AEFW Preventative Dips Question

[Elibeans]

What dips are currently the best to prevent AEFW from infecting? I have been out of it for a while and fear I might have fallen behind on what currently used.

I am using revive right now and used fluke tabs in the past.

[Cod Fish]

I use revive, works great

[karsseboom]

Bayor insect killer. I have used everything and nothing works better.

[AdamDeMamp]

^+1 I used a combo of bayer insect killer (concentrate) with coral rx mixed together. I did one treatment a week for 4 weeks, and I got rid of all my reef aids. My advise would be to completely rinse off the corals before putting them back in your DT, bc I lost my shrimp and pods when I didn't rinse thoroughly.

[Reef Bass]

If you are thinking that dipping alone will prevent aefw infection, you are mistaken. While dipping can stop adult aefw from entering your tank, their eggs are impervious to dips. Each egg contains 3-7 embryos, and they will hatch, chew your acros and breed like the plague they are.

Here's the link that has been posted on this forum a few times that is the most complete look at aefw and their lifecycle that I've seen.

Get to know your enemy: aefw article (http://www.springerlink.com/content/b78j5254rw683150/fulltext.html?MUD=MP)

Note the part about the hatchlings being capable of swimming, so they don't have to crawl their way to new corals and can spread throughout the tank very quickly. The infection can very rapidly go whole tank from one egg hatching on one infected frag on a frag rack.

[Elibeans]

Is there an article on the use of Bayer? The concentration, length of dip, etc?

I do already look for eggs on the base of new colonies. I have been removing the base off all new frags (if at all possible) as well to limit what the eggs can attach to.

Am I correct in assuming that eggs are only found on dead skeleton or rock/plugs? I figured between dips and only introducing live corals with no rock I would make it near impossible to infect my tank.

[oscar.millan]

I use CoralRx, good stuff. It kills AEFW quickly.

[Elibeans]

Good to know. I had been told no commercial dip was able to kill aefw at all.

[Reef Bass]

There are many commercial dips that will stress aefw to the point where they can be dislodged from the host coral. Once removed from the coral and on the bottom of the dip container, whether they are dead or merely stunned at that moment is irrelevant.

None of those dips will affect eggs. And while aefw TEND to lay their eggs at the margin of the dead and live coral tissue, I've seen eggs on live tissue, in cracks of rocks near corals, high up in the branches of coral, and on the underside of frags too. I've dipped rocks from infected tanks without acros on them and seen aefw come off. Big adults.

Yes, snapping the coral off its mount and not putting the frag plug or rock to which the frag was mounted in your tank can help reduce the odds of infection. But the eggs can be anywhere on the frag.

I speak from experience, as I dip and inspect everything always and I still caught a bad case. It took taking each and every acro out of my tank and dipping them once a week for six weeks straight to finally beat them.

[attaboy]

If a dip won't kill the eggs how are we to treat frags? Seems like something has to work or these guys would be everywhere and we wouldn't be able to keep SPS at all.

[Elibeans]

If that's the case I would think a long quarantine would be the only option to make sure no eggs are present.

[Reef Bass]

Yes, running a QT is the proper way to do it. Incoming frags get dipped and placed in quarantine, killing / removing adults and allowing time for any eggs to hatch. If after a month or so there are no signs of aefw, then they're cleared for worry free placement in the display tank.

attaboy, I hear your question. IMHO, a lot of reefers have aefw in their tanks and are not aware. Another large percentage have them and choose to live with them using wrasses and basting to keep the numbers down. I've seen beautiful tanks with amazing color and polyp extension and yet frags carry the occasional flatworm.

It can really suck to be dismantling one's reef and using 5 gallon buckets for containers to dip large, well encrusted colonies on rocks. IMHO, many reefers are not willing to put in the effort.

Again IMHO, aefw are the worst, most tenacious, most resilient, most destructive and most difficult to eliminate pest in reefkeeipng.