cleaning aritificial corals related to deaths?

[seagazer]

Good day all,

About a month ago I cleaned some artificial coral I bought for my juvenile seahorse tank. I've been raising erectus, and needed a grow out tank so I set up a 30 gallon cube. I decided to put minimal live rock this time, (about 20lbs) and use alot of artificial coral with some mushrooms. In no time the Artificial coral was in need for a cleaning. The company I purchased the coral from said I could clean it in a 50/50 bleach water solution. I was very reluctant to do this so what I did do was a 5 gallon bucket with about a cup of bleach in it. I soaked it, and scrubbed it with a toothbrush. They came out beautiful. One is a large staghorn, and the other is a acrapora. Both very bright colors. I was hoping to bring out the color in my juveniles. Well, after about 2-3 days, I noticed my babies were starting to drop like flies. All 3 of my pipefish parished, and I lost about 6 babies before moving everyone into my reeftank. I'm worried about my reef because the bioload is WAY over limit. Just in case, I've lowered the salinity to 1.014 to kill any parasites, and I did a 33% water change today.

I guess my questions are:

1. has anyone heard of bleach cleaning before, and what kind of experience did you have?

2. If I do have a problem with parasites will 1.014 take care of them?

3. Will the hypo salinity harm my mushrooms, 1 open brain, and snails?

4. How long should I treat with the hypo salinity.

5. Any ideas or suggestions?!

Any asst you can give me is greatly appreciated. I need to get these juveniles back to the cube tank. My adults are already show signs of stress thru GBS.

The url is a pic of some organism I've found growing on the glass. Does anyone know what it is?


http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=119740057&imageID=1371472756

 

[ReefNutPA]

The pic link you provided shows hydroids on the glass. They can/will sting and kill fry. They are deadly in a nursery tank or tank with fry. They normally cause no problem for adult horses.

Be careful with the temp in the reeftank...high temps can cause problems of their own with syngnathids. I understand why you moved them to the reef, just be aware of the temp issue.

As far as cleaning with bleach, as long as you remove ALL of the bleach after cleaning there should be no problem. Usually if I bleach an item for my tank I rinse it thoroughly with freshwater for a few minutes, then put it in a bucket of freshwater and add a dechlorinator and let it soak overnight. Then I'll re-rinse with freshwater. If there is still any bleach smell I repeat the process.

As far as hypo for parasites, the salinity should be lowered to 1.009 for 4 to 6 weeks. Yes, the hypo will harm your mushrooms, open brain and snails...as well as all other inverts/little critters hiding in the live rock.

Have you seen any symptoms that lead you to believe there is a parasite problem? Scratching? Twitching? Body shaking/convulsions?

Tom

 

[pledosophy]

Tom gave you a great start, but ya know me, i gotta throw in my two cents.

If you think the issues is a parasite then fresh water dip the fry for ten minutes matching the temp and PH.

The brain will kill your fry.

Hyposalinity will kill everything else in your tank.

Read what Tom said again about allowing a leeching period for the bleach and then use a dechlorinator. IME it is easier to just use hot water and a dish brush (don't tell the wife :lol to clean fake staghorns.

YOu need to remove the hydroids as well, there are several products to do this.

 

[seagazer]

Hi guys,
Hydroids! Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to immediatly start increasing my salinity again. I though maybe the hydroids were parasites. That is the only reason I reduced it in the first place. I'll get the hydroids treated asap. Any suggestions for killing them?

Thanks/best rgds

 

[seas_inside]

To kill hydroids, you can use a medicine called Febandazole (Panacur). However, this won't be safe in a reef tank; it kills ALL worms, most snails, and some inverts. This med is available from seahorsesource.com.

 

[seagazer]

Whoooh,
Been a long two days. I've decided to go ahead, and treat my juvenile tank with panacur. Will it also kill the cleaner shrimp I have left in there? Should I move it to the reef tank. I do have some live rock in this juvenile tank, but not much. I'll just take the sacrifice of any worms, and move all my snails, and hermits to the reef for now. I guess I'd better scrub they're shells with a toothbrush first, right?

The corals I have in this tank are:
1 open face brain
1 buttom polip colony
2 candy cane polips
and some purple grape calupra,
will any of these be affected by the panacur.

Last, and most importantly. How much do I dose a 30 gallon cube, and for how long? I assume I need to take my charcoal out of my canister filter.

You folks are great. I really need to get going on this. I just lost an adult male to gbs tonight. Took him fast. I only started treating him today with oral diamox in ghost shrimp. (bumbed) I think it had alot to do with the temp. overcrowding of my reef. He's had it in the past, and I've successfully treated it. Didn't have enough time to treat it this time though. He was already too stressed out.
I'll be checking my email first thing in the morning!
Thanks again!

 

[seagazer]

ONE MORE THOUGHT?

What if I took two fairly good sized rocks from my reef aquarium, treated them with panacur, and put them into the infected juvenile tank? Do you think there would be enough panacur residue left in these two rocks to treat my juvenile tank without actually dosing the entire tank? The two rocks in question are about 5lbs each, and extremely porous.

Thanks for your assistance guys, and gal!