Has anybody here been successful combating AEFW’s with Potassium Chloride?
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OP
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This must be a new treatment. Curious if it works like the guy says it does.
Oh indeed it does work. It kills them absolutely dead along with every pod, spider, brittle star, everything. It works very fast too. He mentions that the worms will actually even dissolve and I can confirm that too.
As to the spectrum of harshness/gentleness, I would put it at a similar harshness of CoralRx, with Bayer being the most gentle. Just my experience, but I was running 17 racks of frags through this stuff weekly. I lost an Event Horizon mille and a couple dozen pieces of a chopped up Indo mille colony. Torts and tenuis didn't seem to mind too much.
Dipping is stressful no matter what, and this dip does produce a fair amount of sliming but so does CoralRx IME.
OP
OP
Thanks for your information. It sound like it would work. I guess osmatic shock is no joke when it come to worms and everything else. I was surprised his acros did so well.
Shane Backer and several other tenuis nerds here all use it. But there are a few others that believe it to be too harsh on corals. But then, is there anything that we can ALL agree on besides "go slow"?
OP
OP
Seems like the dose would be very important. Just strong enough to kill the worms, but weak enough to have minimal affect with Acro’s.
Tenuis Nerds??
I resemble that statement
Anybody else read the aefw Lanthanum chloride "in-tank" treatment article in the current issue of Coral Magazine?
I wish I had read that back in June. Would've saved me a ton of tedious effort.
I wish I had read that back in June. Would've saved me a ton of tedious effort.
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Are you sure we all agree on that?
OP
OP
Would this be the best way to eliminate them now?
There are many here with more lanthanum chloride experience than I have, but it is pretty well established that dosed correctly, lanthanum chloride is a reef safe and effective means of binding excess phosphate. The solution does precipitate heavily into the water column and this can be hazardous to fish if not actively filtered and skimmed. Also, stripping the tank of PO4 is very dangerous for corals.
As to whether or not it is the BEST way of eliminating, I am not in a position to say so. While the editors at Coral Magazine are certainly legitimate and experienced reefers, there is no proven understanding of HOW the treatment works yet. They do express considerable confidence that it does kill aefw. To me, it sounds no more hazardous to our corals than the repeated stress of dipping and handling.
Dlealrious
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Ive used pot chlor for about a year now. Best dip ever, had so many worms come of wild colonies it got me worried that coral rx didnt work for the years prior when i used it. I have left coral in dip for an hour and no issues too. Really gentle on corals i would say. Corals have pe when in dip and all. Cheap and safe and no chemicals i have to worry about adding to tank.
OP
OP
Lanthanum Chloride is something I have some experience dosing. One thing I can say for sure is that it absolutely needs to be diluted if you're using a product like Seaklear. One quart of Seaklear removes 9,000 ppb of orthophosphates for every 10,000 gallons of water. That's slightly POTENT. HA HA.
If you use something like Phosphate RX which is just diluted LaCI, then it's much more safter. For me it seems to be about 70-80% diluted compared to what I would dose normally with pure LaCI.
Both will kill your fish and shock the system if overdosed. Take my word on that. LOL.
I'm not sure if the flocculant actually clogs the gills of the fish (haven't seen the evidence for that), but I suspect it likely depletes the Oxygen in the water which then kills the fish.
I know a few people including myself that have dosed small amounts directly into a skimmer neck or overflow box (w/o a 5-10 micron sock) with no ill affects. One of those people is @melev but if we dosed a large amount at once, it would give fish and corals big problems. I know it gives acros problems from stripping the water column. Fish on the other hand it's really hard to say, but like I said above I would suspect it depletes the oxygen rapidly. It could be the flocculant, but I just have not seen any solid evidence of that.
To be honest...I'd probably be more comfortable treating my whole tank with a low dose of Potassium Chloride only because I know just how strong Lanthanum is and how it must be heavily diluted and dosed over time unless you're gonna use a diluted product like Phosphate RX. I've never noticed any of the Lanthanum products having negative affects on worms as long as the dose was appropriate for the tank. I've never had AWFW's so I would be interested to put one in a small container and calculate the appropriate safe dose for that volume of water and see how it reacts. I need to read this article you are talking about. Sounds very interesting.
I have heard reports of people being unsuccessful with clams after using Lanthanum Chloride. I've never had a clam so I can't comment on that one.
OP
OP
I think this is the be the best way to use it. Eliminate them before they need to be treated in the tank with it.
You are referring to Potassium Chloride right?
What is your dose calculation?
Dlealrious
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Yeah, about 4 to 6 grams to a litre, its a half teaspoon im pretty sure, Not too fussed really, done heavy dose on an acro i got off someone with worms and that was about 40 min dips and no issues. That was 2 scoops to 2 litre so about. Nothing came off after the first dip though as i scraped the eggs off the first time. Generally i dip all acro 3 times before adding to main system but now i only do 2 as im confident this works. But nearly always remove acro off plugs it came on or if wild cut any rock or base off
OP
OP
I'm with you on removing all plugs or frag rocks. The only plugs I haven't removed in the last few years were from @Coral Euphoria because he had just glued them to a plug. I dipped them in Revive and Bayer and nothing came off at all so I felt pretty good about putting them on the rack because I had been following his tank on YouTube for a while.
Other than that Scripps Pier water....he hasn't had too many issues. hehe.
I was going to get a Purple Monster last week but decided not to because the only dip I had was Revive and read that can be harsh on smooth skin acros. Does anyone know if Potassium Chloride as a dip, is safe on smooth skin acros? Eventually I'd like to have a Purple Monster and a Jaw Dropper.
What concentration did you use?
The earliest video I recall watching on dipping in KCl was 3 grams per liter (roughly 12 grams/gallon). I would consider this the minimum effective dose honestly, depending on how long you dip. Over time, I have gotten a little bolder and less discriminant about my solution and have no material/attributable acro problems with the dose.
Some slime a lot, some don't even retract polyps.
In my experience -- with my worms anyway -- they are VERY finicky about which species/colonies the choose to terrorize.
When you baste, the worms will come right off. The larger ones may hang on for 10 minutes max, but most will shrivel up before then making it challenging to get a body count sometimes.
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