Finally finished up my last treatment a couple days ago. My last 2 treatments I did at 60 ppm for 7-8 hours. I found this dose to be more effective at killing the adults. My first 2 treatments (40ppm for 5 hours) left several adults stunned but still living at the end of the treatment. Half way through the third treatment (60ppm) I saw one adult crumpled up and dead. That was the only adult I saw during or after this treatment. Some of the corals lightened up considerably after this treatment but no losses due to the treatment alone. Just to be safe, I waited 2 weeks before doing the 4th and final treatment. I figured if there were any eggs that I missed, 2 weeks should give them long enough to hatch out and then the FW's would get killed by the final treatment before they could lay any more eggs. Never saw any FW's or clutches after the last treatment. The corals showed no ill signs after the last treatment.
I feel that 60 ppm is a more effective dose as it will kill the adults rather than just stun them as the 40 ppm dose does. This dose did cause some lightening in the corals that I did not experience from the 40 ppm dose. If anyone tries the 60 ppm dose please do it at your own risk. Your results may vary from mine.
I know I had my qualms about the levamisole after my first treatment when I had several corals RTN. After doing 3 more treatments I feel it is more the fault of my treatment method than the levamisole itself. For example, I didn't have the water temp in all of the holding tanks the exact same temperature. After correcting this, I didn't experience any more major adverse reactions from the subsequent treatments. No doubt the levamisole does stress out the corals but probably not enough to cause the RTN alone.
I did lose another handful of corals during the quarantine period but it had nothing to do with the treatments. I was out of town for a week at IMAC and the last day the quarantine tank overflowed and the auto-top-off added 40 gallons of RO/DI water to a 75 gallon tank. When the top off tub emptied, the sump emptied and there was no heat or sump circulation for almost a day. The temp dropped to 70 and the salinity dropped to 20. A few corals were total losses by the time I got home and about half of the corals were experiencing RTN to some extent. Suprisingly the RTN stopped right away after I got everything corrected and did a 80% water change.
I don't plan on adding another acro to my tank for a long time, if ever again. It just isn't worth the work of going through a 4 week quarantine/treatment period just for 1 frag or even a handful of frags, IMO. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the corals that I do have. They are all a lot more special to me now they have had to endure all of this and have survived.
I just want to say thanks to Mitch for posting about the levamisole and thanks to others who have shared their experiences. Because of threads like this, the hobby is able to move forward.
