Dipping corals eventually leading to Superbugs?

[Kth]

Will dipping corals for pests eventually lead to superbugs?

Real world example: Antibiotics are currently over-used in our world, and are leading to antibiotic resistant bugs. Antibacterial soap is being banned in parts of the world due to the development of resistant strains of bacteria. Doctors have had to crack down on the usage of antibiotics.

I've noticed on threads that some bugs are getting harder to get rid of. Could we be the cause of these super bugs developing? It seems that people have been having a harder time treating some bugs on newer threads (last 3 years) vs the older threads (5 years+).

I'm worried that corals could eventually go extinct in the oceans, and reefers might be the last chance of keeping corals from disappearing completely. We'd be stricken if superbugs eventually lead to the end of the reefing hobby. This is bigger then just us.

Things I'm curious about:

• Should we drastically increase the 30 day qt window?
• Could bugs/bacteria/pests form immunity to coral dips?
• Alternatives to dipping
• Avoiding buying from reefers/companies without strong qt practices
• Current bugs that are not treatable by dipping (like black bugs)
• Should we use multiple types of dips *at the same time* to catch any bugs that are immune to one type of dip and not the other?
• Is there a chance that ocean reefs get contaminated by hobby created superbugs?

I want to hear from the experts and the experienced reefers on this.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I don't belive we'd see the evolution of a super pod or super Bobbit.
Unless it's on after Sharknado.

 

[Kth]

I don't belive we'd see the evolution of a super pod or super Bobbit.
Unless it's on after Sharknado.

Haha, a super bobbit would be kinda cool. Pretty sure that some people have them as pets.

The stuff I'm worried about are on the more microscopic side.

 

[Ridgeway]

I cannot imagine that pests have already evolved to become "dip resistant" this is based on 2 things:

1) coral hobbyists have only been dipping corals for say 10, maybe max 15yrs
2) the reference to antibiotics is based on bacteria that have a life cycles of seconds, minutes, hours vs these pests which are weeks/months etc

So no I do not believe it is possible in such a short period.

I do however believe that coral farm frag growing out areas at sea are infested with pests, more and more of them and different types, some I've only seen in the last 2yrs. So as these frag growing out areas are used year after year the pest population grows and diversifies, normally in farming for this and other reasons you'd run a fallow year in a given field etc

My educated guess is it's these pest infested grow out areas that is the cause and not some super bug pest that we have created.

 

[Kth]

I cannot imagine that pests have already evolved to become "dip resistant" this is based on 2 things:

1) coral hobbyists have only been dipping corals for say 10, maybe max 15yrs
2) the reference to antibiotics is based on bacteria that have a life cycles of seconds, minutes, hours vs these pests which are weeks/months etc

So no I do not believe it is possible in such a short period.

I do however believe that coral farm frag growing out areas at sea are infested with pests, more and more of them and different types, some I've only seen in the last 2yrs. So as these frag growing out areas are used year after year the pest population grows and diversifies, normally in farming for this and other reasons you'd run a fallow year in a given field etc

My educated guess is it's these pest infested grow out areas that is the cause and not some super bug pest that we have created.

Thanks for your feed back.

Your first point makes me feel better in the short term. But it sounds like a very temporary argument. I imagine myself being in the hobby for another 50 years, and eventually passing down my corals (hopefully).

There are a few real world examples that would disprove the second point such as *bedbugs* having formed an immunity towards basically everything. They have a similar life cycle to redbugs and blackbugs. Here's a quote from a BBC article:

"While they were a common part of life in the 1940s and 50s, the introduction of DDT and other powerful insecticides initially restricted their populations. However by the 1960s the insects had developed resistance. They also became resistant to pyrethroids, the next class of chemicals used to control them."​

 

[Ridgeway]

I think we're comparing apples top pears here:

"Bug" controls chems like Ivermectin and Permethrin are used in a totally different way vs our dip for 3mins in sea water laced with something me think may affect "some" hitchhikers. The first method is based on science and has been over used since we apply these chems to millions of pets almost weekly and the second method is based on some geezer thinking a kitchen cleaning product may help to make some pests feel uncomfortable on a rock.

 

[Kth]

I think we're comparing apples top pears here:

"Bug" controls chems like Ivermectin and Permethrin are used in a totally different way vs our dip for 3mins in sea water laced with something me think may affect "some" hitchhikers. The first method is based on science and has been over used since we apply these chems to millions of pets almost weekly and the second method is based on some geezer thinking a kitchen cleaning product may help to make some pests feel uncomfortable on a rock.

Sorry, I'm trying to understand your post, can you please clarify? Are you trying to say that coral dips are a kitchen cleaning product or the other way around? I don't understand the geezer reference.

Also, many are using bayer as a dip... a few google searches say that ticks/fleas are becoming resistant to similar medicine.

You're right to say that we use this stuff differently. It is for short periods of time, but that makes me think it actually makes it worse instead of better like you're implying. Normally pests are exposed longer giving more time for the chemicals to kill them. Since we dip for shorter periods of time, there is a higher likely-hood of pests to survive and develop resistance.

 

[PghReef]

Coming from a medical background I would say the biggest piece of the picture you're leaving out here is the ability of viruses and bacteria spread amongst the general population. Are reefs are small isolated ecosystems so even if you created a super pod or bristleworm, it has no way of going nuclear like a rule virus does. Even sharing amongst fellow reefers, the amount of systems affected would be so small that for them to reach an epidemic population would be pretty far fetched imo. Also bacteria and viruses are extremely simple uni cellular creatures with the ability to mutate and develoo resiatance extremely quickly, something not so easy for a multicellular creature to do.

 

[Ridgeway]

Chloroxylenol is a disinfectant sold in Europe as Detol and this is a common base chemical used in many if not most of the corals dips in the market. Others are simply Iodine based.

PS: here I use tweezers, a UV torch, a tooth brush and a clay modellers tool to go over each coral base, dips have their limits.