My own AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms) images

[Stoney Mahony]

Ok, just want to start off by saying thanks to everybody for all the effort theve put into beating these horrible beasts! Well...... I recently discovered that I had red bugs and AEFW in my 55gal SPS tank. I read all the posts on here and the other few AEFW threads but I didn't see anything that worked very good. I know that alot of people were complaining of losses from the betadine and the levisomoil is like a 5-6 hour dip which cant be that good for an acro. Some people say that the FW exit only works on red fw and some say it works on aefw. Some use sea chem dip and say it works, some say it doesnt and the fw disslove so you cant tell if you really got them or not. Last but not least it seems the TMPCC is used fairly succesfully but is expensive and I still see people say they have to super blast the corals in every angle to get the fw's off. Lots of confusion to me so I did a little research on the products we have at hand. I was read through a ton of lables from products and came across Aquarium products fluke tabs. Im sure you've all seen them, there pretty cheap like a 10 pack of 100mg tablets for $3, 100 for $13.49 and even cheaper for large quantities. They sell them to treat flukes in a dip for fresh and salt water fish. Well I read the chemical make up and its actually made of two compounds...Mebendazole(C16H13N3O3) a common anthelmintic used to treat various worm infections, and Trichlorfon(complex) the active ingredient which is an organophosphate pestacide used to kill various trematodes, flukes, planaria and many other monogeans. Well, It sounded good to me so I went ahead and bought a 10 pack from my local LFS to test with. The directions on the box say to use 1, 100mg tablet for 10 gallons of water. I had a heavily infected valida that I fragged before I noticed what the real problem was. Also, after never having red bugs before I noticed an explosion of them about the same time I noticed the AEFW. When It rains it poors ya know!!!! I had just gotten my interceptor from my vet so I decided I was gonna try and kill 2 birds with one stone. I Set up a few testing 5 gallon buckets and added 1 tab to the first bucket, 2 to the second, 3 to the third and 4 to the 4th. Now at 1 tab per 10 gal those concentrations are 2x, 4x, 6x, and 8x! I tested some of the valida frags in all four. I wanted something VERY effective as quick as possible. I think the acros put up with stronger meds as long as we can keep the dip times down. Well long story short, after testing all 4, the dip with 4 tabs worked hands down AWESOME!!! So heres some pics of the results:
Redbugs and damage from AEFW:

Eggs:

More giant uglies:

[Stoney Mahony]

Valida frags in the 4 tab dip:

Empty bucket with 100's of fw's!!!!!!!!!!! How the heck do they sneak up like that!!!!!


So what I did is first sent them through a strong interceptor dip for the Red Bugs. Heres a pic of the left over pill


so you can see the approximate dose I used. I would say roughly 1/4 of the pill ground with a morter/pestal and added this to a 5 gallon bucket. Dipped all acros for 20 min and visually inspected with giant mag glass for bugs....none! Not a one. When I dumped out the bucket there were hundreds in the bottom...like a red bug slurry. Then after this dip, I immeadiatly moved them into the Fluke tab dip (4 tabs/5 gallon bucket) for 20 minutes. You wouldnt believe the way the dang AEFW just start falling off and you can see them and they dont dissolve. In about 10-15min I can really see them all over the ground but the finale is at 20...I picked up a big A. Azurea colony that I found was also heavily infected and dipped it At 20 minutes when I picked it up, it looked like confetti flying through the bucket. It was crazy! It did'nt look like I needed to jet them off, they were actually dead and not holding on anymore so when I picked up the coral the just flew off. Ok, from here I took them 1 x 1 to a rubbermaid bin with an md5 pump set up and gave each a light blasting in high current., just to send and loose guys flyin. Did some dips ans twists with the coral before I removed it from the rubbermaid I then moved to dip 3, the sea chem dip at 1.5 x the recomended doase on the bottle. Left them in here for 10 minutes and then there done. I set up a quarantine tank and have moved all of my acros into it following the treatment. I set the tank up in a day, in a panic, afraid I was going to loose it all....yuk! I have another tank in my house which is a softy clam tank but very well established so I stole the wetdry off it and hooked it up to the Q tank for instant biofiltration. I figure that the tank will re-establish the new wet dry fast enough and until it does the LR can handle the bio load. Then I hung a 400w 20k xm over the tank and I was in buisness. I plan to hold them in here for 6 weeks total and then return them to my display. It has been 2 already with no signs of any FW or redbugs. Only did 1 RB treatment but it must have worked b/c I would think I would have seen at least 1 RB by now if it didnt. I have done 2 fluke tab dips because you still have to manually remove the eggs( I know, sux) and in case any eggs or FW's were introduced into my QT, I want to make sure they won't come back. The other cool thing is that all of my colors were still there so it doesnt seem to affect the zooxenthella in the corals. Also the 4 pills needed to make one batch of dip is about $0.60 so it's definately a cheap methiod. Now, don't put this in stone, this is one mans tests and results. Don't hold me responsible if it doesnt work for you, Its not my fault!! Thanks again Melev and everyone for the awesome thread and all the pics and info, my tank would probably be gone without all the previous research!!!It's too late and dial up's too slow to upload but ill post some recent coral pics tommorrow. Again, only 2 weeks into tests but 40+ acros and there all lookin good!! Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[melev]

Okay, I just read your thoughts. It is really tough to read text that scrolls off screen and without paragraph spacing, it's even worse.

And the fact is, I want to read your thoughts and suggestions, so don't be annoyed with me. For me to follow your line of reasoning and possibly emulate the procedure myself, it needs to be clear.

So from what I gleaned so far, you treated the corals in several products, sequentially. Correct? Can you list that out once again, so we can grasp the steps clearly?

This could be very exciting if others have the same good results you've had so far. Thanks for doing some homework on this.

[melev]

I'm re-reading it again, trying to make sure I got it. What I noticed is you put an Interceptor pill on the Fluke packaging (which is confusing). So you dosed Interceptor for 20 minutes, then you were ready for the Fluke dip.

1) 1/4 pill (Interceptor) in 5g of saltwater for a 20 minute dip.
2) 4 pills (Fluke) in 5g of saltwater for a 20 minute dip.
3) Using a powerhead, blow off the dying flatworms.
4) Seachem dip (1.5 recommended dosage) for 10 minutes.
5) Quarantine corals for 6 weeks, and redip in Fluke weekly.

Correct?

[Neptune777]

WOW!!! That looks very promising! Can anyone else replicate these results? I just ordered my Fluke Tabs online to give it a shot.....

[Stoney Mahony]

Ok, Sorry for the jumble Mel, it was real late and I just wanted to get the info up last night . Well as far as the treatment, you have sumed up the procedure threre in your last post. It takes forever to upload pics to my photobucket so I just took a pic of the interceptor tab and fluke tabs all in one. Again....sorry for the confusion.

I have not seen any Red bugs come back but if I do, I will add another interceptor dip in the treatment plan. I had a super small pump from a nano cube in the interceptor bucket for a bit of circulation but no pump in the fluke dip. The fluke tabs seem to suspend in the water column and I didnt want to be blowing the fw's around the bucket onto other corals and the fw's just fall off anyways so you don't really need it.

I also did another small test and left some of the Valida frags in the interceptor dip for approximately 50 minutes and then dipped them in the fluke dip for another 50 min. I was basically testing to find out if longer doases would kill the coral. The frags seemed to take a few hours longer to open back up after the treatment but still look healthy and have full PE. This is good b/c after 20 minutes all fw's are dead so maybe in a longer dip like a 50 minute, it will have some effect on the eggs. Only time will tell, im just glad those suckers are dead and the corals are looking healthy!!!!!

[arconom]

Since there were large amounts of Eggs, do plan on doing follow up treatments?

[Dejavu]

Stoney Mahony- How many day\weeks did you wait to do the second dip. Also Interceptor is only needed if redbugs are present?

[Neptune777]

Unless there is a residual reaction between the interceptor on the corals and the Fluke Tabs I would think that Interceptor is only needed if you are positive for the Red Bugs.....

Looks like I have both pests so I will be replicating the experiment per Stoney's regimine...

[Travis]

Many people tried the fluke tabs in the past for the AEFW's and the results were not promising.

You mentioned that the corals do not bleach or lose color from the treatment. But the corals in the pics look pretty bleached and colorless already.

IMO, I don't consider the treatment a success unless it kills the AEFW's. That is why, IMO, a 40ppm levamisole treatment is not what I would consider successful. Treatments that only stun the FW's require you to physically blow off the ones that are still holding on and there is no way to know for certain if you get them all so some could make it through the treatment. You can visually inspect the coral but a freshly hatched FW is going to be way too small to see even with a magnifying glass. That is why I went with 60ppm levamisole treatments. This is a strong enough dosage to actually kill the FW's.

I noticed that the FW's in the bottom of your bucket were not dead after the treatment. A dead FW will not be layed out flat or still clinging to the bottom of the bucket. Depending on the treatment and amount of time the FW has been dead it will either be shriveled up at the bottom of the container or will completely dissolve. Since your treatment doesn't actually kill the FW's, there is a chance that some FW's could make it past.

Sorry to play devil's advocate but I don't see this as a viable treatment for a few reasons:
1)It is a lot of work to perform 3 different dips on every coral just for 1 treatment when you could achieve the same results with a single dip of levamisole, betadine, or TMPCC.
2)Submitting a coral to 3 different dips is going to be more stressful on the coral than a single dip. With 3 dips you have to move the coral between a total of 5 containers and you have to touch it and expose it to air 4 different times. This is going to be more stressful on the coral.
3)This treatment does not actually kill the FW's.
4)The fluke tabs were given up in the past as a viable AEFW treatment because the coral losses were too great.

I do applaud you for trying new things. That is the only way we are ever going to find a treatment for the AEFW's that is successful and does not result in any coral losses.

[melev]

This morning, my Tyree frag was missing from its perch. And where would it have fallen? It to a mushroom patch, of course. I retrieved it, but ugh! Hopefully it'll be okay. Red mushrooms carry a powerful punch...

Since my arm was already in the tank, I grabbed my A. secale that has been fading, and another A. valida frag, and gave them the iodine test. Sadly, flatworms came out. Dang.

So both pieces are soaking in betadine solution as I type this. Betadine definitely kills flatworms, because they curl up, turn inside out, and should dissolve if events repeat themselves like last time.

[clkwrk]

Sorry to hear

You need to pull more corals and check.

[Neptune777]

Who else has tried this Travis and had bad results? He specifically mentioned that the FW's were dead after 20min using 4x the dosage. Was this the same procedure others have used that you know of?
Stoney, do you have newer pics of your colonies to show how they look now? The ones in your post look like they were on their last leg....

[melev]

The two corals are back in the tank now. Since everything was still handy, I took the Tyree frag and bathed it again in the betadine solution to see if any new ones appear.

After the first two corals were treated, I checked the bottom of the betadine solution and found flatworms, unlike the first time. They looked terrible, but they hadn't vanished. I decided to pour the solution through a rotifer screen to get these out and still be able to use the dip once more for the Tyree frag.

Things unaffected by betadine - one huge bristleworm coiled up inside the base of the A. secale, a very large brittle star fish (compared to the small ones that all curled up and died), and a barnacle in the core of the skeletal structure still opened and closed as I observed it. All three seemed to be okay. I removed the large bristleworm just because I wasn't sure of its condition and didn't want to risk touching it while placing the coral in the tank.

[Stoney Mahony]

Originally posted by Travis
Many people tried the fluke tabs in the past for the AEFW's and the results were not promising.

You mentioned that the corals do not bleach or lose color from the treatment. But the corals in the pics look pretty bleached and colorless already.

IMO, I don't consider the treatment a success unless it kills the AEFW's. That is why, IMO, a 40ppm levamisole treatment is not what I would consider successful. Treatments that only stun the FW's require you to physically blow off the ones that are still holding on and there is no way to know for certain if you get them all so some could make it through the treatment. You can visually inspect the coral but a freshly hatched FW is going to be way too small to see even with a magnifying glass. That is why I went with 60ppm levamisole treatments. This is a strong enough dosage to actually kill the FW's.

I noticed that the FW's in the bottom of your bucket were not dead after the treatment. A dead FW will not be layed out flat or still clinging to the bottom of the bucket. Depending on the treatment and amount of time the FW has been dead it will either be shriveled up at the bottom of the container or will completely dissolve. Since your treatment doesn't actually kill the FW's, there is a chance that some FW's could make it past.

Sorry to play devil's advocate but I don't see this as a viable treatment for a few reasons:
1)It is a lot of work to perform 3 different dips on every coral just for 1 treatment when you could achieve the same results with a single dip of levamisole, betadine, or TMPCC.
2)Submitting a coral to 3 different dips is going to be more stressful on the coral than a single dip. With 3 dips you have to move the coral between a total of 5 containers and you have to touch it and expose it to air 4 different times. This is going to be more stressful on the coral.
3)This treatment does not actually kill the FW's.
4)The fluke tabs were given up in the past as a viable AEFW treatment because the coral losses were too great.

I do applaud you for trying new things. That is the only way we are ever going to find a treatment for the AEFW's that is successful and does not result in any coral losses.

Im sure ill be defending myself left and right here but I just wanted to share my results. Im not here to argue with people about others findings either, just reporting my own.

All the pics I posted were from 1 super infected colony that I fragged up before I noticed the AEFW's and thats why they all the frags look like hell. Suprisingly enough, the frags in the pics I treated are still alive, getting more color, and vissually "coming back to life". I even have a valida frag that looks like the FW's ate all the tissue off of it but the actual polyps are still coming out after the dip! Im hoping the skin will start to regrow, but I dont know. Ill post pics of my palletta blue, millies and others 2nite. Like I said, give me time, I have a dinosaur computer.

Ill say this again, I have had 0% tissue loss after treatment. Now if others had tissue loss it could be due to there doasage rate, I dont know but at the rates I tested, I saw/have no more loss. I have heard of 25%-30% losses when using betadine so I would NEVER do that unless it was the last resort.

Now you say the worms have to shrivel and melt to die, I just don't agree. The worms lay motionless for hours(I took pics over a 4 hour period) and did not move. They were flat on the bottom b/c they lie in still water for hours and that is where there little dead bodies settled, they were not stuck or holding at all. If youll see in my previous post, after the treatment the worms did not cling to the coral, they simply fell off with any resistance from water motion. When seperated out into another container, there bodies were motionless....dead. I mean, if youve had them you know they can really move and do not like to be poked, I played with em for a while....I mean even put a few on a microscope and they were either dead or in the deepest worm coma ever.

I know its a few dips but you can most likely cut out the interceptor dip if you dont have rb's so you just need the fluke dip, rinse, and sea chem. I had partial PE 30 min after putting them into the new Q tank(which had about 40% new water not by choice) and full PE after an hour and a half. Some showed polyps out within the first 15 min in the q tank and that shows me that even after the dips and dunks the Acros were fine. Im sure if you put them back into an established system they would come out alot sooner.

Also, I am not saying this is a complete success, drop everything and go get some fluke tabs , im just saying this is what I did, I havent had any losses in life or color, and the results have been fantastic in my opinion. Ill post up some more pics when I get home!

Dejavu- I did the second treatment 7 days after the first, and im coming up on the end of week 2 so ill be doing a third dip tommorrow night(Hopefully, theres a dang hurricane/tropical storm hitting). Like Neptune said, unless there is some interaction btw the interceptor and fluke tabs...you dont need the interceptor if you dont have RB's. Also Rb's have live young so if you can nuke them all in a dip, you shouldnt introduce them into your tank (Key word "IF" ).

[melev]

So, the Tyree frag's timer went off, I grabbed the turkey baster, and at least 50 flatworms blew off.

*sigh* Looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet on this project, and do as others have by treating my corals outside of the reef tank. There is no way I'll have time to tackle this before MACNA, so I guess I'll be doing so around the end of September.

[arconom]

Marc that really stink to hear that.

[Travis]

Marc, sorry to hear about your Tyree frag. That poor thing has been through a lot. I hope it pulls around for ya.

Neptune777, feel free to do a search. All of that stuff was posted right here in the sps forum within the past year and a half. For most, the FW's came back. For others, the dip was too lethal on the corals. And yes, they were dipping at several times the standard dosage.

Stoney, I think the 0% tissue loss is great news. But I still don't feel that the dip killed the FW's. In my experiments I found that a FW that is laying lifelessly on the botom of a container is still alive if it is holding the shape of a live FW. In this condition, the FW is stunned and very weak but not dead. When re-introduced to good water quality again, the FW can recover. Once a FW has started to curl up and shrivel, it will not recover, IME. I like to compare it to what happens to our pods, shrimp, crabs, etc. during an interceptor treatment. The interceptor affects their spines, causing paralysis. These critters will appear dead during the treatment but some of them end up recovering after the interceptor is removed from the water column. Of course, many of them also die. I just feel that it is not safe to assume that something is dead just because it appears lifeless. For me, I would rather deal with the 20% loss using a treatment that I know is killing the FW's so I know they won't come back and put me right back where I started.

[Dejavu]

Here are a few pic of my acros 1 week after 3ml\1 L of betadine. i have lost 3 out of 23 and probably will loss more. i don't think i will treat again untill things strat to look better. definitly won't use betadine again.

the first pic is before treatment, the rest are after.

[raddogz]

I agree with Travis - when the flatworms - acro eating or "normal" ones are flat on the bottom they aren't dead.

You want to see them all curled up in the ball of pain - then they are dead.

[MSHUR]

Travis,
I have not done levimasole tratment yet, but do corals get brown out after this treatment?
Every time i dip corals in TM procure ,my corals looks sad and bad..take atleast a week for them to recover..And of cause i lost a quite few..

mike

[raddogz]

I have not done the levimasole treatment yet.

I have tried the TMPCC at twice the recomended strength - corals turned brown.

For the past couple of weeks I have been using betadine as a dip. So far the corals have turned brown, but no aefw that I have been able to see for the past two weeks.

On the other hand I have lost almost eighty percent of the sps as well. These flatworms go through your sps like wildfire.

The ones that I still have left are just starting to color back up even with weekly dips. Gaining color as in not turning white - lol - actually they are gaining some green back in the tips.

[Stoney Mahony]

Ill do another experiment this week when I dip again. If there are any AEFw's visible in the bucket after I dip, I will gather them with a rotifer screen and then stick them in a different QT. The Ill go out and get a new valida frag from my LFS and stick it in with the dead or stunned flat worms...well see what happens. Its worth 20 bucks to me just to see if they come back to life or not. I really hate the sound of betadine, yuk. Flatworms suck!!!!!!!!!!!!

[melev]

I'm no doctor, but know that Betadine is used to kill bacteria. Our corals have all kinds of beneficial bacteria in their core as well as on their surface. Apparently the zooanthellae doesn't fare to well against the antiseptic, but it seems to me that you'll lose a coral one way or another.

Iodine and tank water seems to help shock them enough to blow off a couple, but the Betadine sends them out en mass.

Travis, I want to treat one coral (A. granulosa) for red bugs. I have Interceptor, but don't know how much to use with 1 liter or perhaps 1 gallon of water. Can you figure up the dosage and PM me? I don't want to get this thread off track on the other subject of redbugs.

[Tutmos]

The suggestion that flatworms must be curled up or dissolve to be dead doesn't make sense. It should be entirely dependent on the mechanism that kills them and since we're talking about two different chemicals the odds are that they're working on two different functions to kill the flat worm. Some might lyse the wall, some may restrict a critical metabolic process, some might stop uptake of neurotransmitters and so on.

It's like suggesting people all have to be in a fetal position to be truly dead, otherwise they must just be stunned.

My experience with Levimasole at close to 80ppm for 8 hours it tends to turn the coral white. Polyps stay intact but take weeks to fully come out again. I wouldn't be surprised if people are throwing away corals that aren't actually dead but just lost all color. Brown color starts to come back after a few weeks and a month or so later normal colors will start to appear again. I'm going to pull all sps out of the tank again and treat in a Q tank for a couple months soon so I'm very interested in the fluke tab results.

Kevin