Flucanazole the Acro Killer

Fishyfish22 · Feb 2, 2021

I used it as well on a 180 gallon reef attached attached a 60 gallon macroalgae tank. It killed the bryopais but my caulerpa, gracilaria, and halimeda did fine. Even my rhipocephalus started shooting up new stalks

Everything in the other tank did fine. Sps were ok, softies and LPS all kept growing. My red dragon acro did as well and I've known that one to be particularly sensitive

old salt reefer · Feb 2, 2021

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks double dose of FluxRx in one of my tanks, hasn't done anything to any corals ever, including Acropora. GHA 98% gone. Not the first time I've used it in any one of my tanks(I have a few). Now you couldn't pay me to use Vibrant, I can't tell you how much that killed.

Huskymaniac · Feb 3, 2021

Not sure why but dosing Flucanazole was the worst mistake I have ever made in this hobby. I am not even sure if my tank is salvageable at this point. Everytime I look at it it just makes me sick. If I didn't have fish that were close to a decade old I would literally just dump a gallon of bleach in there and start from scratch.

Waters · Feb 3, 2021

I think it is just like anything else in this hobby being dosed to kill algae. Every tank is different.....I don't think there is anything that is 100% safe, in all tanks. I used Vibrant successfully in two tanks without any issues. It wiped out the third tank and did a lot of Acro damage in the fourth. I am guessing Fluc will be the same. Just up to you to decide if it is worth the risk. I have finally decided that I am not dosing anything unless it is absolutely necessary.

Boxofpurplerocks · Feb 3, 2021

I had great luck with Fluconazole. I dosed it per instructions, for two weeks time. Ordered it off some fish antibiotic website, did not use flux. If anything my corals came out looking happier, saw no Ill effect on them. I’ve read that it’s possibly the byropsis dying and releasing various toxic compounds such as humic acid that causes the coral loss, not the medicine itself, so I ran filter socks which were cleaned daily (to catch and remove any free floating byropsis I could baste off before it was allowed to decompose in the tank) and religiously removed as much as the byropsis by hand as I could for the first week until it was mostly gone. My alk consumption actually increased while dosing, and I saw no apparent signs of stress on any of my organisms. Pics attached for before and after (you can even see a bit of visual growth. Did a bit of rescaping also hence the switchup).

PghReef · Feb 3, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
Not sure why but dosing Flucanazole was the worst mistake I have ever made in this hobby. I am not even sure if my tank is salvageable at this point. Everytime I look at it it just makes me sick. If I didn't have fish that were close to a decade old I would literally just dump a gallon of bleach in there and start from scratch.

Same here. I also have that tank of algae and death but thriving fish that turns my stomach.
Had a tank that was doing well, good growth on sps and lps, no high end acros just stylos, birds, montis, hammers, things like that. I spent months trying to fix the issue with large water changes, carbon, adding chunks of liverock. Nothing worked, all corals died and any new corals died within weeks. Test all showed acceptable alk, ca, nutrients, etc. Fish are fine so the tanks still up. Set up a new tank for corals and will transfer the fish to soon.

I can't say with 100% certainty that it was reef Flux, but I could never pinpoint what else it could be. Maybe it was coincidental that the negative downturn coincided with me dosing reef Flux but I was golden for months beforehand and unable to keep a coral alive within a week of dosing.

JCOLE · Feb 3, 2021

Just lost half of my Acro's after 2 weeks of Fluconazole. To be fair though I dosed Vibrant, then Chemiclean, then Fluconazole.

Tamberav · Feb 3, 2021

Different tanks likely have different dominant microbes and bacteria. Perhaps some are effected more than others and perhaps this leads to an impact on corals.

The point is there are a lot of things in our tanks we can not test for. It makes sense that it is fine for some and a disaster for others.

Huskymaniac · Feb 4, 2021

JCOLE said:
Just lost half of my Acro's after 2 weeks of Fluconazole. To be fair though I dosed Vibrant, then Chemiclean, then Fluconazole.

It was flucanazole.

Waters · Feb 4, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
It was flucanazole.

I am guessing, in this case anyways, that dosing all three, one after another, probably had a lot to do with it

DaneGer21 · Feb 4, 2021

I’ve been lucky with dosing two separate tanks over the years, no losses on either system. But, it’s probably been 2yrs since I’ve treated with it.

Hard to say at this point.

homer1475 · Feb 4, 2021

Never had an issue dosing it either. When I first tried vibrant for a while it worked great and never had an issue.

About a year later I had a GHA outbreak(overfeeding due to trying to feed a couple anthias), and tried vibrant again, same tank, nearly wiped out all my coral that went through the same procedure just a year before.

Odd how things like that work, and the fact we can't explain why is even weirder.

Huskymaniac · Feb 6, 2021

Just had to chop up some more stuff up. Had a nice ice fire echinata. Key word being had. Totally bleached out now. Burnt tips and all. Was a beaut before the flucanazole. Moved the main peice to a very low par area. Hedged my bets and put little frags all over the place.

HB AL · Feb 6, 2021

I want to start by saying that I use the one that comes in pill form and have dosed it several times for bryopsis and have had ZERO negative effects on any of my wide range of corals. I do have a friend that used the stuff that comes in a bottle that you scoop out the desired amount and he has suffered some losses of acros. Not sure if its got different ingredients than the pill form stuff. For those that have had issues what kind did you use?

Huskymaniac · Feb 6, 2021

HB AL said:
I want to start by saying that I use the one that comes in pill form and have dosed it several times for bryopsis and have had ZERO negative effects on any of my wide range of corals. I do have a friend that used the stuff that comes in a bottle that you scoop out the desired amount and he has suffered some losses of acros. Not sure if its got different ingredients than the pill form stuff. For those that have had issues what kind did you use?

I used FluxRx. I have been through AEFW, Black Bugs, Red Bugs, ATO stuck on, etc. Pretty much if it can happen to a tank its happened to mine. The fluc was by far the worst thing that has happened to the tank. Over a decade of growth and livestock ruined. I am not even sure I want to keep this tank going. Don't want to do anything but the tank makes me sick to the point I think I need to get out of this hobby for a bit.

Boxofpurplerocks · Feb 7, 2021

HB AL said:
I want to start by saying that I use the one that comes in pill form and have dosed it several times for bryopsis and have had ZERO negative effects on any of my wide range of corals. I do have a friend that used the stuff that comes in a bottle that you scoop out the desired amount and he has suffered some losses of acros. Not sure if its got different ingredients than the pill form stuff. For those that have had issues what kind did you use?

I also used the pill form (broke open the capsules) and had zero issues.

AdamB · Feb 7, 2021

I didn’t have any problem with acros or other sps in tank when I treated 3 years ago

P-Dub · Feb 23, 2021

So far so good. I used the pink tablets @ 20mg/gal. Zero issues at 16 days in and all my bryopsis is gone. Using Vibrant as well. Tackling my BHA and that is almost all gone. Kept my skimmer running but have turned the flow out of the skimmer wide open. Stopped carbon and Purigen. Kept GFO going. I micro-bubble scrub... No losses and my tuxedo seems fine. Fingers crossed.

Huskymaniac · May 11, 2021

Still dealing with the fall out. Should have shut the tank down and reboot it but I am carrying on. The acros that were not impacted are fine. The ones that were damaged by the flux have not recovered and continue down the STN/RTN path.

HB AL · May 11, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
Still dealing with the fall out. Should have shut the tank down and reboot it but I am carrying on. The acros that were not impacted are fine. The ones that were damaged by the flux have not recovered and continue down the STN/RTN path.

Once again the Flux stuff you scoop with the tiny spoon it comes with tends to be much tougher to gauge the proper amount you need to dose as I have friends that had negative effects using that and they believe either its got some added ingredients not good for coral or its overdosed. I told them to switch to the pill form which is the type I use and they have not had any negative effects from the pill form. Have no idea if there is some type of ingredient difference between the two but I've had no issues with the pill form and they haven't either. I think I mentioned I have alot of different types of corals and it hasn't affected any type in my tank. Here's a few pics for reference of my tank today and a white light pic from a couple months ago if I haven't posted any fts's. Clearly no issues from using the pill form of fluconazole.