What magnification?

[NanJ]

My husband and I are about 10 months into the hobby and our DT is stocked with fish. We are in the process of setting up a QT for new corals and understand that inspection and dipping of new corals is important. What degree of magnification do we need to look for hitchhikers on coral frags? 2X, 3X... or even more than that?

I've done some reading and it seems there is a such thing as "too" much magnification. Seems you have to weigh magnification against ease of use. Too much magnification makes the field of view difficult to work with.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide. I couldn't decide which forum to post this question and figured the 'propagation and aquaculture' folks would most likely use magnifying glasses.

 

[Oldreeferman]

Hello,
I just use a standard run of the mill magnifier myself that you can get anywhere, If your sight is good any mag strength will suffice, higher to a point isn't a bad investment tho. If they are smaller then you can see with your eyes or the eggs are smaller then you can detect then multiple dips will be necessary anyway to catch them after hatching but even eggs can usually be seen if you know what your looking for. Zooanthids ive heard are the worst for issues with pests but i don't have any due to the Palytoxin issues that may come with them as they do with palythoas. Ea. different species of coral have specific pests id recommend researching ea. coral you intend to buy & QT so you know what to look for specifically per ea. coral. But if you QT then yep in time you will know if another dip is necessary if eggs are involved otherwise the pests usually drop off on the first dip.