I have recently purchased yet another coral dip. I was wondering what kind others use, how long they dip each coral and for what conditions. Give me the details if you can. I had a few acros that were knocked around by the “bulldozer” snail, and stung by others. This caused necrosis, RTN which killed it within 48 hours. I tried to stop the spread with dips to no avail. One was saved by cutting off ALL decay and gluing to a plug. There has to be a better way. I read iodide dips can help and picked up lugol’s solution recommended by a guy at the LFS in PA. I had good sucess with the TLF revive bringing the clove polyps back. Will dips hurt sponges? I have many encrusting sponges under zoanthid colonies I am planning to dip to remove pests. Can sponges hurt corals? The zoos dont seem to care but candy cane seems to not do well with the sponge encrusting on it. I cant find good info in my books about sponges and the effect they have when encroaching on corals, its just care requirements. So what are peoples experiences with this? This is a lot to ask in 1 thread but all advice is appreciated.
It is a lot to ask in one thread. You’ll get a lot more feedback from people when you break up threads like this or make several posts.
I am no expert on sponges, but I am pretty sure just like most things on the reef they have mechanisms to defend their space on the reef. It doesn’t mean they’ll flat out win and should be removed, but if you have a prized coral that a sponge is encroaching on you may choose to separate them.
The biggest danger with sponges, in my opinion, is when they don’t do well. You mentioned you have sponges under the zoanthid colonies? A massive percentage of the corals sold in the industry are maricultured or collected in a specific area that have a large number of sponges on them. Often the zoanthids are growing right on sponge. When this sponge dies and rots the zoanthids often are either harmed by it and get a secondary infection or this just creates an area for infection.
You likely didn’t need to know all that, but should know this. If you suspect the zoanthid are harmed by dying sponge get them in high flow. High flow will carry away weak, dying, and decaying sponge decrease the harm done to your zoanthids. How high and how long you’ll need can vary and is something you sort of have to play with.
As far as the dips go this can very immensely depending on the situation. You may have to contact manufacturers to get their feedback on their effects on sponges as I am not sure the answer to that.
The first thing I do with my corals is get them into healthy conditions and let them open up and recover from travel. I do this in a QT tank where I can monitor them for pests and infections. If there is a particular issue I typically have a particular dip or action to take. Once I have removed any threat and all seems to be going well I will remove the coral(if possible) from its base, rock, plug or whatever and dip in either Brightwell’s MediCoral, TLF Revive, or both(depending on what it is) I follow the directions for MediCoral and with Revive I follow directions unless I believe it to be a particularly hardy coral in which I may choose to double the timing of the soak/rinse. I then place them into another tank for one week to monitor them. Then they move into the display.
Careful monitoring is very important as things will spring up from tiny little specs of plankton and can easily be hidden with larger corals. I go farther than most hobbyist will, but you would be hard pressed to find something in the hundreds of gallons of display/propagation that you would not want in your tank.
i have iodine based dip and it hasn’t cured any problem at all I mean nothing, to me its useless. I just got coral Rx and its awesome I posted a thread about my corals from the frag swap losing color I got the Rx and dipped and the corals almost immediately did better I don’t know what was wrong with them but I have used the coral Rx and its great every coral I used it on looks better.
The sponge that is under the zoo colony is not a problem right now. You would not know it is there until they close up. They seem fine with each other, the zoos spread, then the sponge follows under it. I just dont want problems later. I poked around the web and see most people have good stuff to say about coral rx. Where did you get it? Is it effective with RTN? And still what is the best way to stop RTN after a nasty sting from another coral?
coral rx is available anywhere online i got mine at brs. It is the best chance against stn if its rtn then there is no cure. rtn is when it looks fine then the next day its skin is gone. so its already dead. You must be talking about stn also it prevents and helps against bacterial problems i think this is what causes most corals to do bad. I will never use anything else thats me. I have first hand experience with it. You can read online all about it but I know it works.
I think it is RTN since the coral went from OK to completely gone, just skeleton in 48 hours. It started in the spot where it was stung & spread VERY quickly. It was a frag about 3" high, 4 branches, a green poci. It hit the red table acro I got from you, that one is fine. The other frags were similar circumstances, a sting and less than 3 days, completely killed. the ones that were saved were pieces cut off with no necrosis and glued to plugs, then dipped. I was looking for a better way to stop the necrosis other than cutting.
Rtn wo cutting is hard to cure I wouldn’t let anything touch including sponges I remove sponges.
I am not overly fond of the sponges and would not care if they were gone. The biggest problem is getting to it. I once tried to remove the one under the zoo colony and a bunch of polyps peeled off with it so I did not pursue it further. I may do a major sponge removal in the future if time allows. (a few projects coming up)
That’s not really whats called RTN when a coral is stung and dies. Thats chemical warfair. its a toxin. RTN can often be a slower infection working on a weakened coral imune system. but a sting is a neuro toxin attack. it just keeps spreading from cell to cell. th only way to stop it is to break off the tips and branches before the advancing dead zone gets to it. I dont believe any dips will stop the progression of a sting attack.
Dips can help if the RTN is bacterial or parasite. or even a toxin emitting cyano. then you may be able to stop it with dips and scrubbing at the interface line. otherwise, snap the healthy branches and tips off and start new frags, and throw the dead base away. you have to act fast, either way. waiting for it to stop will just lose more coral.
Thank you for the clarification kap. Either way it is not good. So next time, hopefully never, I will just try to remove the damaged area before it spreads too far. It was a learning experience I guess. Information retained and put into practice. Not repeating the mistake is the wisdom.