Acropora and fluconazole

AngryMike2016 · Apr 12, 2019

So I have the 'joy' of dealing with bryopsis in my Red Sea 425 (~100 gallons).

My other, smaller tank, is all zoanthids and mushrooms, and tolerated fluconazole for the bryopsis in there just fine. But my Red Sea tank has about 20 acropora frags, and with acros being as touchy as they are, I am concerned.

Looking for input from acropora keepers that have used fluconazole (I have Reef Flux on hand), and how your experience went. If it did not go well, how did you end up treating the bryopsis?

NewbsReef · Apr 12, 2019

I just got done from using Reef Flux in my tank. Used it for 5 weeks and it had no affects on any of my sps.

AngryMike2016 · Apr 12, 2019

Cool, good to hear. Another thing I've heard is that alk/calc consumption will decrease during treatment, did you find that to be the case?

NewbsReef · Apr 12, 2019

I really didn't notice any decrease in alk/cal consumption. I dose my tank manually so some days are more then others.

Reefahholic · Oct 7, 2019

Anybody else use this with Acro’s?

tripdad · Oct 7, 2019

I have used the medical grade, the one for fish from a vet, with success. The one I used from BRS did nothing, killed nothing, no briopsis or algae of any kind. Completely useless IMO.

AdamB · Oct 7, 2019

I used reef flux a year ago as well and no problems at all. I think I bought it on Amazon

csb123 · Oct 7, 2019

I’ve used it twice and it had no direct effects on my acros. The spike in nutrients after the Bryopsis died did cause some subtle color changes in them, which normalized after the nutrients were exported.

DSC reef · Oct 7, 2019

Reeflux had no impact on health or color of acropora when used on my end.

paal · Oct 8, 2019

I've used fluco twice; my acropora did not seem to be bothered at all. (Nothing in the tank seemed affected other than the algae)

(One time I did the full recommended dose. The other was only half dose, as the algae outbreak was very, very minor)

CMO · Oct 8, 2019

I've used fluconazole a few times now on my SPS dom tank which has about 50+ types of acros. The vast majority seem unaffected but I'm pretty convinced that a small portion don't seem to care for it - mainly exhibited by a loss of PE which takes a very long time to come back post treatment. I've had a few other pieces react strangely but not consistently enough to really point to causation yet. I've not had any actual losses, STN, RTN. etc following flocon treatment, however.

Having said that, it sure messes with my water chemistry and tanks alk consumption so it not my favorite treatment to do by any means.

vetteguy53081 · Oct 8, 2019

I used flux at 80% of recommended treatment. No SPS effects

chicago · Jan 10, 2020

Used it in the past week. All went well except my conspicuous angel is not eating all of a sudden and hiding in shadows... he use to be out and ate anything i put in the tank.. today while ignoring most of even the Larry’s frozen he did take a bit of some it not like before. Rocks look great and algea is gone..

vetteguy53081 · Jan 10, 2020

chicago said:
Used it in the past week. All went well except my conspicuous angel is not eating all of a sudden and hiding in shadows... he use to be out and ate anything i put in the tank.. today while ignoring most of even the Larry’s frozen he did take a bit of some it not like before. Rocks look great and algea is gone..

By tomorrow, I would so a slight water change and add carbon. May be effects of Flux

motortrendz · Jan 10, 2020

I've used it at over 100% of recommended dosage. Neve saw anything negative on acros. Just be sure to keep an eye on po4 as that will rise as the algaes die off. I used lanthanum to remove bc it seems (for me) that when I use gfo I have coral color fade. Also make sure you leave the carbon off for a while. A week or so. But leave the skimmer running

aarbutina · Jan 10, 2020

Recently used Flux RX. No issues with any of my acro. I did however see a decreased alk consumption for the first few days. The trend was definitely visible on my Trident measurements.

aarbutina · Jan 11, 2020

From my build Thread that also documented my FluxRX treatment.

Not saying this is a certainty. Just suggesting close monitoring of Alkalinity during treatment just Incase.

aarbutina said:
After 3 day of treatment with FluxRX done livestock in the tank is showing visible signs of stress. However I have noticed that both Alkalinity and Calcium levels have been increasing over those three days. Prior to stating this the treatment I was achieving very stable levels of both of these elements for months with a very consistent dosing schedule. Since starting FluxRX I have seen Alkalinity raise at a rate of approximately 0.1 dKh per day and CA levels raise at approximately 5 ppm per day (while maintaining my previous dosing regiment). While this does not surprise me it does make me wonder if this decreased consumption of Alk and CA May be responsible of some of the livestock losses that others have seen while preforming this treatment. It could very well be possible that the damage done to the livestock wasn’t due to the medication but could have been do to a sudden shift in alkalinity levels. Just a thought.

chicago · Jan 11, 2020

I had a lot of die off in the first couple of days.. put some floss in my overflow .. put in and extra wave maker and scrubbed rock with along brush.. my frags are not glued to the rocks yet so no issues of hitting them.. They are on a frag rack or two at the bottom of the tank... after the suggested three days.. i started to skim again..

I have been skimming out about 3 gallons wet a day... and replacing with fresh salt water. System is 800 gallons.. thank you for suggestion. vetteguy..... thinking i will do some carbon .. wondering what else reefflux kills when in the tank... does it do any benefits for fish?

OnPointCorals · Jan 11, 2020

I used the pills from Payless pet products a couple years ago on an sps dominated tank. Worked and no issues.
Just a disclaimer I have heard horror stories from its use, just wasn’t my experience.