Coral dipping - need the scoop

[MrsReefK]

I'm a planner by nature. I know I can't plan for everything, but I try to plan for things that are within my control.

What types of corals do you dip? All?
What do you dip with?
What is your dipping process?
Do you QT at all?
If you had the resource to QT, do you see it being effective?

Thank you ahead of time! Please be as detailed as possible. I've been reading on this, but a lot of folks assume the reader knows some items, I'm looking to approach this as a newbie that needs full explanation.

 

[jjoos99]

I have learned the hard way to always dip and qt my new sps pieces. Alot of people will break the frag off of the plug it is on and toss the plug. The base of the corals are were most of the corals will carry in eggs from any pests. Toss the base and you toss the some potential eggs. I have tried 2 different dips. coral rx and bayer. Coral rx was quite a bit harder on the coral then the bayer. Other then the bayer being cloudy and not able to really see any of the pests that have fallen off I prefer it. The worst side effect of bayer is if you get it into your main tank it will kill off most invert and if strong enough the fish. I lost all my shrimp within minutes of getting just a tiny bit in the tank. I believe I mixed it at 5ml of bayer per cup of water and dipped for 15 min. Dip your coral then rinse it several times in clean tank water. I dipped once a week for 5 weeks
When I dipped with coral rx my corals lost some of their color and my ora hawkins actually died off some and never recovered. I only used it once.
The proper way to qt would be a separate tank and system but I wasnt able to do that but I did have a small frag tank that was connected to the same system that I housed all my treated frags in between the weekly dips.
I was able to completely rid my system of a pretty bad case of aefw by dipping with bayer for 5 weeks.
I actually dont know if lps corals require and dips or qt. Maybe someone else could speak up about this.
jeff

 

[xCry0x]

Ditto on dipping. I didn't understand what I was doing for years. Was dipping diligently but only with a coral disinfectant.

Recently removed my six line wrasse and then all my montipora started dying - had bad case of Monti eating nudibranches.

Read up on things - didn't realize Bayer was an insecticide, thought it was some relationship to the medicine. Now I realize how important it is. You are doing in concentrated insecticide it nukes any living pests.

Only issue that gets left is eggs (and algaes). That is why relaxing the entire plug is great if you can. Also can take a soft toothbrush and brush the underside of Monti caps and plugs you can't get rid of.

 

[shih87]

I have learned the hard way to always dip and qt my new sps pieces. Alot of people will break the frag off of the plug it is on and toss the plug. The base of the corals are were most of the corals will carry in eggs from any pests. Toss the base and you toss the some potential eggs. I have tried 2 different dips. coral rx and bayer. Coral rx was quite a bit harder on the coral then the bayer. Other then the bayer being cloudy and not able to really see any of the pests that have fallen off I prefer it. The worst side effect of bayer is if you get it into your main tank it will kill off most invert and if strong enough the fish. I lost all my shrimp within minutes of getting just a tiny bit in the tank. I believe I mixed it at 5ml of bayer per cup of water and dipped for 15 min. Dip your coral then rinse it several times in clean tank water. I dipped once a week for 5 weeks
When I dipped with coral rx my corals lost some of their color and my ora hawkins actually died off some and never recovered. I only used it once.
The proper way to qt would be a separate tank and system but I wasnt able to do that but I did have a small frag tank that was connected to the same system that I housed all my treated frags in between the weekly dips.
I was able to completely rid my system of a pretty bad case of aefw by dipping with bayer for 5 weeks.
I actually dont know if lps corals require and dips or qt. Maybe someone else could speak up about this.
jeff

"I dipped once a week for 5 weeks"
Can you detail here? Why 5 weeks continue dip, and 5 is an experience number or some theory behind?

I personally only dip coral right after acclimate for 4 hours and use Croal RX, never lost a coral by this process, but do see color fading temporary.

 

[shiftline]

I dip the hard ones with a splash of coral RX and a splash of revive and let it sit for about 5 min and swish the water every few min

 

[dadummy]

All corals get dip,
Revive is dip I use
Capful of revive in couple cups of water, flashlight, 3x reading glasses to see if any pests come off the coral.
QT is a must (20g, HOB filter, power head, light) and it is effective.

do your research, have fun and set up a QT. You will never look back and say "that was dumb, I could have just dipped"


I have had the pests, aefw, redbugs, monti nudi's. People are successful dipping corals and not having pests, I never was that lucky. Plus the fact that I had the pests and didn't know what I was looking for to identify them. Years ago I would say just dip it you will be fine, that tune changed when an experienced reefer looked at my tank and said you have redbugs and AEFW.

 

[jjoos99]

"I dipped once a week for 5 weeks"
Can you detail here? Why 5 weeks continue dip, and 5 is an experience number or some theory behind?

I personally only dip coral right after acclimate for 4 hours and use Croal RX, never lost a coral by this process, but do see color fading temporary.

I use to never dip corals. I always thought the few places that I bought online would not carry pests. Yea right. My corals experienced months of color loss, stn at the bases of my corals and lack of p/e. I tested everything I could possibly test thinking I had water issues. dosed this and that without no luck. One day I was looking at one coral real close and saw a funny looking marking on it. Took a turkey baster to it and off flew an easy dozen aefw. I couldnt believe my eyes. I had to basically do a complete tear down, breaking off alot of my corals off the rocks and taking a torch and burning the surface of the rock it was on to kill any worms and eggs. And dipped all corals once a week for 5 weeks. What a nightmare.
The reasoning behind the 5 weeks of dips is for total assurance that all the worms have been killed. As stated in one of the other posts the dips do not kill the eggs that have been laid. so the idea is to keep the dip process up till all the eggs have hatched and you have killed the living worms. I havent had to deal with red bugs but I would assume it would be the same process. From all the reading I did, 5 weeks seemed to be somewhat the magic number.
Jeff

 

[joshky]

I generally remove all acros from their frag plugs unless I know the person I'm buying from has a good QT/dipping regimen and I feel confident about the livestock they have (like Adam at Battle Corals).

Otherwise my routine is simple, closely inspect new frag with a magnifying glass, if I spot any eggs I will probably just throw it out and move on (has yet to happen, knock on wood). Remove from the frag plug, dip in a bayer solution of 10 ml to 1 cup of water for 15 minutes; rinse in clean water in a separate bucket for 10 minutes. Inspect frag again and then glue onto a new frag plug, if everything checks out I put it into my DT on the frag rack. If I see any possible pest I will put it in my 20g observational QT that I use for new fish, it's kind of like a FOWLR that I have set up, but sometimes without the fish.

 

[bozoreefer]

This is very interesting. I just started a tank with live rock that was from other mature tanks. My tank has nothing right now except water and rock. It's cycled but after reading this thread, do you guys think I should treat the whole tank with some meds? If so what kind of meds? I'm not sure what kind of pests are in the live rock but I'm sure there's something.
Thanks!

 

[C.Eymann]

I dip in Tropic Marin pro coral cure and ineceptor, if I see any aefw get knocked off I trash the coral. Been there done that, never again

 

[joshky]

This is very interesting. I just started a tank with live rock that was from other mature tanks. My tank has nothing right now except water and rock. It's cycled but after reading this thread, do you guys think I should treat the whole tank with some meds? If so what kind of meds? I'm not sure what kind of pests are in the live rock but I'm sure there's something.
Thanks!

If you're worried about your live rock having pests I would just leave it fallow. Usually the biggest offenders in live rock are crabs and mantis shrimp, you'll want to setup a trap to get those out at night with a piece of shrimp or something as bait. Generally people will lean a cup up against the rock-work so they can fall in, but then they can't get out. I would highly advise not dipping your rock, especially in a solution like bayer insecticide, it would ruin your live rock.

Since this rock was from other established tanks, there may not be any pest crabs or mantis shrimp, depending on the previous owner of course; but the trap is easy to do so it may be a fun experiment to see what you can catch at night. Not all crabs are bad so if you catch anything, try to isolate it in a bucket or something and take a photo to post online.

Be very careful how you interpret advice and do lots of research. Good luck!

 

[bozoreefer]

If you're worried about your live rock having pests I would just leave it fallow. Usually the biggest offenders in live rock are crabs and mantis shrimp, you'll want to setup a trap to get those out at night with a piece of shrimp or something as bait. Generally people will lean a cup up against the rock-work so they can fall in, but then they can't get out. I would highly advise not dipping your rock, especially in a solution like bayer insecticide, it would ruin your live rock.



Since this rock was from other established tanks, there may not be any pest crabs or mantis shrimp, depending on the previous owner of course; but the trap is easy to do so it may be a fun experiment to see what you can catch at night. Not all crabs are bad so if you catch anything, try to isolate it in a bucket or something and take a photo to post online.



Be very careful how you interpret advice and do lots of research. Good luck!

Thanks for the tip! Much appreciated!

Yea I haven't seen any crabs or mantis shrimp. The rock has been sitting there for maybe about 3 weeks now. I have this huge rock in there right now that when I broke some of it off to make it fit in the tank, out came a humongous brittle star. It was the size of a plate. I took that out. Lol.

I also saw an aipitasia nem pop out this week. A baby one I guess. It looks like it's dying by now because it's flat and flopped over. I don't have lights yet so I haven't been running anything over the tank. Not sure if that matters.

But I'll try out the trap method!

Thanks heaps!

 

[fishdoc11]

I dip in Tropic Marin pro coral cure and ineceptor, if I see any aefw get knocked off I trash the coral. Been there done that, never again

I use the same. I dip in a multi strength dip of Interceptor or Sentinel for a couple of hours. Measurement isn't important just make sure you have at least 5 to 10 x normal strength, even 50 x won't hurt coral. Then I use a dip in TMPCC for 15 minutes, the color of very dark tea you can barely see a couple of inches in. I treated for red bugs back in the early 2000s and have dipped in interceptor since then and have not had a problem since with red bugs. I had an AEFW breakout in the mid-late 2000s and saved frags of each coral dipped in TMPCC and have not seen those since either. I do break off of any portion of base where eggs could be hiding and remount those corals.

 

[C.Eymann]

I use the same. I dip in a multi strength dip of Interceptor or Sentinel for a couple of hours. Measurement isn't important just make sure you have at least 5 to 10 x normal strength, even 50 x won't hurt coral. Then I use a dip in TMPCC for 15 minutes, the color of very dark tea you can barely see a couple of inches in. I treated for red bugs back in the early 2000s and have dipped in interceptor since then and have not had a problem since with red bugs. I had an AEFW breakout in the mid-late 2000s and saved frags of each coral dipped in TMPCC and have not seen those since either. I do break off of any portion of base where eggs could be hiding and remount those corals.

Yep, I have been really impressed by tmpcc. I lost the battle with AFEW last year and basically completely reset the tank. I was dipping but obviously eggs were introduced. Which is why if I observe any AEFW getting knocked off the coral while dipping , the coral goes in the trash.
I have treated for redbugs before, no big whoop, also usually double dortons dosing no problems. except need to avoid that to keep my acro crabs.

I also like that tmpcc isn't as harsh on the coral like revive or coralrx. I do a 20 min dip of tmpcc, followed by a over night bath in a Tupperware container with an old rio600 powerhead with X10 inceptor dose, powerhead keeps the frags free of slime and also keeps the water warm.

 

[MrsReefK]

Wow. How did I not get updates for this thread?? And all of this time I thought there were no responses... Now to sit back and read through this. Grab the popcorn.

 

[MrsReefK]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to do a 5 week QT for my frags, change the plug, and dip weekly in Bayer.

 

[markalot]

Good luck, hope you get rid of these pests!

 

[MrsReefK]

Good luck, hope you get rid of these pests!

Thanks. Thankfully I don't have any pests, I'm planning for the future as we will be cycling soon.

 

[jjoos99]

Get a cheap magnifying glass and look ay the corals closely for any eggs. They are easy to spot and will usually be on dead parts of the coral. If you find any take a tooth brush to them. Along with your 5 week plan you should be good. It is surprising how fast a coral will recover.
Best of luck
Jeff

 

[MrsReefK]

Get a cheap magnifying glass and look ay the corals closely for any eggs. They are easy to spot and will usually be on dead parts of the coral. If you find any take a tooth brush to them. Along with your 5 week plan you should be good. It is surprising how fast a coral will recover.
Best of luck
Jeff

Thanks! Magnifying glass is on the list to grab!