AEFW update

[maurod]

As some of you know, I confirmed having AEFW IN August of this year.

I have been holding off treatment until I had some room and a free light to use for the QT tank.

I now have 1x10gal tank, 1x15gal tank, 4xMJ1200(non-mod), 2x150W heaters, 1x 175W MH light, 2x 8oz Betadine, 1x 10ml syringe, 4x1-2liter tupperwares for treatment.

My treatment method has been, prep dry, unused tank for coral by cleaning with RO and paper towel. Fill with saltwater, heat to 80F add powerhead.
Pull coral from "old" tank, place into tupperware ith "old" water +3.5ml of betadine. After 25min, rinse coral in "new" saltwater and place in QT tank.
Wait 1 week and repeat process.

At this point, I have done this treatment twice. The first treatment went well, with some minor color loss, but no significant effects to the corals.

Before the second treatment, I checked every coral for AEFW and eggs. I found an A. Valeda frag that was nearly completely devoid of flesh and had eggs on it, I promptly destroyed that piece as I can get another A Valeda frag and did not want to deal with further problems with hatching flatworms.

After the second treatment this past Thursday, my corals started sloughing flesh and looking quite unhappy directly after treatment. (After 1 day, there was no further tissue loss and polyps are coming out, even from the bleached sections.)

Despite the coral starting to look healthier, I am not sure the coral can take another round of betadine without dying. I am planning to try fluke tabs as my next round of treatment. There seems to be luck with it by a few people on RC.

Wish me luck and if any of you are treating corals with betadine or fluke tabs, let me know how it goes for you.

Thanks,
Mauro

[maurod]

As a follow up - Here is the current thread from RC on the topic.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...8&goto=newpost

[naturebatslast]

I dosed with betadine as well, not for red bugs or AEFW but for a montipora eating nudi. It was a little rough on the coral and it lost some flesh, but I think it's stablized. After seeing how much flesh was lost on this colony, I didn't have the courage to repeat, but no sign of those nudi's.

[maurod]

I definately had flatworms after the first treatment (damn eggs). I am buying 100 tabs worth of fluke tabs to try tonight.

[starrfish]

Maurod - I recently used fluke tabs as a dip for some frags I had in QT. It turns out they didn't have any AEFW (thank goodness!) so I can't speak to the effectiveness of the treatment. But the corals took the dip very well. There was no tissue loss and the polyps came out soon after the dip. Sea Creatures in Providence has the fluke tabs if you want to buy them locally - that's where I got them.

Daire

[Aquaman_68]

Why are people using the fluke tabs instead of levamisole hci for a dip? Isn't that fluke medicine more harsh on the acros? A few reefers did a test with that stuff over a couple years ago on a infected coral. The fluke tabs did more harm to the coral than just killing the AEFW.