Anyone Using Betadine as a Dip?

[starrfish]

Has anyone been following the threads over on RC about Betadine as a dip against red bugs AND AEFW? I guess the Europeans swear by it (at least for AEFW). Has anyone tried this locally? Do you think it would be a safe dip for softies too?

I guess I'm looking for a magic bullet - I currently use interceptor and levamisol. I've had some coral losses with levamisol and neither is easy to get. Betadine can be bought at CVS and is cheap. Any opinions on this from anyone??

TIA -
Daire

 

[Liam]

Daire do you have a link,i searched but found only brief mentions

 

[starrfish]

They discuss it in melev's link here:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=899108&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

There are also numerous discussions on it in other AEFW threads, but melev's is the most recent. I'll try to dig up the other ones.

 

[Liam]

thanks daire,very interesting.
I have lost several frags when treating with the levamisole,you get to the point where you are scared to treat an incoming frag of a sensitive species.
A case of damned if you do,damned if you don't

 

[delta]

Interesting time will tell, that would be an excellent solution seeing as everyone has access to it at their local drug store.

 

[Shallowwaters]

With Greg Hiller's advice, I tried it. It killed everything including the corals. And now I'm hunting Greg for revenge.

Actually, it works very well if you're careful not to overdose or spill on your clothes...

Almost all critters die instantly. Nudibranchs are still tricky and take time to fall off, but they are instantly stunned. A powerhead is a good idea.

Be sure to have a separate rinse container for use before returning items to your tank.

 

[Moe_K]

So Mark, the corals really didn't die in the Betadine treatment, correct?

 

[Liam]

Another worrying thing with levamisole is its effectiveness.
I recieved a frag a while back that when i gave it its incoming treatment with levamisole(liquid form overdosed at 1.5ml/gal) was found to have AEFW on it,there were around 4 worms found (that i could see anyway) and all were still very much alive after 5 hours.As i recall after about 12 hours they had disloved.I am now using the powdered form but i still don't trust it.
Luckily it was not a frag i bought so i was not to upset to throw it in the trash.
It should be good to hear Mitch Carls experience since those initial threads on RC when he comes to next months meeting.

 

[starrfish]

Mark, you're saying the Betadine killed the corals? At what solution and how long did you leave them in it? I believe the Europeans are recommending 3 ml/1 liter tank water. Is this what you used??

Some [Americans] are using Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure (TMPCC) with good results. This is another form of iodine dip. I'm not sure what the different is between Betadine, TMPCC, Seachem Reef Dip or Lugols. They are all some form of iodine.

 

[Liam]

Mark, you're saying the Betadine killed the corals? At what solution and how long did you leave them in it? I believe the Europeans are recommending 3 ml/1 liter tank water. Is this what you used??

Some [Americans] are using Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure (TMPCC) with good results. This is another form of iodine dip. I'm not sure what the different is between Betadine, TMPCC, Seachem Reef Dip or Lugols. They are all some form of iodine.

i have read of a lot of folks that claimed no success with TMPCC,the problem is you don't always know the full story with how people are using these meds.For example i read the other guy the other day claiming the TMPCC did't cure his flatworm problem yet we was removing coral from the tank,treating it and then putting it back in the tank then finding more flatworms several weeks later.
it will be interesting to see what Melevs reults are with the betanine as far a the effectiveness of this drug.

 

[delta]

i have read of a lot of folks that claimed no success with TMPCC,the problem is you don't always know the full story with how people are using these meds.For example i read the other guy the other day claiming the TMPCC did't cure his flatworm problem yet we was removing coral from the tank,treating it and then putting it back in the tank then finding more flatworms several weeks later.
it will be interesting to see what Melevs reults are with the betanine as far a the effectiveness of this drug.

Very true, I think he missed something don't you

 

[starrfish]

I know...it's tough to really understand what's going on. I don't think Melev is keeping the treated corals in QT - he's putting them right back in his tank. Not sure if that's his long-term strategy, but that seems to be what he's doing for the time being. I'll be keeping a close watch on that thread.

 

[Liam]

Very true, I think he missed something don't you

It will be good to hear Mitch carls story on this to when he comes to town next month,from his results they drop off and die virtually imediately with levamisole but several people have reported that this is simply not true.
I have been wondering how critical circulation is when using these drugs,it could be possible some folks are simply treating in a container with no circulation which is not giving even distribution/contact with the drug,or maybe there are different types of AEFW

 

[Liam]

I know...it's tough to really understand what's going on. I don't think Melev is keeping the treated corals in QT - he's putting them right back in his tank. Not sure if that's his long-term strategy, but that seems to be what he's doing for the time being. I'll be keeping a close watch on that thread.

his method will never work to erradicate them i think you would need to retreat the corals so many times to break the cycle the corals will simply die before they are eliminated i have heard so many people find they come back after a while with this method,i am only really interested if the drug is an effective dip.
It is the rockwork etc which protects these critters.
Although it seems harsh the best coral intruduction plan i heard was from Brian(aquaman68).He breaks or cuts all his incoming stuff away from any rock,plug or rubble,treats it and then remounts the coral.i may move to this method myself,at least you stand half a chance of finding whats on the coral

 

[seahorse1]

I use Fluke Tabs. When I get a frag, I put a 1/10 of a tablet ( 1 tablet does I think 10 gallons) in a ziploc bag with the frag. I let it float in my tank for about 24 hrs, along with occasional water changes in the bag. I have found many dead worms floating in the bag. So far so good, no worms in my QT tank.

 

[Greg Hiller]

>With Greg Hiller's advice, I tried it. It killed everything including the corals. And now I'm hunting Greg for revenge.<

If you dip long enough, or multiple times with a concentrated solution, no question, you can kill corals. Prior to finding out about Levamisole I used this on the Montipora eating nudi's that I found on a frag in one of my frag tanks. I found that if you take a coral out about once every 2-3 days and dip it in....geeze...cannot even remember the concentration exactly, I think it was about 30 drops of Betadine per liter of bath water, if you do this for maybe 3-4 times, and blast them with a powerhead or turkey baster toward the end of each treatment, you can get all the nudi's. I know I did!

It's probably a lot harder to do it effectively on large colonies, and particularly difficult I would imagine if you were trying to do it on large colonies and then returning them to the same tank. I know that Lugol's works as well, but it's just a more expensive chemical. You can buy a really large bottle of Betadine at the drug store for low $.

Both Lugol's and Betadine will also knock back Acro red bugs as a dip (tried these years ago when I wrote the article on these buggers), but they will not get them all the way that Interceptor does.

I have no idea if Lugol's or Betadine work on the Acro eating flatworms, I think from threads on the SPS forum on RC, they have not worked well.

It's a bummer that some Acros don't survive the Levamisole treatment (Liam's experience).

Liam,

For the Acros that died from Levamisole, were they already under shipping stress, or were they perfectly happy before the dip? Did you use an airstone in the bath to keep the water moving a bit?

 

[starrfish]

Greg - I've also lost acros in the Levamisol dip. Some were not shipped - I got them from local reefers. I used an airstone or a mini-jet powerhead during the treatment. The European's over on RC have reported excellent results with the Betadine against the AEFW. Do you think using the Betadine in repeated dips over a month timeframe would work to kill the red bugs? This is, of course, assuming that the coral is in QT between the treatments. I think I'm going to give this a try for my next series of dips. I've been QTing everything for 4-6 weeks, but I've only been doing an initial dip of interceptor and levamisol. Looking to replace both with 1 cheap solution (Betadine) if it works that I will do multiple times during the QT period.

 

[Greg Hiller]

>Do you think using the Betadine in repeated dips over a month timeframe would work to kill the red bugs?<

I think it really depends. Hate to say that but it's true. Some Acros are much more suseptible to the red bugs, and may have more of them on them. I'd think that the ability of the Betadine to kill all the red bugs will depend a lot on different aspects of the coral...like how much it slimes, how tight the branches, how large the polyps? At one point I was able to pick all of them off a small branch of an Acro with a tweezers and a dissecting microscope. It was a color morph I did not have anywhere else, and I really did not want to loose it (this was a long time before Interceptor, still have the bug-free Acro though )

The good news is that although it's a pain to treat for them in a display tank, you CAN kill the red bugs in a display tank, so if they get in it's not the end of the world (not like with the Acro eating flatworms).

>The European's over on RC have reported excellent results with the Betadine against the AEFW.<

Didn't know that.

 

[JeremyR]

I put a frag in the tropic marin stuff, forgot about it for 45 minutes.. frag lived. Dunno how well it kills stuff, but the coral handles it well. Dunno if it's really any different than coral dip or reef dip.. they don't disclose anything other than iodine.

 

[Liam]

Liam,

For the Acros that died from Levamisole, were they already under shipping stress, or were they perfectly happy before the dip? Did you use an airstone in the bath to keep the water moving a bit?[/QUOTE]

Greg a couple where right out of shipping yes,they were echinata type corals but i also lost corals from my own system.When all this AEFW thing came out (the first i heard of it anyway) i got kinda paraniod,i was second guessing if a coral did'nt look quite right in my system that maybe it had AEFW and treated a few corals and lost a couple, a mille and an unknown deepwater species i never found anything but managed to kill a couple of corals in my paranioa.Yes i have used a small powerhead for circulation and i blasted the corals with a baster a little which probably did not help matters

Greg being a chemical guy do you know the deal with the provine which seems to be the difference with the betadine compared to lugols.?
if this betadine is basically the same as lugols surely it would be contradicting the previous results found using it ,in that it kinda pissed the worms off but would not kill them.
Melev is saying that they are dissolving in under 1/2 hour as i recall.