What does AEFW damage look like?

[asylumdown]

This quote from a thread on WAMAS' forum (http://wamas.org/forums/topic/33942-...m-aefw-thread/) is exactly why I don't want to QT all my acroporids:

"Through all of this - I lost no corals to AEFW. I lost corals to being moved around from tank to tank, and from over-long dipping, too-harsh dips, etc. But the AEFW damage corals pretty slowly. They are pretty fragile creatures, and rarely survive more than 24 hours in a cup of water at room temperature. They have a tendency to just 'dissolve' (autolyse) when they get stressed."

My knee jerk reaction to ich in my tank led to me killing every fish I had when the QT tank they were in over-heated. I'm sure some/most of those fish would still be alive if I had left them in the display and learned to manage ich. I wanted to 'eradicate' ich from my system - and I did, by eradicating all my fish. I'm going to try my best to manage this in a way that doesn't put the lives of my otherwise extremely healthy corals at risk. From what I can see after extensive searching, next to nothing is known about the life-cycle of this parasite, and the guy who wrote that long post found that even after leaving some acroporids in his tank while he experimented on the infected ones, his system was cleared of infection by treating the infected corals. That gives me some hope. I also found it interesting that he found crushed garlic pills would kill the flatworms at high concentrations. That might be something to invest in.

[Aquattro]

FWIW, I had AEFW years ago, long before anyone knew what they were. I saw a couple now and then under the scope, and just thought they looked cool and put them back in the tank. The tank thrived for years. I had a 6-line wrasse, not sure if that helped.
But the task of moving a full SPS into QT ,weekly dipping, etc, would probably be way worse than dealing with them in tank. Worst case, one coral gets hit bad, so toss it out. Unless these things were absolutely killing all my corals, I wouldn't do anything other than baste and buy wrasses.

[lastlight]

I believe Sanjay Joshi lives with them. Just looking at his tank is proof that you can do this no prob.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

FWIW, I had AEFW years ago, long before anyone knew what they were. I saw a couple now and then under the scope, and just thought they looked cool and put them back in the tank. The tank thrived for years. I had a 6-line wrasse, not sure if that helped.
But the task of moving a full SPS into QT ,weekly dipping, etc, would probably be way worse than dealing with them in tank. Worst case, one coral gets hit bad, so toss it out. Unless these things were absolutely killing all my corals, I wouldn't do anything other than baste and buy wrasses.

Originally Posted by lastlight

I believe Sanjay Joshi lives with them. Just looking at his tank is proof that you can do this no prob.

I just looked at my bottle of CoralRX. It expired in November 2011 - perhaps that explains how I got them

Here's my plan of attack: I just ordered a couple bottles of Revive and RPS All Out from Reef Supplies. When they get here, I'm going to dip all my acropora corals that I can easily get off the rocks in the All Out. If I see no signs of any more worms falling off, I'm going to call it a day and only think about it again if I see new damage to a coral. No crazy interventions, and I don't want to mess with something that doesn't seem that broken.

[lastlight]

yeah i like that approach although it sounds like all acros should be done in this manner to make it worth it right?