Cleaning / Dipping Corals Before Transfer

[Patrick Cox]

I am starting a new tank with all new fresh live rock (I am disposing of old) but I want to keep a few of my LPS corals from my old tank. My concerns are that I have Green Hair Algae, Cyano, Asterina Starfish and Planaria Red Flatworms in the old tank. So, I am looking for the best way to clean these corals of algae and hitchhikers before moving them. I have the following LPS I plan to move...

Branch Frogspawn
Duncan
Goniopora

Today I removed one of the frogspawn branches to inspect it and it had some GHA and Cyano attached to the branches and then also upon close inspection I could see some tiny Asterina Starfish attached to the branch. I brushed the branches as clean as I could with a soft toothbrush and I also picked off any starfish I could see and then put the coral back in the old tank for now. Question is - what dip(s) should I use to clean these corals as best I can? Ideally I would like to kill any hitchhikers and be rid of as much algae as I can.

Thanks for suggestions!

 

[Patrick Cox]

I just found a post on another site that mentions Peroxide as a dip for hitchhikers and for algae. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Anyone?

 

[organism]

Unless you dry out the corals the algae isn't going to disappear, the only way to keep it from transferring over is low phosphates in the new tank, same with cyano. A revive dip should get rid of the red planaria, not sure why you're killing off the asterinas though they're pretty cool. I wouldn't dip them in peroxide, LPS don't take kindly to that sometimes.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Unless you dry out the corals the algae isn't going to disappear, the only way to keep it from transferring over is low phosphates in the new tank, same with cyano. A revive dip should get rid of the red planaria, not sure why you're killing off the asterinas though they're pretty cool. I wouldn't dip them in peroxide, LPS don't take kindly to that sometimes.

Thanks for your reply. My new tank is Zeovit so the nutrient level should be low. So you are saying that as long as my phosphates and nitrates are low that any algae spores won't grow?

On the peroxide, I was going to brush it on the coral skeleton but maybe you think that is not necessary?

Regarding the asterinas, there are a lot of them in my current tank and I just didn't want them in the new tank.

I am going to buy some CoralRX and Revive so I may just physically remove any algae I can with a toothbrush and then dip the corals.

Thanks

 

[organism]

Thanks for your reply. My new tank is Zeovit so the nutrient level should be low. So you are saying that as long as my phosphates and nitrates are low that any algae spores won't grow?

If they do it'll be unlikely to turn into an algae plague, but the thing is the spores/remnants of algae are going to be on those corals regardless. Not much you can do about it getting into your new tank but if you're going ULN you probably won't have much of an issue