Does this make sense?

florida reef · Mar 23, 2012

So I've been thinking of alternative ways of treating LR that is infested with pests(aiptasia, mojano, etc.) Let's say someone gets a hold of some LR and wants to use it, but it's completely infested? Instead of "cooking" or leaving it out of water and kill everything, couldn't they treat in a separate tank with hypo salinity for a week or two? I'm thinking it would kill the pests, but not the good bacteria. What are your thoughts?

Reef Breeders · Mar 23, 2012

Try it, you can also try raising or lowering ph, say to 6 or raise it to 9-10

Russellaqua · Mar 23, 2012

It's an interesting thought. I'd try the hyposalinity first as this is more of a known commodity. We know that it works for treating diseased fish without destroying the beneficial microbes. Changing the pH radically down to 6 (this btw is over a 100x increase in H+ ions) or up to 10 isn't as well understood and might kill much of the good bacteria. I'm not sure how one would test whether these bacteria were still present after a pH change other than to go to costly culturing methods, or experimenting by placing fish in a tank with rock that had been treated this way, and this would potentially stress or kill that fish if those bacteria have been killed by treatment. If either method were shown to be effective and safe, they should become industry standard. It's easy and fast. No pest anemones. Who could ask for more?

bct15 · Mar 23, 2012

My buddy had the things pop on his rock that was dry shipped for Friday delivery, missed the Friday, sat in the warehouse over the weekend, missed Monday, then sat in front of his door all day Tuesday dry. 3 weeks later, some aptasia popped up, if those things can survive that hyposalinity might not work either.