Question about dipping coral frags / colonies

[Mrs Fish]

I would like to understand how to dip frags.

With the enormous lengths we go to to keep coral alive in our tanks, I can't help but be a little afraid of dipping them in something to remove pests.

I would appreciate suggestions on what you use to dip your corals, where you get it, how you prepare it ... and how you do it. (How long, what temp, etc)

I have not yet dipped anything, and still have only the few frags I obtained from the September frag swap after the meeting, but am interested in adding a few more.

Sue
(Mrs Fish)

 

[MikeG]

What types of corals do you keep? You need to know what type of pests you may intorduce that would be harmful to know what to treat. In otherwords if you don't keep acros then you really don't need to treat for red bugs or acro eating flatworms even on frags that came from a tank with acros. These pests would not live in your tank without a host.

 

[Mrs Fish]

I presently have some acros, montis, caps, plate etc. I am interested in getting a few more acro frags.

Sue

 

[Greg Hiller]

Some people I believe experimented with both Levamisole and Interceptor, but I cannot remember what their experience was.

I'd say that I'd be the most concerned about critters that cannot be killed with a whole tank treatment. That means flatworms (Acro eating), nudibranchs (Montipora eating), or ugly red photosynthetic flatworms (C. retrogramma, I know these can be killed with Flatworm exit in-tank, but it doesn't always work, and they are easily killed by a dip). For these three buggers, the 40 ppm Levamisole dip for 5 hours followed by a powerhead or turkey baster blast seems to work well. If you are dipping a large colony then you have to inspect very closely for eggs as the dip will not likely kill the eggs. In that case it'd probably be best to put the coral into quarantine for at least two weeks, and possibly treat again after a 5 day period or so.

The other critters, Acropora Red bugs (T. acroporanus), and the Montipora black bugs (species? I hear they look like the Acropora red bugs under a scope) I think can mostly be killed by Interceptor, which means a 5 hour dip, or whole tank treatment. I guess one way to go would be do the Levamisole dip, wait a week or two in quarantine to get the coral to recover from that stress, then hit them with the Interceptor dip, just before going into the main display tank. The more you have to loose, the longer in quarantine, and the more careful you should be.

 

[MikeG]

I have done the combination dip quite a bit. Interceptor has a recommended treatment time of 6 hours at 2.5mg/gallon http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45859

Levamasol is a 5 hour dip as greg mentioned .

In the past I have started with the interceptor and added the levamasol after 1 hour and have not had any losses to date that I can blame on the dip. I am not that careful measuring the interceptor and have likely dosed 10-20 times that concentration and not had problems. Levamasol can be very harsh if overdosed at all.

One reason to get fresf cut frags is to help avoid any eggs. The eggs will be in areas were there is tissue recession or at the base of the coral where it is encrusted to the substrate. For this reason it can also be good to break off any plug or disk a frag may be on and remount it when placing in your tank.