Flatworms,nudis and redbugs "Oh my"
 

It seems as though there is a huge "outbreak" (for lack of a better term) of these reef nasties, recently. I have seen lots of posts detailing infestations and it boggles my mind why people dont at the very least dip(some peeps qt) their new corals. Perhaps its an "it wont happen to me" attitude, or "well it looks good to me". Personally, nothing makes it into my tank that hasnt been dipped. Doesnt matter where I get it from, everything gets dipped, period. I think that dipping your corals should be a mandatory part of your coral adding procedure, like drip acclimating your fish and inverts. My reef is worth far more to me than the $20 it costs for the dip and the ten minutes of my time. Dipping may or may not be a 100% guarantee, but at least I know in my mind that I did everything I could( I dont have space for a qt tank) to prevent something from invading my tank.

what do you use to dip?
what is the process etc. that you go through?

This is what I use:

http://www.aquacave.com/pro-coral-cu...arin-1981.html

Curious if anyone has found anything better. I don't think there is a single product out there that will take care of all pests. The TMPCC will work against flatworms but I don't think it helps with redbugs. If anyone knows of something better let us know!

The dip I use is called "Tropic Marine Pro Coral Cure" , but there are several preparations available from different manufacturers. Its reall quite easy, measure water you will be bathing your coral in to know how much "dip" to use, add dip as per instructions, soak coral for 10ish minutes as per instuctions, vigorously swish the coral, then visually inspect. If I see any nasties fall off the coral I put it in a container in my sump for a couple hours then repeat the dip.

Any of the coral I sell I give a Flatworm exit dip if the person doesnt already have them. I just use 1 drop usually in a 1 gal bucket for an hour or less.

Any SPS I get I give an interceptor dip using about 1/8 of a pill ground up and dissolved into my 20gal QT tank overnight.

What can a person use for nudis (montipora eating ones right?)? I've never seen them before, I must be lucky I guess.

I just want to clarify that i do indeed dip everything with TMPCC before it hits my tank. But it doesn't deal with Red Bugs and apparently Nudi's either:(
I look for Nudi's and look for the eggs but sometimes it is hard to distinguish there eggs. I am not sure where the nudi's have come from as i didn't have a problem untill very recently.

But yes the intercepter is now the thing to do for Red bugs from now on. I have someone here who is going to hook me up with some tomorrow( Thank-you sooo very much:wink:) But i need to find out how to deal with the Nudi's as they are Everywhere in very large numbers:(

Revive by two little fishes kills aefw and monti eating nudi's and for red bugs interceptor, I use to use tmpcc and fw exit but that's old school.....

Revive is safe and 100% the BOMB:twised:

I've posted a couple threads on dipping and there has always been poor response. Honestly, I don't think there are any dips out there that work very well enough to bother. I say either inspect and toss em in or QT.

I know for sure that TMPCC works on zoanthid eating nudis...odd that it doesnt work on monti eating nudis.

I had a discussion about this very same thing with the husband. I now make sure to take measures with new fish going into my system, and feel the same way about corals... my husband's worry is he does not want to kill the little acro crabs that are on the corals. I learned the hard way and had no disasters to speak of yet, so I got lucky. I would hate failing to dip corals to be a show stopper.

DO you ever see anything in the water when you dip?

What do these nudis look like?

Here you go Diana. http://www.melevsreef.com/id/dc_nudibranch.html

+1 on the Revive.

Id put my money on bigals and pieces being the cause of the outbreaks, not only their product, but also they staff not informing new owner the proper methods or even the warning.

Most of the dips (if any) don't kill the AEFW eggs though, so if your still not QTing corals, its not doing much good.

Personally in the past, if I dip and get AEFW coming off, the coral was tossed. Manually removing the eggs was always a pain and never got all of them anyways.

I don't QT or dip anymore. I also just don't buy expensive corals though, so I don't have nearly as much to loose.

Practice what you preach... :wink:

I do drip my fish....if they are still in the bag from when they are shipped.:lol:

I got Flat Worms and never bought anything from either of these stores so its hard to point fingers, do understand about the staff issue though.

By the way I do dip (lugols).

Colin

I like API's New Marine Melifix, It's a med, and also a dip cor corals. Just eradacated a flat worm problem like nothing. Thanks Sarah for pointing it out to us.

eradicated the flat worms in the whole tank or just on the corals you dip?

No i just dipped. I don't think you can dose the tank with that high a dose. It is 20ml per 2 liters of tank water, for a dip. Other wise it is 5ml per 10g as a fish med. for the whole tank.

x2!
dips do not work well enough...

At any rate if anybody wants to try i can share personal experience with flat worms.
When I used PhosBusterPro @ recommended dose to get rid of phosphates, ALL of the flat worms were dead in two days.
Side effect warning: it will also wipe some or most of the pods.

i dosed a ton of flatworm exit to kill off the remainder or my flatworms and killed off almost all of my pods and still didnt kill the flatworms i have so i need to try something else