Bayer vs parasites

Reefahholic · Apr 19, 2016

I was dipping some coral last night with Bayer and got thinking It could possibly keep hitchhiking parasites off things like algae, live rock, and coral. No inverts though.

This excludes anything encysted or egg like.

Anybody know if parasites have a nervous system? If they did, we could stun them enough to rinse or blow them off.

melypr1985 · Apr 19, 2016

That's quite the late night brain storm. I'll be honest, when I read the title I thought you were going to say dipping a fish in bayer. lol That's early morning pre-caffeine thinking on my part. I'll be back after I've had my caffeine...

melypr1985 · Apr 19, 2016

Ok. I'm back..... My thoughts are that Ich and velvet will encyst on whatever your bringing in (with a hard surface) and need to go through QT no mater what, so I dont see a reason for dipping for that reason. However, in the case of corals and live rock, we would dip those anyway then put them in their own QT. You wouldn't be able to dip inverts like hermits and snails. Anything that has cysted on the rock or corals wont come off in the dip which is why it still requires QT.

In the case of macro algae, you could maybe get away with a good rinse in saltwater before putting in the DT since I'm thinking nothing will be able to create a cyst on the soft tissue but it can be floating in the water surrounding the leaves.

Humblefish · Apr 19, 2016

My guess is: Bayer (and corals dips) might eradicate free swimming theronts. But probably not encysted tomonts, since not even copper, formaldehyde, or even low concentrations of bleach can do that.

redfishbluefish · Apr 19, 2016

The difficulty in answering this question is that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has come up with an effect dose of Bayer as a coral dip. I currently have a thread going asking how much people dose. Those that measure have stated a range of 1 to 8.3 mls of Bayer per 100 mls of tank water. Yet there are others who don't measure a dose at all....until it looks like "skim milk" or "weak skim milk" or "white water."

Keeping it simple, and knowing the ingredients are a varient of chrysanthemum flower extract and tobacco tea, at a "reasonable" dose (whatever that might be), it shouldn't have an effect on algae, but could have an impact on microbials (tobacco tea is known to kill microbes).

Until we know how much you need to dose, we are not going to know what else it might kill.

Reefahholic · Apr 19, 2016

Do parasites have a nervous system?

My biggest thought last night was keeping Uronema out of my system since the kinda just do their own thing and attack whatever they feel like. They could be feeding on detritus of a rock or coral and getting those guys off would be quite nice.

That is IF they have a nervous system.

Humblefish · Apr 19, 2016

Reefahholic said:
Do parasites have a nervous system?

Apparently not. See below.

Strong attraction may also help C. irritans to find host in large seawater area. The chemoattraction of serum and mucus factors plays an important role in the host finding of these protozoan parasites, which lack nervous systems and cellular chemoreceptors (Hass et al. 1999). The mechanisms of interaction between these factors and parasitic protozoa require further research.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...outh_China/links/555b143c08ae6fd2d8286bfa.pdf

Reefahholic · Apr 20, 2016

Humblefish said:
Apparently not. See below.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...outh_China/links/555b143c08ae6fd2d8286bfa.pdf

DANG!!! Those sneaky lil turds!!

Humblefish · Apr 20, 2016

Reefahholic said:
DANG!!! Those sneaky lil turds!!

I can guarantee you if Armageddon ever occurs, Cryptocaryon tomonts will be one of the survivors.

redfishbluefish · Apr 20, 2016

Just to clarify, parasite covers a whole range of organisms, from protozoans, to fungi, to plants and to larger animals that do have nervous systems.....ticks, bed bugs, lampreys, to mention but a few. Some might consider it semantics, but what I believe this discussion has been about are protozoan parasites, and not the "higher" animal/plant parasites. Now, don't get me started on whether we are talking about parasitoids!