LPS Rehab - do you dip?

[Kristy]

Hi guys, Mike and I spent our New Year's weekend doing some serious cleaning and maintenance on all three tanks. Apparently all the new arrivals of red and green "decorations" in the little hex tank were not the clowns getting in the holiday spirit after all, but were actually cyano growing on green hair algae - a first time to encounter that lovely combo! Anywho... we seem to do this every year: we seriously neglect our tank chores over the holidays and then have to step up the efforts for New Year's and thereafter.

As a result, I have three different LPS corals that have suffered a bit. Two are going to be fine, but one of my favorites is dwindling away and I may not be able to save it. What do you guys find most effective to give your LPS some help at recovering? Do you dip them and with what?

And anyone else fall into this annual pattern of holiday tank neglect? :angel:

[Europhyllia]

ah sorry to hear that. I am just subscribing to hear what the magic elixir will be.
I've been having a tough time keeping LPS ever since I introduced a coral with a slight problem.
Finally I figured out I could stop the rapid decline by hooking up a UV sterilizer. So the decline has stopped. But now I need to know what I can do to encourage recovery.

[Kristy]

Hmmm.... I had forgotten about your UV observation. This is in the hex and it's the only tank without a UV sterilizer hooked to it. Maybe I will try moving it to the big reef for that benefit.

Bstreep used to dip his favorite LPS when it showed trouble and it responded favorably. Cannot recall if it was Lugol's or what. I will spend the time and go back and research it. Just wondered if anyone else has any tried and true methods.

[Europhyllia]

I dipped one of my 3 troubled ones in Seachem Reef Dip and while nothing bad happened with it, nothing noticably great happened either. You've inspired me to try some of my other dips today. I'll report back

[Kristy]

Ok, for Bill it was Lugol's.... here is the first of many threads where he mentions this practice for his bubble coral LPS.
http://www.maast.org/showthread.php?33109-Bubble-coral-going-south-UPDATE-LOOKING-GOOD!&highlight=bubble

I think I have some of that Lugol's stuff, let me hunt for it. Maybe if I dip it and move it to the big reef, it will have better odds. (This is my hot pink/red blasto colony that I have had for two years and grown lots of new heads in that time but now it is almost completely dead just in the past few days.) Also, by the way, I make it a practice to never give up on a LPS coral. I have brought them back from the dead when it appeared to be just a skeleton. One time I pulled out an acan skeleton, noticed the slimy texture of what might still be a little tissue on there somewhere, put it back in a new spot and nursed it along. Still have it today, alive and kicking!

[Europhyllia]

But isn't lugol's just iodine? and isn't reef dip just iodine as well? or is there something special about either?

[Kristy]

Yeah, it's just iodine. Well the bottle says it's an extremely powerful iodine solution and lists the ingredients as purified water, potassium iodide, and iodine.

[Europhyllia]

Hm. okay I dipped one subject in MediCoral by Brightwell's (guessing just a different kind of iodine dip?) and one subject in CoralRx (not iodine- more like Pinesol?).
Coming out of the 8 minute dips, the MediCoral one looks puffed up while the CoralRx one looks shriveled.

[FireWater]

Kristy and Karin. I recently was having some issues with 2 colonies of palys and one colony of acans. I had lost several colonies of LPS in the old 90g and in the Finnex, as Karin and I have discussed previously, and did not want to lose these.
Lugols is a harsh dip for coral. CoralRx is great, but expensive to have a bottle of it laying around and not use often. I tried the Two Little Fishies ReVive Coral Cleaner with great success. Recession stopped and the palys regained color and are open.

Can't promise anything as I have only tried it once, but I am encouraged.

[BSJF]

If you are finding Lugols to be too harsh, then you are probably using too much or leaving it in there too long. I saved plates, scolys, elegance, frogspawn, hammer, etc...with it. I've also used CoralRx on LPS. I prefer Lugols, but use whatever I have on hand. If the skeleton is weak (like when frogspawn crumbles instead of snaps when you frag it), add some strontium to the tank.

[Kristy]

Thanks Karin, John, and Lorraine for the input.

Just reporting in my findings so far... The red blasto coral that is probably too far gone still looks terrible. I gave it a Lugol's dip, used the 8 drops / liter that Bill recommended in his thread. I also moved it to the big tank for the benefit of the UV sterilizer. I will dip a few more times and see if there is any rebounding, but it looks like a goner.

The other big fat healthy gorgeous LPS (frogspawn) that has a spot of ??? where something awful had fallen on it and caused immediate damage and recession is too big and attached to a bottom base rock in my reef so it cannot be removed for a dip. So I tried something crazy and turned off my pumps and dropped about three drops of Lugol's in the water just above the colony. The iodine fell right on the coral full strength, which didn't seem ideal, so I swirled the water with my hand to dillute it a bit. Then I left the pumps off for about five minutes before I turned them back on. Today there looks to be less tissue damage and I cannot see as much skeleton as I could yesterday, so maybe better extension. I'll keep you posted.

[Mr Cob]

When LPS decline in our tanks I move them to areas of low flow and low light to help them recover quickly without the intensity of flow and light penetrating at the flesh.

I also like ReVive Coral Cleaner to help them recover, also great to use on freshly fragged corals that did not get clean cuts.

I do not like CoralRX for treating declining specimens. I feel it's too harsh and better used as a dip against pests...perhaps it's all in my head though because of the intense smell.

[allan]

You guys are high tech. I've had my problems with acans, brains, and my one and only scoly. Each of them benefitted with a little extra midnight feeding and a repositioning.

queer as it sounds... I'm having a terrible time keeping the acan/scoly/brains in my tank, but they flourish in Milly's tank. Ordinarily this wouldn't be so weird, but we share the same sump. I run one 400W MH, she runs two 250 MH. I imagine that at no time would the coral be under both of them, just one at a time. It isn't the care she devotes to it either... she doesn't. I do all the work for that tank. Typical kid.

[Mr Cob]

they probably don't like so much light that you have in yours and maybe you have more flow.

I have a similar scenario...the shallow 85g tank with 250w mh and heavy flow bleaches out the lps and the 220g DEEP tank with 250w mh and low flow LPS flourish...both tanks plumbed together.

[CoryDude]

Betadine is a cheap alterntive to Lugol's. I've used it on a few lps before with no long term effects. Pretty much everything in my tank (lps and sps) have all been dipped in a saltwater/lugols mixture before they enter the tank.

[Europhyllia]

so what store sells that revive stuff? anybody local?

[Mr Cob]

not sure if any of the sponsors do, I have picked it up online and locally at TT, I'd call first though.

[Europhyllia]

Yes sure TT would have it since I was just there today for something else only TT had ... lol