Reef nutrition

AEFW

I purchased two SPS today and when I dipped I found tiny AEFW. Didn't see any eggs, though on one of the SPS I see little white patches when looked at under an LED flashlight. I assume that one is the infected one because the other one looks fine. They came from separate tanks. I'm not going to put them in my SPS tank yet, so I'm thinking of putting them in my RSM for a few weeks, dipping again and repeating. There's no other acros in my RSM that could be infected. What else can I do?
 
Remove them from their base and chop any dead dying skeleton - thats where the eggs are laid. Reglue them to fresh substrate and then dip. You should be fine.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/60645131 - though I like revive now more than povidone.
 
There are undoubtedly eggs that you can't see. If you care to take your chances, dip them, and then re-introduce. I use a particularly harsh dip of potassium permanganate (KMNO4). It stains the corals brown for a while (like an iodine stain), but it will kill the acropora eating flatworms and their eggs (and probably anything else). The corals look terrible, but they regain their color in about a month.

I have a large tank, and wouldn't risk introducing AEFW. They spread rather quickly, destroy corals fast, and pretty much require that you dip every acro in your tank once you have them.

Euphyllia, if you don't mind, would you PM me the name of the store where you got those corals?
 
Thales said:
Remove them from their base and chop any dead dying skeleton - thats where the eggs are laid. Reglue them to fresh substrate and then dip. You should be fine.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/60645131 - though I like revive now more than povidone.

I don't see any dying skeleton, though as I mentioned in the main post, I do see some white patches when I look at it under an LED flashlight. Those white patches still have those brown squiggly lines on them that most acros have when looked at closely. Is that what I should be cutting off?

The two frags actually looked great, but I guess things like this come when you expect them least.

purplereef said:
There are undoubtedly eggs that you can't see. If you care to take your chances, dip them, and then re-introduce. I use a particularly harsh dip of potassium permanganate (KMNO4). It stains the corals brown for a while (like an iodine stain), but it will kill the acropora eating flatworms and their eggs (and probably anything else). The corals look terrible, but they regain their color in about a month.

I have a large tank, and wouldn't risk introducing AEFW. They spread rather quickly, destroy corals fast, and pretty much require that you dip every acro in your tank once you have them.

Euphyllia, if you don't mind, would you PM me the name of the store where you got those corals?

Where do they sell potassium permanganate?
 
purplereef said:
There are undoubtedly eggs that you can't see. If you care to take your chances, dip them, and then re-introduce. I use a particularly harsh dip of potassium permanganate (KMNO4). It stains the corals brown for a while (like an iodine stain), but it will kill the acropora eating flatworms and their eggs (and probably anything else). The corals look terrible, but they regain their color in about a month.

I have a large tank, and wouldn't risk introducing AEFW. They spread rather quickly, destroy corals fast, and pretty much require that you dip every acro in your tank once you have them.

Euphyllia, if you don't mind, would you PM me the name of the store where you got those corals?


Please read the above link, as most of the above seems like old info. There are many people now living with AEFW and they are really not that big a deal. Not that you want to introduce them if you can avoid them (and I have my doubts you can avoid them), but they certainly do not require that you dip every acro in your tank once you have them.

Also, do you have any evidence that KNMO4 kills the eggs? There is a bunch on the web that says it does, but no one can actually show that it does which makes me think it doesn't. Since I can find no real evidence that KMNO4 has any effect on the eggs, I don't see a reason to harshly dip the corals. Actually, I don't see any reason to harshly dip the corals anyway. Any of the commercially available dips will knock loose the AEFW, and if you dip them once a week for a month or so, you should get a head of the breeding cycle (as can simple basting).
 
Euphyllia said:
I purchased two SPS today and when I dipped I found tiny AEFW. Didn't see any eggs, though on one of the SPS I see little white patches when looked at under an LED flashlight. I assume that one is the infected one because the other one looks fine. They came from separate tanks. I'm not going to put them in my SPS tank yet, so I'm thinking of putting them in my RSM for a few weeks, dipping again and repeating. There's no other acros in my RSM that could be infected. What else can I do?


To tell the truth, I am not sure if you have AEFW. How do you know what you saw was AEFW, and not some other FW or something even more benign? I am also unsure what 'white patches' means.
 
I'll do a dip in povidone once per week for a month just to be sure I've killed whatever was on them. I don't want to infect my SPS tank.
 
Thales said:
Also, do you have any evidence that KNMO4 kills the eggs? There is a bunch on the web that says it does, but no one can actually show that it does which makes me think it doesn't. Since I can find no real evidence that KMNO4 has any effect on the eggs, I don't see a reason to harshly dip the corals. Actually, I don't see any reason to harshly dip the corals anyway. Any of the commercially available dips will knock loose the AEFW, and if you dip them once a week for a month or so, you should get a head of the breeding cycle (as can simple basting).

My only evidence is that I don't have any signs of AEFW after more than three years. Prior to that, they achieved plague proportions and took out some very old,large, beautiful colonies. I can only assume that I broke the reproduction cycle. Dipping once a week for months seems very inconvenient to me particularly if you have a large tank where they can just get to another coral. I'd prefer to just try to catch them at the front door than deal with them after, and so far this regimen has worked for me.
 
purplereef said:
Thales said:
Also, do you have any evidence that KNMO4 kills the eggs? There is a bunch on the web that says it does, but no one can actually show that it does which makes me think it doesn't. Since I can find no real evidence that KMNO4 has any effect on the eggs, I don't see a reason to harshly dip the corals. Actually, I don't see any reason to harshly dip the corals anyway. Any of the commercially available dips will knock loose the AEFW, and if you dip them once a week for a month or so, you should get a head of the breeding cycle (as can simple basting).

My only evidence is that I don't have any signs of AEFW after more than three years.

So, no evidence that the KNMO4 killed the eggs. Thats important. You can get ahead of them by much less caustic dips, or basting.

Prior to that, they achieved plague proportions and took out some very old,large, beautiful colonies.

Same thing happened to me the first time I got them, many harsh dips and lots of death of coral. Turns out in many cases the 'cure' was worse than the 'disease'. The second time, I just started basting and had 95% recovery within two months.

Dipping once a week for months seems very inconvenient to me particularly if you have a large tank where they can just get to another coral.

I don't think anyone is advocating doing that. I certainly am not. Basting IMO is the way to go.

I'd prefer to just try to catch them at the front door than deal with them after, and so far this regimen has worked for me.

I get that (front door stoppage is always better event though many ask for advice about what to do once the DT has been infested), but if you don't know what the regimen is actually doing, its more like superstition than science. If you can get the same effect by less harsh means, it seems that would be better.
 
As I said, it works for me. I agree with the prior posters, it is harsh. It's supposed to be. It's not for everybody, and I was just offering up my own experience.. I'd rather throw away a few bucks on a coral, than have a full tank infestation like I had in the past. It's only money, and I can earn more. The time and energy spent on developing a nice tank isn't so easy for me to come by.

Quite honestly, I don't see how you can claim that my dip method is superstition is your dip method is science. It's not an intellectual leap to conclude that direct application of a dip to corals and rocks that have a pest didn't remove the pest if you don't see it any longer after a period of years.

Haha, it's not like I'm trying to sell 'Joe's Juice' here. :)
 
purplereef said:
As I said, it works for me. I agree with the prior posters, it is harsh. It's supposed to be. It's not for everybody, and I was just offering up my own experience.. I'd rather throw away a few bucks on a coral, than have a full tank infestation like I had in the past. It's only money, and I can earn more. The time and energy spent on developing a nice tank isn't so easy for me to come by.

Its not so easy for anyone. At the same time, newer methods of dealing with AEFW have been developed that are less harsh than the dipping methods that were originally tried (KMnO4 being one of them).

Quite honestly, I don't see how you can claim that my dip method is superstition is your dip method is science.

I didn't mean to make that claim. I said that there was no evidence for the KMnO4 killing AEFW eggs, and meant that claiming that the dip killed the eggs was more superstition than science. I apologize if I was unclear. I am also not advocating a dip method for the DT, rather the basting method. Although frags in a QT tank are easy to dip often to get a head of mature, egg laying adults, which is the same thing the basting method does.

It's not an intellectual leap to conclude that direct application of a dip to corals and rocks that have a pest didn't remove the pest if you don't see it any longer after a period of years.

Maybe maybe not. There is plenty of 'it happened after, therefore was caused by' in this hobby. :D
Again, I was referring to the eggs being killed by the dip. AEFW eggs have been shown to be incredibly resistant to just about everything. Since that is the case, and since we know that less harsh, easier to get, dips can do the job of removing/killing the adult FW's, why use the harsh dips?
 
Great news! I dipped in povidone and nothing came off. They went back into the RSM awaiting two more dips plus a dip before I transfer them to the BioCube 29 HQI, if all goes well.
 
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