Help with Zoa Pox and Furan-2 Please?

[kyley]

Yeah, I've just used the DT water. Think I've finally gotten rid of zoa pox for good (knock on wood) though it took many treatments. Take care,
--Kyle

 

[electrokate]

Why are your palythoas a menace? Growing more than you'd like? Just curious...

How long did you keep them in the 10 gallon tank? How much Furan-2 did you use? Did you have sufficient lighting in it? Again, just curious... I just ordered 5 boxes of Furan-2 because I think it's going to take a lot of dip treatments to win this battle...

--Kyle

Hi,
The palythoa are just spreading like mad. Even the people eaters, they can be a pain too. Zoa pox may be killing the blue ones actually. Either that or the furan did. The blue ones exposed to furan bleached and have not recovered, the ones not treated are as usual growing like mad. Hmm. Maybe I should use furan to get rid of palythoas...

Furan is a pretty nasty carcinogen so if this comes up again I am going to try any other broad spectrum antibiotic. And yeah it's hard to dissolve.

I just followed the directions on the packets when I used it, I think it was 1 packet per 10 gallons repeated every other day with water change? Don't remember. Think I did it for one or two sessions longer than recommended. The water may have been too warm, and I took that tank down so don't remember what the lighting was, likely was a Tru 50/50 55 or 65 watt pc bulb. I left them in the treatment tank for months to be safe. Some of the zoas still have not recovered, I don't think heat would put them out for this long but I don't know. The other corals on their rocks bleached at the same time-a duncan and some mushrooms. The duncan recovered quickly when returned to the main tank but the zoas on it's skeleton did not. The mushrooms are still pale and small.

The bleached zoas only color up when in full shade, which is odd. They never had a problem with the lighting before, were growing like mad. Maybe the furan pushed them over the edge. I have 5 T5HO bulbs over a 120, it's 48x24x24. Most people consider the lighting inadequate. On the 55 it's 2 T5HO bulbs.
Thanks,
Kate

 

[CLINTOS]

when I treated my zoapox I used new rodi water in which I matched the DT salinity and 1 capsule for every 1 cup

then followed the direction's from the zoapox article

did a lot of amputation's and thrown out questionable zoa's prior to treating.

also used DT water in a 15 min light tea colored iodine dip right after the furan dip then rinsed in DT water on the side.

reduced the light cycle and brightness.

found out that it was high temp during the day and low at night that caused it.

 

[electrokate]

Did you zoas recover? Did they bleach first?

That is interesting about the temperature swings, and suspect it was temp swings in the treatment tank that bleached mine. I am assuming you mean that you had temp swings in your display.

I did a few dips prior to giving up on the protocol and just treating them in tank, used water from their tank with the med followed by a rinse in a bucket with some tank water, and then topped the tank off with new water. Part of my reason to not follow the directions in the article was the size of the colonies would have meant using a bucket of at least 5 gallons (and a fortune in drugs), part of it was presence of sponges on their rocks which would be killed by repeated air exposure, and part was the prospect of returning the colonies to a tank that might gave the pathogen in its water.

I think either approach is fine, but would like to see a test of alternative antibiotics. Hoping to NOT have this opportunity myself Unless it's because hobbyists send me their sick colonies to play with... I don't ever want to deal with this again.
Kate

 

[BlueRoofTang]

Hi Kate,
Do they really eat your polyps? I have asterina stars all over my tank (several different types), but I haven't noticed any damage to my zoas... Hopefully I'm just lucky and mine don't like zoas - b/c I like the asterinas! I did my third dip last night and all looks well - but I can't really tell that the white spots are going away yet...

--Kyle

I used to have hundreds of them. I thought they were fine. A friend told me they would eat zoas and I didn't believe it, but kept watching. I finally began linking things together. Once you see one of these asterinas on top of a polyp, wrapped down on the sides of it, basically engulfing the head of a closed polyp, and the polyp never opens again.....several times, you begin to see the link between the death of a zoa and the star. I now pluck out every one I see.

 

[BlueRoofTang]

I think I may have some zoas with pox. I want to use Furan-2, but bought it in powder form, not in "packets." The package says one tsp per 30 gallons, but I don't want to treat the whole tank. I want to make a dip.

I need about 4 cups of dip. How can I measure this out? I have some of the little spoons from the salifert test kits that I could use to measure some out, but don't know how much they hold or how much I need.