Protocol treatment for anemones - water?

Mad Marine

Member
Hey,

I would appreciate opinions/advice/thoughts on what water should be used for 10 day Cipro treatment in QT tank?

1. 100% Fresh made salt water?
2. 100% DT water?
3. 50% DT water & 50% fresh made salt water?

Thanks

MM
 
In the sticky they mention it is best practice to use 100% freshly made water. Since there is no bio filtration on the treatment tank 100% new water each day exports all the nastys the nem is spitting out. Match temp/salinity and change.
 
If you have a great, well run tank, I would use DT water. I use DT water. Many other reefer use freshly mixed water. The advantage of DT water to me are:

1. When the time come, I just pick the anemone and drop him into the DT.
2. I don't have to worry about oxygenate and bring the temp up to correct level. My newly mix water is never 80 degree. put 10 gal of 70ish degree water to my 500 gal system, I don't have to heat it up. Drain 10 gal from the DT directly into the treatment tank is easy for me.

Either way is fine, just harder for me to get freshly mix water up to the correct temp without having to get additional heater, controller, plus air pump.
 
I've had success using freshly made salt water, which is my preferred method.

My concern with using DT water (especially because I already have anemones in the DT) is that there may be free floating organisms and/or biochemicals that may affect an anemone in QT. There's been talk in the past about allelopathy between anemones, and while these days I tend to think it's a non-issue and was primarily the blame for issues occurring when multiple anemones were in the same tank, I think there may be some merit in avoiding any such biochemicals when QTing a nem, especially one that is compromised in some way. I don't use carbon in my DT, so none of these chemicals are filtered out. If carbon is used, it may not be a concern at all.

Furthermore, we still don't know what causes in the infections in anemones. Could it be a free floating organism that attacks a weakened anemone? Could it be a combination of dead or dying zoox and an organism that is either attracted to, or feeds upon, the dead zoox and then attacks the anemone?

The reason I use freshly made salt water is to avoid the potential issues previously stated. My technique is to use a 32 gallon Brute garbage can to make batch of salt water. I use a heater to keep the temp at 80 degrees to my the QT tank and a strong pump to keep the water aerated. I simply take water from the garbage can each day. After day 4 I make a new batch.

The caveat to this is if you have a large system like OrionN. At 500 gallons, it's easier to just replace water to that system than to make water specifically for QTing a nem. And with so much water in the system, and I assume he's still using carbon, then we can go with the old saying...

"The solution to pollution is dilution"
 
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