The Garden -- Rakies shallow SPS cube

[Rakie]

Nice Non-coral tank. I see some of my favorites there.

I hear you on flushing out some old unwanted stock so that your Tank space and attention goes to the good stuff.

All the best on your dipping.

I guess once you get thru this Nothing will ever enter your systems without close inspection and double dips.

You got me into dipping everything going into my new tank, cutting off the frags from plug and putting on new plugs..... even healthy looking frags coming from trusted tanks.

My biggest take away was you need the right dip for the right pests. I've put corals with aefw in Bayer and seen them live until I out them in melafix then they pop right off.

The sheer amount if little aefw that came off yesterday was staggering. It's a pain... But so worth it.

The real shame is I was being so careful.. I dipped everything, always remove the plugs.. doesnt matter when the dip won't kill it!

I've learned a lot about dipping, and Adam at battle corals has a great write up worth checking out too.

I've noticed Bayer nukes pods, isopods, inverts in general. But it's NOT tough on worms.

I've noticed melafix nearly instantly kills all worms, but is easy on pods. Very hard on stars, but snails can survive it.

Tricky stuff. I'm no longer convinced that a single dip is enough.

 

[bubbaque]

How strong was your bayer?

 

[Rakie]

Very strong by most standards. 12ml in a 2oz styrofoam cup

How strong was your bayer?

 

[WallyB]

My biggest take away was you need the right dip for the right pests. I've put corals with aefw in Bayer and seen them live until I out them in melafix then they pop right off.

The sheer amount if little aefw that came off yesterday was staggering. It's a pain... But so worth it.

The real shame is I was being so careful.. I dipped everything, always remove the plugs.. doesnt matter when the dip won't kill it!

I've learned a lot about dipping, and Adam at battle corals has a great write up worth checking out too.

I've noticed Bayer nukes pods, isopods, inverts in general. But it's NOT tough on worms.

I've noticed melafix nearly instantly kills all worms, but is easy on pods. Very hard on stars, but snails can survive it.

Tricky stuff. I'm no longer convinced that a single dip is enough.

Interesting.

Strange that i never thought much about the fact that AEFW are "Worms".

You may or may not know but my Non-coral (lps) tank has had Colonial Hydroids for years. (Hydroids are worms) The outbreak has varied over time a the current state is very low. Hardly see any. Why I don't know, but I stopped feeding the corals which used to fuel them.

But one treatment I used as a dip is "Fenbendazole". It is a phamaceutical dewormer. (used for farm animals and household pets), by vets. If done at proper concentrations one can treat a whole tank with coral left intact. But you do have to remove snails and inverts, and expect a major die off on thing like bristle star worms.

Fenbendazole can be used at higher concentrations as a dip.
I setup a mini 10Gal tank and treated some infested rock. I have a thread on the testing and result here on r2r.

Maybe something to consider and a one two punch treatment.

 

[Rakie]

Maybe. The thing is not all worms are built the same! That's why Bayer can kill bristleworms, but flatworms seem to survive it fine (both the planaria/Acoel/Ghost types, and AEFW)

 

[WallyB]

So i didn't know Melafix is that potent on pests.

I have been adding it to my empty fragtank with the angel with bitten off tail piece. A capful every few days (for weeks), but since there is carbon it slowly gets removed. To aid in the healing.

I guess the frag tank is sterile from pests.

 

[Rakie]

Melafix is pretty tough on some things yeah. It's the ideal dip IME. Until I found bayer didn't kill flatworm species I thought bayer was the only real option -- But now I use both lol.

 

[Rakie]

Small update -- Some things I noticed, dots to connect, etc etc.

Alk Consumption Has skyrocketed! -- I went from a relatively stable 7.9-8.1 down to 7.1, after adjusting dose significantly I then dropped to 6.7. I was dosing 80mL of Alk/Cal/Mag per day before ripping the corals off the rocks. Once I ripped them off the rock and placed them on a frag rack consumption went down to 35mL. Once I visited Vivid and decided to really turn up the lighting, Growth has really picked up physically and visually, colors have improved as well.

When I first got my radion up, corals were burning up and bleaching at 45% so I was hesitant to really up the intensity.. But with the reduced hot spots from the diffuser, and the 6 months adjusting to LED's they can take some heavy lighting now.

Nutrients dropped when going Bare Bottom -- This is unrelated to growth and Alk consumption, as I had been turning my lights up BEFORE removing sand and changing out rockwork. I believe in nutrients, so this kinda sucks. Gotta dose kno3 again.

Water is, naturally cleaner -- This shouldn't surprise or shock anybody. Water is nice and clear, not much to say or theorize here lol.


_________________ As for the AEFW _________________

Week 1, Dip #2 tonight or tomorrow. Nothing big should be living anymore, just catching the fresh hatched ones.

I plan to dip for at least 8 weeks... In theory, you should only need to dip for 4-5 weeks, but I've seen AEFW crawling on glass and rocks. This means they will leave the host looking to breed, or looking for a new colony to infest. This tells me if you do the theoretical 4-5 week dip you may have some wandering around the glass which may end up breeding and infesting everything all over again..

So it's worth dipping a bit longer.

 

[bubbaque]

Glad to see the turn around for you. Are you going to try the UWC again after they said what was needed for your type of flatworms?

 

[Rakie]

Glad to see the turn around for you. Are you going to try the UWC again after they said what was needed for your type of flatworms?

Nah, I had two corals RTN on me during the treatment so I'm staying away from it. So far what they suggest is a larger dose, although I'm not sure how much as I've stopped following the thread.

Thankfully the two lost corals were cheapy ones.

 

[Rakie]

Looks like my dosing is stabilized around 110mL per day of ATI essentials for now. And that's after tossing at least 10 smaller colonies. (and having two RTN during UWC's treatment)

 

[Janci]

Good to see all the investment was worth it.
How much intensity did you add to the lights?

 

[Rakie]

Good to see all the investment was worth it.
How much intensity did you add to the lights?

I'm going all the way to 100% from 75%.

 

[Janci]

;Facepalm
Wow, will be interesting to see the result of that.

 

[Rakie]

Well I went to vivid aquatics and they absolutely bake their corals under a ton of radions all at 100%. They even had duplicate colonies sitting in low par vs high par and the high par looked better by a country mile.

So I decided, if it's good enough for the shop with corals so ridiculously colorful they're accused of dosing Photoshop -- I can try it. lol.

So far so good. Right now I'm at about 90% and slowly trekking up.

;Facepalm
Wow, will be interesting to see the result of that.

 

[Rakie]

Thanks to a friend -- The frag tank is now baller

 

[Amoo]

Man what the heck, none of my friends ever gave me a Radion....

 

[Rakie]

Man what the heck, none of my friends ever gave me a Radion....

I'll tell ya the story, it was funny lol

 

[WallyB]

Based on your experience, I think I also need to Crank up my lighting to kick start some growth=Alk_Consumption. I have been too shy and cautious. But that never hurts.

 

[WallyB]

As far as nutrients going down after BAREBOTTOM change, that means you now have less Bad Waste in your tank = Ticking Time bomb for a AlgaeBloom, Cyano Outbreak, or worse things.
That also means you can feed fish more, get more fish, or even start some experimental Coral Feeding.
I know you miss your Power White Sand, but give it time.