Dip that coral! Guides, Tips, Suggestions and Discussion

[DBR]

Hello!! I've been perusing the MAAST forms a lot lately and there are lots of tips and great practices throughout on treating/dipping corals. I thought I'd start up a dedicated thread with general guide info. If there's already one out there I apologize I missed it somehow. I'd like to open some dialogue about techniques and tips to help us keep our tanks free of pests. Bear in mind that trading, swapping and buying corals is like engaging in unsafe sex practices, you're going to get cooties http://www.bareefers.org/home/sites/all/modules/smileys/packs/Roving/wink.png


There have been posts outlining different dipping methods and chemicals to dip with. Thought I'd share some of my experiences as well as hear what you folks are doing out there that do not have the capacity to QT every single frag that hits your system.


Let's start with corals shall we? What do they potentially carry and how can we help to prevent the spread of said critters.


•Softies (excluding Zoas, Palys, Protopalys, etc.). Softies aside from various extremely specific nudibranchs, typically only suffer from one pest, acoel flatworms, this is especially the case with mushrooms and toadstools. While not a flesh eater like many other pests, they do rob the corals of light, occasionally to the point where it is to the corals detriment. Tanks with certain wrasses and dragonettes can remain free of the pesky flatworms even if they are introduced, they are tasty treats to many of those fish. Also, dipping and basting can also help in an infested tank. Another major issue with softies is necrosis, whether it is from poor shipping practices, fragging, or an overall unhappy coral, IME necrosis is a tough thing to eliminate with when dealing with softies and needs to be treated aggressively.
Luckily softies are pretty resilient and don't mind being dipped when compared to other corals, even using strong iodine based dips like Lugols, Povidone, and Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure (TMPCC). During your dipping session refrain from blasting your corals with a baster, rather use short soft pulses to avoid tearing the corals tissue. If you do see a necrotic area, that is the area you don't want to be afraid to give a good blast, especially with colt corals, devils hands, cabbages etc. you want to clear out all of the protozoal and bacterial matter you can, just like if you as a human were to have a severe infection. Otherwise you risk spreading the pathogen, even in cases where it is the relatively ubiquitous Aeromonas bacteria.


•Zoas when it comes to "button polyps", I'm the wrong guy to ask about dipping other than general cleaning up and easy pest removal. I do know that like softies zoas are fairly resilient when it comes to iodine based dips and actually seem to benefit from it prior to being placed in the aquarium. Pests can include, Sundail Snails, Nudis, Zoa Pox, and god knows what else http://www.bareefers.org/home/sites/all/modules/smileys/packs/Roving/lol.png

Dip and blast away, zoas can contract up tight and expose a lot of mung that is ripe for the turkey baster blast. Don't be afraid if your corals aren't opening up right away, sometimes it can take over a week for your zoas to open up and be happy. Feel free to add anything (furan-2 for pox etc) as you see fit, again, I have a limited amount of experience with the Zoa/Paly family other than poisoning my own family while trying to boil some off some live rock.


•LPS I don't really want to get into a taxonomic debate here, so I'll use LPS as a generic term as we all pretty much agree on what is what except in a few cases.
For the most part LPS do not suffer from the multitude of pests one encounters in the world of Acroporas and Montiporas. I’ve personally witnessed acoel flatworms on Trachyphyllias, and have seen certain Asterinas munching on LPS tissue, but that’s about it. Does that mean your out of the woods with a quick dip? No way! The achilles heel of most LPS is they have lots of tissue and a skeleton, and in the world of transporting corals that means that unless you are super, super careful, tissue becomes damaged and as a result can become infected. That’s where the dipping comes into play, a good LPS dip involves the delicate juggling act of cleaning the coral, especially the damaged tissue, while keeping the damage from the process to a minimum. I recommend using a turkey baster that has had the tip cut off a little so that the opening is ~1/2” wide. That disperses the flow so a laminar jet of water is not being forced at the coral. Short light pulses will ensure that you are cleaning the coral, but not obliterating the tissue. One quick note on “chalice” corals, they do not like change, with that in mind be extra careful when dipping and acclimating, once they find a happy spot in your tank they are good to go, but IME sometimes dipping can stress them to the point where they do not make the acclimation, handle them with kid gloves.


•SPS Everyone in the SPS world fears the dreaded Montipora eating nudibranchs (Monti nudis), Acropora eating flatworms (AEFW), or Red Bugs (RBs), and with good reason, Monti nudis and AEFW can be stubborn once introduced into an aquarium, with the eggs very difficult to remove and treat, and in the case of AEFW, the animal itself is nearly invisible aside from the damage it leaves in its wake. Red Bugs are not considered as much of a problem as they are easy to treat in tank, however, the treatment can have effects on the tank for weeks after treatment.

[DBR]

How do you avoid introducing these pests into your tank? Quarantine. Not all of us can do that in the real world we live in. In the case of Monti nudis, and AEFW, dipping can go a long way, especially if you do repeated dips. You generally want to use the repeated dips in cases where the first dip shows signs of pests. Every third day pull the coral out and do a light dip leaving the coral in for a longer duration, IME that not only helps remove the pests, it is not as stressful as full blown (strong) dips, make sure to use your baster. The dipping should be done no more than three times to avoid stressing your coral. During your initial dip look at the bottom of your dipping container, do you see anything? Little white fluffy nudis? Little squirming tan flatworms? If you do chances are it’s time to grab a toothbrush and go at it. Usually the egg masses are found in out of the way places where the tissue meets the frag plug, or in between the scrolls of plating corals. Both animals have eggs that are incapsulated in a tenacious slime that needs to be carefully brushed away without harming the surrounding tissue. The process needs to be repeated every three days like the dipping, not only will that help to eliminate pests, it will give you visual cues so you can monitor your progress. I will say when I saw AEFWs in my qt tank in the past, I threw out all of the Acroporas in that tank, they are that difficult to treat for.


Red Bugs are difficult to prevent with conventional dips, they have serrated appendages that dig into the flesh of corals, so much so that even if the animal is stunned in the dipping process they will still hang tenaciously even when being hit with a baster. Lots of reefers use Interceptor dips in conjunction with conventional dipping methods to avoid introduction, IME they work well, that is if you can get interceptor... I don’t have a hard fast rule regarding Interceptor dipping, I simply crush up a portion of a pill and add a pinch to a gallon of water in a bucket with an airstone. After about 2 hours your coral should be RB free, I used this method several times and it has worked 100% (so far), there are many more specific dipping techniques to be found online, again feel free to add anything you know regarding dipping for RBs. There's been threads about the success of Bayer Advance here and though I've not used it yet myself I've heard great things from several trusted sources, here among MAAST members and plan to use it myself soon.


•Dips and methods There are many different types of coral dips on the market, heck you can go down to your local drug store and purchase Povidone it makes a great coral dip. Most dips are iodine based, Lugols solution, Kent Tech-D, Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure (TMPCC), SeaChem, all use iodine in one form or another. They are quick and efficient when it comes to pest removal, however, IME some corals don’t like them very much. For example Montiporas can brown out quickly from dips, especially at higher concentrations, always keep that in mind when using iodine in dips and err on the side of caution. I really like the Two Little Fishes Coral Revive, not only does it seem less harsh, I’ve noticed that the pests overall do not like Revive as it irritates them strongly causing them to remove themselves from the coral rapidly. This can be a huge benefit when dealing with animals like RBs that have a tight grip and need a little encouragement in leaving their hosts. Again I like the straight Povidone and look forward to testing out Bayer Advance.


•”The Plug” Most corals you get will be mounted to a plug, disk, rubble, that is a huge vector when it comes to spreading pests, not just mean little critters that like to snack on corals, but planaria, pest algae (Asparagopsis), Asterina stars, Aiptasia etc. I’ve been thinking for a while on how to eliminate the ecosystem that surrounds “The Plug” and stumbled across a random post on RC that got me thinking. The entire coral is not on the plug normally, so that leaves the rest of the plug exposed to be cleaned up. Of course the easiest way is to lop the frag off the plug and be done with it, that is a common practice for myself and saves some time. If you do not feel like doing that for one reason or another, you can take a tupperware type container and mount a piece of eggcrate in the container so that frag plugs can sit upright like normal, and disks can sit on the surface of the eggcrate. Fill the vessel just to the point where the frag plug or disk is immersed to the rim (for lack of a better term) with limewater, yes limewater... Place the frag in the container with the coral exposed for a couple of minutes, don’t stress out the coral by letting it remain exposed for too long. This technique works very well with stony corals, with softies there is a strong likely hood that the coral will come in contact with the limewater which is a worst case scenario type situation.

Well I think this post is long enough, Please share your experiences, input and practices!

[DBR]

Since Povidone Iodine from the local drug store doesnt come with instructions for use when dipping corals I thought I'd go ahead and repost this from another thread on instructions for use.

I just mix it with saltwater according to coral type. Immerse the corals in the dip, and agitate periodically with a turkey baster. Inspect for pests and their eggs. You may find redbugs, acro eating flatworms, red planaria, monti eating nudibranchs, zoanthid eating nudibranchs, zoanthid spiders, and others.


The pests may be stunned enough to be blown off the coral, but not necessarily killed also.


After dipping, rinse and quarantine the coral.

Basic guide for dosage and timing...

Acros
3ml/liter 25 min

Montis
2ml/liter 10-15 min

Zoas
3-4ml/liter 25 min

LPS
3ml/liter 25 min

Softies
3ml/liter 25 min

Some corals have tolerated up to 2ml dip per 8oz saltwater for 25 minutes. Montis may lose color at this concentration of dip though. 2ml/8oz should be the strongest concentration to use if you are experimenting. Iodine levels peak at approximately this dosage rate, and will actually decrease as you add more of the dip.

There you go!

Please chime in!

[DBR]

One last thought... When in doubt... throw it out. I'm in no way advocating useless waste of corals but in some cases I think it is for the greater good. Especially when it comes to AEFW's... they are just too hard to treat for IME. It can come down to the risk of an entire system for one coral frag. The cliche 'the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few' comes to mind.

[ramsey]

Nice post. I agree the frag plugs. It's a haven for undesirables. I've been using coral rx pro recently. Seems to work but I haven't started my SPS collection yet so we'll see long term.