AEFW Help Needed!

JaimeAdams · Oct 4, 2017

So, I have this small red sea reefer tank at work that I broke down and have converted it to an acre tank. It is still in the cycling stages as I just added rock 2 hours ago. I have had several Acro frags in a different tank at work for several months now. I was checking them out today and noticed the tell tale sign of flat worm bite marks on one or two of them. One had numerous marks the other only had a few but the color seemed a bit faded. I am sure that they probably came from some other coral trade in recently. Now I know the fallow for 8 weeks with twice weekly dipping. My question is wether or not I can just cut the base off and move the tips to the new tank after a bayer drip without needing to worry too much or do I just hold off until the new tank finishes cycling and use it as a basic QT type environment. The frags aren't very large so it is possible just to cut them off the plug and make sure that there are no eggs, dip and flu onto the new rock work? Thoughts?
#reefsquad

RUNVS · Oct 4, 2017

In my opinion I would go thru the strenuous regimen just to ensure that you do not transfer to the new tank. You may be able to shortcut the process by cutting the frag and re mounting and dipping it but why take the chance if you already have a semi QT tank setup.

JaimeAdams · Oct 4, 2017

I do not have a coral QT system at work. I could, in a month or so transfer the frags to the new tank and use the new tank as a makeshift QT tank. Cut the frags off the plug, place in new tank and simply take them out and dip every 2 - 3 days.

I just finished dipping in Bayer and scraping all eggs off. There were a significant number of them. More than I would have initially thought, but that is how it always is with pests.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 4, 2017

Was the rock live in the break down tank or dead.

Yea you could nuke the qt. It would be easier than the constant dip routine

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 4, 2017

Stepping out of the box a moment. Mature tank water should work for a small qt I belive.

JaimeAdams · Oct 4, 2017

It's only less than a dozen 1inch to 3 inch frags. They are all full encrusted, but figured before transferring to the new tank I could just cut the branch off. From my understanding there are not eggs on the branches just under the base if there is no dead tissue between branches for eggs to be laid. I have seen larger colonies have eggs between branches where the tissue has receded back, these are just small frags so there is non of that. Worst case scenario is that I just throw them all away and go over to one of my friends houses and pick up new frags. Obviously there is always that one or two special ones that you can't replace.

tankstudy · Oct 4, 2017

I would do a full on 8 weeks QT. Eggs can be pretty resilient.

These days, my QT's are no less than 8 weeks and go as long as 16 weeks. A lot of the vendors that do heavy importing are starting to pile up on pests.