questions about pests/dipping/quarantining

[blacknife]

On my extended drive home today I stopped by one of the lfs's and bought a few bargain priced lps and zoo's.
got home.. acclimated a bit, took the first one out of the bag and as i was putting it into the water saw lots of pests in the bag, put it back in the bag right away and they are all floating in the bags still. there were some better hitchhikers<snails and a hermit> but lots of yellowish flatworm looking things.

Stores are closed now, and i don't have anything to dip corals in yet.

I pulled the bags out of the dt and put them in my spare project tank, 12g cube with some lr and nothing else in it.

questions are:

should the corals be ok in the bag.. or even in the bag with the bag open but clipped to the tank wall till i get off work tomorrow?

or just drop them in the tank and treat that whole qt tank if necessary?

iodine dip good enough or do one of the other products work better?

[cuz]

worst case senario a fresh water dip can work wonders for most pests

[blacknife]

thats what i did, figured the frags are better off in the now qt tank than floating in the bag

hundreds of little yellow flatfish worms dead.. and a few other critters.

some of the tougher ones made it but oh well ill treat it as a qt till I'm sure there are none left.

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Iodine will suffice, just don't put in too mcuh.

Ken

[fishytime]

nothing.....I mean nothing hits my tank without being dipped........I dont care where it comes from....for the twenty bucks and 20 seconds it takes I find its worth it.....a good iodine based dip will work for most pests...."coral rx" is slightly more aggressive and will kill almost everything(save redbugs)....seachem either has already, or will have, a new coral dip that is said to also kill red bugs...do follow the instructions to the letter with the last two products.....one mistake with either amounts or dip time could prove to be:onfire:

[MitchM]

nothing.....I mean nothing hits my tank without being dipped........


Doug,

What do you with new live rock?

Thanks,
Mitch

[fishytime]

well to be perfectly honest.....I dont do a thing with new LR:redface:.....I suppose you could use the same dips on lr.....would probably render it dead though.....if it was just a few pounds it wouldnt be an issue.....any more than a few pounds(dipped or not) and I would let it cure for a couple weeks before I added it.....

[Myka]

Freshwater dip will help out for the Zoas, but I wouldn't do that to the LPS. However, I wouldn't put any corals in my tank without dipping. Even then, I've had my fair share of pests since dips aren't as good as quarantining. :twised:

[ALang]

How much iodine to how much water? and for how long?
Myka, you mentioned that FW dips aren't for LPS, so iodine is OK?
What about clams? Do you dip in FW or in iodine/Water sol??

[Myka]

Many years ago I used Lugol's solution to make my own iodine dip, and I lost many LPS corals doing this. LPS can be quite sensitive to dips. Buy a premixed dip. I recently switched to Coral Rx, but have used Tropic Marin Coral Cure and Julian Sprung's TLF ReVive Coral Cleaner in the past. As well as others I can't seem to think of right now. TMCC is iodine based, and ReVive and Coral Rx are not. I haven't used Coral Rx long enough to give an opinion, although the reviews are really good on it.

Dips are worth their weight in gold if you don't use a quarantine tank for corals. With no QT you rely on that dip to protect your reef from incoming infection. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of money tied up in corals, and I am not a happy camper when my reef gets infected!

For clams, freshwater dips are the only thing I would ever recommend, but I only dip clams for pinched mantle. Newly incoming clams get their mantles washed in freshwater and scrubbed with a toothbrush. Clams are usually fairly sensitive, so I don't use any sort premixed dip on them. They need at least a few days to acclimate to the tank before doing any sort of dipping, and even then I would only dip if there is a problem.

[albert_dao]

You may also want to consider 'after-dip', longterm solutions such as Yellow Coris Wrasses and their ilk.

[ALang]

Thanks, that's easier to understand now.
Will be looking for said pre-mixed dips. And fw dip and scrubbing for that new Cook island clam!

[Myka]

No no, don't dip it when you get it. It will already be quite stressed, and fw dipping it right away could kill it. when/if you ever do a fw dip whether it is on a fish/coral/clam be sure to use a digital pH meter when you match the pH. The drop test kits are notoriously inaccurate, and a pain in the butt when you have to test, adjust, test again, adjust...etc

[ALang]

Thanks, Myka. That's why I love this forum. I would've dipped them and not know why they won't do well.