Getting Rid of AEFW

I am now 5 days into my 6 week treatment for AEFW.

After reading a ton of threads and consulting Melev’s site on his treatment of AEFW (Acro Eating Flatworms), I planned my attack.  Here were the steps I followed with some pictures at the end.

1. Prepare a new tank with new salt water for dipped corals.
2. Prepare a large bucket for all of the affected live rock with new salt water.
3. Prepare fresh salt water to offset the removed rock from the display tank.
4. Prepare a Betadine dip for all Acropora coral.  (12ml Betadine, 3 gallons water)
5. Remove the affected coral from the tank
6. Prune coral down to the remaining live pieces (an attempt to not include any eggs in my quarantine tank)
7. Place coral frags in the Betadine dip for 25 minutes.
8. Remove all live rock from tank that has acropora growth on it.
9. Place rock in large bucket to “cook” for 6 weeks.
10. Remove corals form the dip, wash off in another bucket and place them in the recovery / quarantine tank.

That was all completed on Saturday.  This coming Saturday, I will dip the corals again, but this time in Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure and place them back in the recovery tank.  So far I have lost several of the dipped coral, about 20%.  I plan to dip in Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure for 2-4 weeks depending on whether any AEFW fall off of each dip.

This has been the most disheartening couple of weeks.  I watched my tank, which was really starting to mature and grow become a shell of a system.  And, because I removed so much rock that meant that I had to break my large montipora caps as well.  I had SPS colonies that were almost baseball size totally destroyed.  I had many LE corals including 8 different ORA corals, a Pink Lemonade and many other beautiful corals decimated.

Here are some pictures of my tank prior to the infestation:

And some close-ups of my favorites:

And what it looks like today:

All that is left (and some of these are now dead):

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