AEFW - Thread on how I'm treating and any impacts on the tank (Bayer)

IHaveCrabs

IHaveCrabs

Premium member
Yeah.. I guess my dipping regiment was not up to par. My goal with this thread is to provide before/during/after pictures and descriptions of the overall health and adverse reactions that take place during this treatment process.

Background
Before I left for vacation a week ago, I noticed my red planet paling out although the base remained green the red areas not looking to hot. I decided to dip and noticed eggs under one of the branches. Although it is not recommended for acropora, I grabbed some FW that was from my auto top off supply and dipped the red planet in and swished the coral around quickly. To my surprise, a ton of AEFW came off. I went through the remainder of the corals that were not looking to great, and did the same but some of the close by frags may have only had a handful total. I decided to tackle this when I got back from vacation a week later.

...So I'm back from vacation and after some research from [MENTION=2612]anarchy[/MENTION] 's AEFW thread and a few others on other forums (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2263491), I decided that an in-tank treatment was not the right course, but to treat with 6-8 weeks of dips outside of the tank with the frags and mini colonies going back to the display in between.

Bayer Dip Treatment - The Plan
1. Each week during my standard water change, I will fill two 4g containers half way full of the old saltwater that is being removed.
2. One container, I will mix in 5-6ml of Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer per 1 cup of saltwater
3. Second container, I will use to hold the corals and to rinse before putting them back in the display tank
4. The corals will be placed in the first (Bayer) container for 8-10 minutes. As they are pulled out, they will be inspected for eggs and any visible eggs will be scraped off.
5. After the egg inspection and scraping (as required) I will swish the frags swiftly through the water in container 1 to loosen any stubborn AEFW
6. After the swishing, allow to the coral to drip a majority of the bayer water and place into the second container to dilute the chemicals before placing in the display tank.

This schedule will be repeated weekly for 6-8 weeks.

I have also added a Sixline wrasse to assist from the biological aspect of the pest control.

Disclaimer - This is my best effort at sharing my experience using bayer advanced to rid my tank of AEFW. I'm not an expert and it is advised you do your own research prior to attempting this on your own. As we all know, tanks react differently to the same or similar approaches to many different aspects of reefing so do this at your own risk :)

Sample set to see reactions to growth and color. Taken BEFORE treatment:
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The setup:
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Polyps extended after first 10min treatment:
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Bayer Advanced:
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Caught remains of FW among other non-survivors during the first treatment. I'm going to research what others have experienced as the "FW's" were a glob of clear/white mush by the time I got them out (30-35 min as I did three separate treatments of 10 minutes each in the same solution since I had so many frags). I also lost an acro crab since I couldn't get him out of my mini colony.. that was heartbreaking since he was so cool.
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Nice sticks! I used Bayer a few years ago when I had a tank full of sps. It works very well. I don't have many sps anymore, but may venture back into them soon. Still have bayer. Best of luck, and patience. It's a royal pita but worth it.
 
ColaAddict said:
How did u get the AEFW?

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Click to expand...

I wish I knew. It looks as if it may have originated on the Red Planet frag which I purchased from a LFS a few months back but that would purely be an educated guess based on the fact it has eggs where as the other frags that had a few FW's fall off did not have any sign of eggs. I'd hate to give a LFS a bad name on speculation so if you are interested in knowing, please PM.
 


It's been a few years, but my notes say 5ml per 2 cups. Typically I'd dip for no longer than 15 min at that concentration. I found the bugs died after about 45 seconds, but I think I remember dipping them a few minutes. I found, dipping longer than 15 min at that concentration peeled the flesh right off the skeleton. The risk of using as strong and long as you are, on some sps, your color will suffer and may take months to recover.
 
Wow, looks like you're using an incredible amount of pesticide. I used .5ml per 2 cups saltwater, not 5 ml. Best of luck to you.
 
taylor t said:


It's been a few years, but my notes say 5ml per 2 cups. Typically I'd dip for no longer than 15 min at that concentration. I found the bugs died after about 45 seconds, but I think I remember dipping them a few minutes. I found, dipping longer than 15 min at that concentration peeled the flesh right off the skeleton. The risk of using as strong and long as you are, on some sps, your color will suffer and may take months to recover.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. I have read people using quite a varying amount of the ratio pesticide:saltwater. Since the first one is already done at the 2x amount your notes have, I'll note any affects on the color over the next week and perhaps lower the ratio and increase the duration of the dip. I'll update a little later today and a few times this week with some pictures to compare.
 
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I remember putting some back in their high flow area they came from. The high flow peeled the flesh off after dipping. Keep an eye on the high flow sides of them for peeling.
 
First i dont measure how much bayer i use but its alot and i dip in a 2 cup measuring cup. Ive done 100% bayer dips for some frags for 30 seconds and no losses. The frag looks bad after the dip but it wont kill it.

11-16-15 after 100% bayer
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11-20-15
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12-26-15
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Today
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Heres one i did last week
Theres visible polyps so its alive still. Very bleached but id rather have 1 bleached acro over another tank crash
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That's surprising to me that 100% strength doesn't kill it. That bayer dip sure is more forgiving than I thought it was.
 
Update 1 - 8ish hours after the last dip

No ill signs of the dip on the corals showing no signs. Red planet as well as a few I did FW dips on last week are still looking poor but I doubt this was from today's dip.

Polyps are extending normally and color is the same as far as I can tell.

(Pictures taken under E5 blue-pop and actinic bulb with orange filter. IPhone 6)

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Day 3:

SPS looking incredibly happy. Only a few looking a little lighter. Color on the blue tip acro has improved greatly.

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Picture today was taken under full strength/spectrum light with orange filter.




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Round 2 - Yesterday I dipped all the corals for another round and here are the pictures again.

I'm seeing noticeable growth (addition coverage on the plug and more branching) through the treatment. Also getting some great reddish color from the frag (front middle) that I haven't seen before.

Color still good in most. Better in some and some are paling a bit. Most of these were ones I dipped in FW a week before I started this regiment; however there are a few that are paling from the Bayer too. They seem to be the smooth skin acropora that are reacting.

Going forward for the smooth skin acro, I will begin doing shorter dips.

Day 1 after 2nd dip: (E5 blue-pop and actinic bulb with orange filter. IPhone 6)
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Another piece of good news! Even though my red planet looks like crap, one major positive change since dipping is the polyp extension improvement across the entire coral. Also after the second dip (first dip I scraped eggs off) there were no signs of eggs at all.


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