frags, and maybe it could be an option for coral that are sensitive to Bayer dips.

[Reburn]

Mo,

Great information. Thank you.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

So I've had an interesting development in my AEFW struggles. I've been observing "sea spiders" in my tank, specifically hanging around/on my acros. I did some research to figure out if they were predatory, or just chilling out and doing their own thing. In my research I found this link about sea spiders that hunt flat worms. I would love to speculate that I have acquired a flat worm eating "sea spder" that is now hunting down all left over flat worms in my tank! That would be awesome! But, I know that in this hobby these things don't usually turn out to be good critters. Still, I thought that it was an interesting obeservation and maybe someone will have seen these guys before and chime in!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

I dipped my corals again today and was able to pick out a few of my new lovely pets for your viewing pleasure! I'm pretty sure they are another form of parasites for my corals, just another wave of plague for my tank!

Perhaps I should start a new thread for these 'sea spiders', but for now here's a picture of what I've pulled off my corals.

[FarmerTy]

Did you buy a frag of SPS in a dark, seedy alley somewhere?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yup, a dark evil place called Houston.

I'm pretty sure God is just smiting my tank for some reasons. Just a few more plagues to go before it's all over!

[Jnaylor]

The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the coral frag
John dipped the frags and washed the spiders out! - Those are gross...

[Sascha D.]

Wow I've never seen those! Straight out of Diagon Alley!

How long are you dipping Bayer?

Does Peroxide work?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yeah I hadn't seen these things until not either. I'm starting to wonder if the bite marks I'm seeing on my SPS are from these creatures and not flatworms like I had previously thought. There's an article about how they have a proboscis and will feed on their prey that way, which I would think would leave bite marks on a coral...

I have not tried peroxide yet, but I have been dipping in Bayer for about 30 minutes followed by vigorous shaking in two rinse buckets. Apparently this technique could not prevent them from entering my aquarium unless their eggs survive/they are only stunned by it like AEFW are. Luckily though they are easier to spot at night and pick out manually with tweezers

[FarmerTy]

Definitely don't do peroxide... it'll kill the spiders but nuke your acros as well.

I've noticed bayer doesn't really do anything to them so a close inspection with manual removal is best. Not sure if any of the coral dips work on them.

Maybe try a potassium dip?

[victoly]

jam your coral in a banana

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

I hear the corals also benefit from the extra fiber when using the banana-potassium dip.

Ty, You seem obsessed with using potassium to kill parasites. Since my tank apparently is riddled with them, you should just come over and try your mad experiments in my tank.

[FarmerTy]

Sweet! I got the green light to experiment!

[Reburn]

Oh where o where is the popcorn button on my iPad.

Are you selling admission tickets?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

There is surprisingly little information on these sea spiders out there on the interwebs. It seems like the most chatter about them have been on RC over 10 years ago. I'm not sure if I should instigate a shut down QT procedure and isolate all the corals from the display tank for a while to wipe out any parasites in the tank.

[Reburn]

I wonder if interceptor would work on the sea spiders? Can you get any out alive?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yeah, if I get my flashlight out at night, I can usually pick out a few and remove them with my surgical forceps. I'll have to gather different treatment techniques and experiment on which ones work best.

[FarmerTy]

Did I hear potassium?