Triple dip - combo

[FarmerTy]

So, I've been having fun prophylactically dipping all my SPS before gluing everything to their final spots. The reason I've decided to do this you ask? Well, I've decided my relaxed dipping methods without QT for corals is going to end now. I have too much money in livestock at this point to continue to do this. From this point on, 1 month QT minimum for any fish or corals before they enter my tank. I'm closing the borders from this point on... there's going to be a long application process at coral/fish immigration before you can get in.

 

[FarmerTy]

Here's what I did this past week. I will follow up with 2 more dips each following week for a total of 3 dips in 3 weeks.

Step 1, dislodge all corals from rock and prep them for easy dipping. Put small frags on plugs so they don't roll around and burn each other.

Step 2, let the dipping begin!

Dip 1
Bayer dip - pour until its milky white in container of tankwater (never been able to overdose it), leave for 10 mins, then shake each coral really hard in solution to dislodge any pests. Use gloves!

Dip 2
Interceptor dip - 1/2 tablet (exact dosage not important for dip, can be up to 100x recommended dose with ill effect). Crush up tablet, combine with hot RO/DI water to mix and dissolve thoroughly, then add to tankwater in container. Dip acros for 30-60 mins.

Dip 3
Potassium dip - 2 teaspoons of KCl (potassium chloride... Can be found as water softener pellets at Home Depot) per gallon of water. Will raise solution roughly 1200 ppm of Potassium to a total of 1600 ppm (most teef tanks are at 400 ppm already), causing flatworms to fly off coral and all animals to die. Dip for 30 mins. This one is the harshest dip out of the 3 as the other two hardly even bother the acros.

 

[FarmerTy]

I know, the longest lead up ever to the actual point of a post.

So, I'm going to take a few test acro frags and give this a try. What I want to do is combine all three dips into one solution and run it for 30 mins... if I can push it to an hour, I'll give it a try. But for now, I'll start with 30 mins and see how it goes for the test frags. Just want to see if this works to keep in my pocket for future dips to save time/water. I'll post the results next week when I give it a try.

 

[Big E]

Smart man..............your patience and diligence will pay off with years of satisfaction.

The potassium dip is new to me.

 

[saltyphish]

Following

 

[FarmerTy]

I wish I took pictures while I did it but I put two acro frags into a small dixie cup and threw in a tabling acro and a hawkins echinata with all 3 dips in it. I left them for 2 hrs and then rinsed them off. They are both still alive today so that's a good sign. A better test would have been to take an infected piece with AEFW, red bugs, and black bugs and see if the combined all at once triple dip for a hour would have knocked them all out. At least we know they'll survive all 3 at once for 2 hrs.

 

[KritikaL]

nice! looking forward to seeing the results of which dip is the best?

 

[FarmerTy]

nice! looking forward to seeing the results of which dip is the best?

All of them! Sorry, I wasn't doing this for comparison purposes. Bayer knocks out AEFW, interceptor takes out red bugs, and potassium kills almost anything... or at least stuns them. From this point on, I'll be doing all three to all incoming acros and then they'll sit in QT until I'm sure they are clean.

 

[KritikaL]

Blimey! I'm interested in seeing this! Haha

 

[FarmerTy]

Well here was Round 2 yesterday! This time I combined the interceptor and potassium dips. It saved me about 45-60 mins of time dipping.

 

[FarmerTy]

All the precious cargo in the holding tub now. I plumbed to the DT but with a giant UV to keep any potential pests from making it back in.

Check out my new softie/LPS tank! [emoji12]

 

[FarmerTy]

Before

After!

 

[Chknsamich]

this would be the same route i would take. I just got to get myself to set up a qt for sps.

 

[erk]

For your QT, do you plan to QT fish and coral in the same tank then setup a separate hospital tank for fish needing extra treatment?

 

[FarmerTy]

For your QT, do you plan to QT fish and coral in the same tank then setup a separate hospital tank for fish needing extra treatment?

I haven't gotten that far yet in the planning stages for my QT setup. I don't plan to add much more to the main system other than replace any fish that may have died or if there was a must-have acro frag so i was going to handle the QT on a case-by-case scenario.

 

[FarmerTy]

Well, thought I'd give an update to the triple dip combo. Both acro pieces that I dipped for 2 hrs with all 3 dips combined survived and the only thing I noticed different was the ORA Hawkins Echinata browned out a bit but it's still alive. Since I went to 2 hrs to test the extremes, I could imagine a more normal dip with all 3 combined in 1 would not have the same effect.

The rest of the corals where dipped with Bayer and in a separate dip was a combination of Interceptor and the potassium.

Here are all the acros, sittingly happily in the tub. Most are still growing nicely and keeping their color.

 

[FarmerTy]

Shots of the acros in the tub.

 

[dzel]

Wow, that's impressive. I've always been using the bayer to dip corals but I've never seen this kind of method. I'm in the process of setting up a qt so I'm definitely giving this a shot. Really nice man!

 

[FarmerTy]

Thank you. It's actually not all that harsh to the acros and I have some super sensitive ones so I've done the testing for everyone to feel a little safer about subjecting them to 3 dips all in one session.

 

[reefwiser]

QT is very important for all SPS going into a system. I have even seen LPS having flat worm hitchhikers infect a system. So all corals should be QT'ed.