Antibiotics with fragging

Zippy · Jan 3, 2015

I'm more of a watcher on this site. I tend to post at my club which is nj reefers. However this is a bigger cerebral collection to garner info. Well, here are my thoughts, when fragging off corals (specifically sps) does/would applying an antibiotic solution to the tip help/make a difference. Not sure what contact time would be let alone the chemistry of the water frags are in vs said antibiotic in some buffering solution. I'm a fan of a fluoroquinolone as it comes in a solution form and is effective for gram point of sale/neg and aerobic/anaerobic bacteria. Just thoughts and looking for practical chemistry thoughts and anyone who has used antibiotics.

UK_Pete · Jan 3, 2015

Craig B claims to have had success curing RTN with chloramphenicol but you can't get it in the UK at least for aquaculture, I did find a chinese supplier, but I would want to do a group buy rather than pay the shipping price on my own. Seems well worth having on the shelf though. Not sure if it would be beneficial for fragging.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 3, 2015

Antibiotics do need to have substantial contact time, and typically do little or nothing to bacteria in a few minutes or less.

So that may be an issue if you are talking about an application that can just wash away a few minutes later in the main tank.

Zippy · Jan 4, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Antibiotics do need to have substantial contact time, and typically do little or nothing to bacteria in a few minutes or less.

So that may be an issue if you are talking about an application that can just wash away a few minutes later in the main tank.

I'm thinking more of a contact time of hours. One could make up a solution and place frag or something that has been clipped away from an RTN piece in it and leave it for a few hours say maybe 6-8. This would be analagous to fragging/bagging with regards to transit time from some fellow reefer. Obviously one would acclimate to new water before returning to a system so as not to introduce abs.

Zippy · Jan 4, 2015

UK_Pete said:
Craig B claims to have had success curing RTN with chloramphenicol but you can't get it in the UK at least for aquaculture, I did find a chinese supplier, but I would want to do a group buy rather than pay the shipping price on my own. Seems well worth having on the shelf though. Not sure if it would be beneficial for fragging.

Chloramphenicol tends to be bacteria static and not cidal. Problem with this antibiotic is the potential for aplastic anemia in humans. Basically your bone marrow precursors for red blood cell production shuts down...in some cases permanently. Thus the ban in food animals and the same for aquaculture. The problem with antibiotics in water is 1)can you make it soluble and 2)what's its rate of decay 3) does coral tissue absorb any of the antibiotic and is it harmful to the coral.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 4, 2015

Zippy said:
I'm thinking more of a contact time of hours. One could make up a solution and place frag or something that has been clipped away from an RTN piece in it and leave it for a few hours say maybe 6-8. This would be analagous to fragging/bagging with regards to transit time from some fellow reefer. Obviously one would acclimate to new water before returning to a system so as not to introduce abs.

That could be useful. I don't know how often bacterial infection is a concern, and whether it comes in the first few hours, or just later in the tank.

Zippy · Jan 4, 2015

Well since it's raining I thought I'd futz with the tank. I have a red dragon sps that likes to frag itself if accidentally touched. No big deal as I simple make more frags. Problem is on some occasions I get rtn from the base on new frags. This AM I saw it start on a frag 48hours old and immediately clipped a healthy spot off the frag. So what to do to prevent further decay of the frag. Just dipping in a solution say of iodine or such will not help out the remaining tissue if it's already stressed. This got me to thinking of an antibiotic bath. I am of course assuming we have bacteria...some vibrio species as a cause of concern. I had some injectable enrofloxacin in the house and mixed 1 ml with @1L of tank water and let the frag sit in it for @ 6hours. I then rinsed it with fresh tank water and set her up. What I can say so far is the coral tissue was not irritated by the mixture. Whether or not it does and good we will see. Even of it does who is to say the abs are the reason. I'm curious if any of the cells making up the frag took up the antibiotic and if so might offer some protection for the next few hours. I would think if you are doing an antibiotic bath only once then it would be best done immediately after fragging. Once infection sets in you need in most cases consistent levels of abs to offer help. I know the old saying " an ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure". But hey nothing tried = nothing gained.

redfishbluefish · Jan 4, 2015

Interesting stuff......following along.

Zippy · Jan 5, 2015

So the frag looked fine going into the night but unfortunately rtn ensued from the base and was pretty gone by the AM. Well next time I will try it immediately post fragging and see what results.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 5, 2015

Thanks for the update.

UK_Pete · Jan 6, 2015

I read a few scientific studies where they compare the efficacy of various antibiotics against vibro species and IIRC other bacteria which were thought to be causing RTN (or I think they call it white band disease in the scientific sector). The efficacy varied very much with most antibiotics not working at all. There was an Italian study I think which did quite a thorough survey and some others, and some of the studies were quite well done with electron microscope examination and careful isolation of bacterial strains, and what was quite exciting was they reintroduced cultured strains of bacteria to healthy corals in controlled experiments and were able to cause RTN in healthy corals by exposing them to IIRC 1 million bacteria cells per ml. None of the antibiotics that were effective were easily available to me unfortunately. You might be able to get some of them in the US so maybe do a bit of searching and get the names. The only one I remember I might have which did show efficacy wasErythromycin IIRC. But I think a picture is emerging in the scientific sector that it is contagious bacterial overgrowth that causes RTN, not sure whether hobbyists appreciate this yet. But it does suggest that antibiotic treatment might be really helpful in preventing or curing RTN.

One study here (the one where they inoculate corals with cultured bacteria)

http://www.carnuk.org/library/Environmental Microbiology/Luna et al. 2010..pdf

I can't find the study which compared antibiotics, although it might have been in relation to other aquaculture aspects than corals (shrimp or fish, or maybe corrals, I don't remember). One study here which is re shrimps, focuses on vibrio strains, although whether they are the relevant ones for RTN I haven’t checked

http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/4228/1/IJMS 32(1) 71-75.pdf

There does seem to be enough info out there to make significant progress against RTN, although the info is spread around and the antibiotics themselves might be hard to get. But there are studies which investigate RTN and do so in quite a high quality manner, and I have a feeling that a good bit of internet research would turn up enough info to find a cure for a good proportion of the RTN cases we get in aquaria. Whether its ethical to use antibiotics ourselves is another question I am not taking into account though. Maybe its too risky to do this because of increasing antibiotic resistance in the wild.

Zippy · Jan 7, 2015

Thanks UK Pete, nice reading. It would be nice to see further studies that may be a cause for RTN.

UK_Pete · Jan 7, 2015

I've got a source of basket case frags at bargain rock bottom prices so I was interested in this recently. Almost all will have RTN, and it looks like the source will continue for a long time. So I was interested in this and hence the reading. I'm interested in splitting a purchase of antibiotics with someone or a few people to keep the price down, not sure if the shipping from UK to US would be expensive, but if anyone is interested maybe PM me (especially someone in the UK). I found a chinese source that would sell 50 grams of the chloro one above for 58 dollars shipped.

hart24601 · Jan 7, 2015

I would think this would be more useful for fragging LPS that are prone to brown jelly infection. I hate that stuff. I lost quite a few nice LPS before I found my maroon clown would "love them" too much and damage them... boom - dead coral. Gave him away and not once case since.

lionfish5740 · Jan 7, 2015

Intriguing stuff here. Hopefully I remember to come back to this to study later when I have time.

I wonder though, antibiotics can harm beneficial bacteria as much as any that you're trying to get rid of. Maybe another aspect would be to find something that helps any beneficial bacteria outcompete the bad bacteria, assuming that is easy enough to figure out.