How to transfer corals from a dino+velvet nuked aquarium

[PapoReef]

Hello everyone! I'm about to start the cycle on my tank, and have a couple of questions regarding transfering corals.

 

I have some corals (euphilias, chalices, montis, scoly, favias, acans, pocillopora, etc) in a friends tank, and his tank is covered in dino, and also had a case of velvet a little while ago.

 

Is there any SAFE way of transfering corals? Some are quite hard to get where I live and I'd hate having to get rid of them. I have read some threads and I get there is no way of bien 100% sure you didnt get the dinos on the new tank. What would be the safes way to go about it? FW dip? Peroxide dip? quarantine with UV filter? Any thoughts and ideas are welcome! 

[Clown79]

There really is no way to prevent dino from spreading- no dip will work, fw dips don't work, neither does peroxide.

 

Dino's are always present in tanks, it's part of the ecosystem. The tanks conditions is what leads them to come out of "dormancy".

 

There is the possibility of transferring it to your tank, especially since the tank will be a new tank with optimum conditions for dino(lack of biodiversity and even nutrients)

 

Personally I wouldn't take coral from a tank under going a dino outbreak if I was in the position.

 

Once the tank has gotten rid of the dino and confirmed gone under microscope, then it's a different story.

 

 

 

 

[Humblefish]

I've actually had success eliminating dinos with a 3-5 minute peroxide bath; 1/3 3% H2O2, 2/3 saltwater. Rinse thoroughly afterwards in clean saltwater before placing in your tank.

 

Velvet is a different story, because tomonts have likely encysted upon some of the corals. H2O2 won't kill those. The only thing you can do is isolate those corals to a fishless system for 6 weeks to wait out the dinospores being released by the tomonts.

 

 

[Clown79]

51 minutes ago, Humblefish said:

I've actually had success eliminating dinos with a 3-5 minute peroxide bath; 1/3 3% H2O2, 2/3 saltwater. Rinse thoroughly afterwards in clean saltwater before placing in your tank.

 

Velvet is a different story, because tomonts have likely encysted upon some of the corals. H2O2 won't kill those. The only thing you can do is isolate those corals to a fishless system for 6 weeks to wait out the dinospores being released by the tomonts.

 

 

It worked for you the peroxide dip? 

 

I tried it and ended up transferring dino to my pico. 

[Tamberav]

My guess is dino can get missed by peroxide because of pores in rock or skeleton. I would think it may work well on fleshy corals? 

[Lypto]

Only way to be sure with velvet is to have the corals in a fishless tank for 6 weeks, If theres velvet, then theres a fair chance of dormant or active ich due to compromised fish immune systems, so it's a good idea to leave it without a host til it dies off. Even if you don't see it to begin with, with anything contaminated it's best to be sure.  Dino's have these spores that stick to everything and they often come in on rock. They're very very tough little guys but they're somewhat controllable with good conditions. Peroxide dips lower the dinos numbers but for me they tend to stress my corals, it can be helpful to avoid tougher algae though. I would dip the corals with a coral dip and quarantine for maybe 6 weeks to see what hitchhiked with it, like Aptasia maybe. Should also let the cycle get well on it's way.

 

if you want to avoid setting up a quarantine tank I'd leave the corals with the friend until your cycle is done, then dip them and just not add fish for 6 weeks, Good Luck!

[PapoReef]

Well thanks everyone for the knowledge. So I get that placing them straight on the new tank is most likely a no-no. I guess ill have to setup my old nano in order to use it as a quarantine tank. I like this corals too much to just let them go I guess. The velvet is not much of an issue, as I don't have any fish yet, so 6+ weeks more with no fish is not so much of an issue for me. I guess ill set up right now the small tank and cycle it to use as quarantine after peroxide dip. Will the peroxide dip be too agressive on the corals? Also what would you recommend to start a fishless cycle? I have some AF Bacteria and Dr. Tims one and only.

 

Cheers and thanks a lot for the input guys!!!

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, PapoReef said:

Well thanks everyone for the knowledge. So I get that placing them straight on the new tank is most likely a no-no. I guess ill have to setup my old nano in order to use it as a quarantine tank. I like this corals too much to just let them go I guess. The velvet is not much of an issue, as I don't have any fish yet, so 6+ weeks more with no fish is not so much of an issue for me. I guess ill set up right now the small tank and cycle it to use as quarantine after peroxide dip. Will the peroxide dip be too agressive on the corals? Also what would you recommend to start a fishless cycle? I have some AF Bacteria and Dr. Tims one and only.

 

Cheers and thanks a lot for the input guys!!!

It's always best to go a few extra weeks o  fallow periods.

 

Some corals are ok with peroxide dips, some not.

[Clown79]

6 hours ago, Tamberav said:

My guess is dino can get missed by peroxide because of pores in rock or skeleton. I would think it may work well on fleshy corals? 

I transferred a favia and acan. 

[PapoReef]

28 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I transferred a favia and acan. 

Great, so Favia and Acan should be okay with a peroxide dip then. I guess it will be some work to "clean" the frags from the stuff. Fallow period will be a must I think.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, PapoReef said:

Great, so Favia and Acan should be okay with a peroxide dip then. I guess it will be some work to "clean" the frags from the stuff. Fallow period will be a must I think.

As far as I remember but the acan wasn't very happy about the dip and it didn't work for the strain of dino's I had.

 

 

[jservedio]

3 hours ago, PapoReef said:

Well thanks everyone for the knowledge. So I get that placing them straight on the new tank is most likely a no-no. I guess ill have to setup my old nano in order to use it as a quarantine tank. I like this corals too much to just let them go I guess. The velvet is not much of an issue, as I don't have any fish yet, so 6+ weeks more with no fish is not so much of an issue for me. I guess ill set up right now the small tank and cycle it to use as quarantine after peroxide dip. Will the peroxide dip be too agressive on the corals? Also what would you recommend to start a fishless cycle? I have some AF Bacteria and Dr. Tims one and only.

 

Cheers and thanks a lot for the input guys!!!

If you are getting coral from your friend - why don't you just grab a couple of his dino-covered rocks and have no cycle at all in QT since it'll already have dinos coming in. Use that tank to treat for dinos and once they are dormant and your new tank is a little more mature, you will be good to go.

[Humblefish]

12 hours ago, Clown79 said:

It worked for you the peroxide dip? 

 

I tried it and ended up transferring dino to my pico. 

It worked with some euphyllia I was given that had dinos on them. I did the peroxide dip, and then transferred them into my frag tank and waited. Dinos never reappeared.

[PapoReef]

9 hours ago, Humblefish said:

It worked with some euphyllia I was given that had dinos on them. I did the peroxide dip, and then transferred them into my frag tank and waited. Dinos never reappeared.

How long did you dip them for? also what ratio peroxide to tank water?

11 hours ago, jservedio said:

If you are getting coral from your friend - why don't you just grab a couple of his dino-covered rocks and have no cycle at all in QT since it'll already have dinos coming in. Use that tank to treat for dinos and once they are dormant and your new tank is a little more mature, you will be good to go.

Actually that's a great idea!!

[Humblefish]

1 hour ago, PapoReef said:

How long did you dip them for? also what ratio peroxide to tank water?

1/3 H2O2, 2/3 tank water for 5 minutes. Rinse well in clean saltwater afterwards.

[PapoReef]

12 hours ago, Humblefish said:

1/3 H2O2, 2/3 tank water for 5 minutes. Rinse well in clean saltwater afterwards.

Great, thanks man, will try this once I start transfering!

[mcarroll]

With the OP's corals at least:

Doesn't it seem like 6+ days in a UV-filtered tank (UV can even kill spores) would be a pretty safe AND simple QT?

 

Under normal conditions any spores should hatch like we normally expect and either get eaten by a coral or (more likely) by the UV filter.  End of story.

 

On 1/14/2020 at 11:19 PM, Humblefish said:

I've actually had success eliminating dinos with a 3-5 minute peroxide bath

On 1/14/2020 at 11:19 PM, Humblefish said:

Velvet is a different story

Seems like they should be more similar to me. 

 

"Velvet" and "pest algae" dino's are both more or less armored dinoflagellates,  both of which have spore and intermediate life stages.

 

Re: Peroxide

According to Noga's source in "Fish Disease, Diagnosis and Treatment" (google for PDF) it's a two-bath setup with a 6+ day wait in between for Amphidinium dino's.  (aka Velvet) 

 

Also, Noga mentions "6+ days" there as the potential lifetime for a dinospore....not 6+ weeks.  Is "weeks" you mentioned from a different source or maybe a typo? 

 

The dual-bath peroxide treatment write-up in the text also seems based around this 6 day timeframe which seems to reaffirm days vs weeks:

Quote

 Add 0.21 ml of 35% H 2 O 2  solution/l (= 75 ppm), and treat for 30 minutes for amyloodiniosis. Re-treat after 6 days. Fish must be moved to an uncontaminated system immediately after last treatment might cure (Montgomery - Brock et al.  2001 ). 

(from p.402)

[PapoReef]

11 hours ago, mcarroll said:

With the OP's corals at least:

Doesn't it seem like 6+ days in a UV-filtered tank (UV can even kill spores) would be a pretty safe AND simple QT?

 

Under normal conditions any spores should hatch like we normally expect and either get eaten by a coral or (more likely) by the UV filter.  End of story.

 

Seems like they should be more similar to me. 

 

"Velvet" and "pest algae" dino's are both more or less armored dinoflagellates,  both of which have spore and intermediate life stages.

 

Re: Peroxide

According to Noga's source in "Fish Disease, Diagnosis and Treatment" (google for PDF) it's a two-bath setup with a 6+ day wait in between for Amphidinium dino's.  (aka Velvet) 

 

Also, Noga mentions "6+ days" there as the potential lifetime for a dinospore....not 6+ weeks.  Is "weeks" you mentioned from a different source or maybe a typo? 

 

The dual-bath peroxide treatment write-up in the text also seems based around this 6 day timeframe which seems to reaffirm days vs weeks:

(from p.402)

Great update Mccarroll, thanks for the suggestion. Will try some peroxide bath and a uv filter. and monitor for 6+ days then?

[mcarroll]

That's what it sounds like from the reading if you're going for the whole treatment.

 

I still wondered if there's really an advantage to the peroxide if there are no infected fish in the picture, only the suspicion of dino (velvet) spores.

[Humblefish]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

With the OP's corals at least:

Doesn't it seem like 6+ days in a UV-filtered tank (UV can even kill spores) would be a pretty safe AND simple QT?

 

Under normal conditions any spores should hatch like we normally expect and either get eaten by a coral or (more likely) by the UV filter.  End of story.

 

Seems like they should be more similar to me. 

 

"Velvet" and "pest algae" dino's are both more or less armored dinoflagellates,  both of which have spore and intermediate life stages.

 

Re: Peroxide

According to Noga's source in "Fish Disease, Diagnosis and Treatment" (google for PDF) it's a two-bath setup with a 6+ day wait in between for Amphidinium dino's.  (aka Velvet) 

 

Also, Noga mentions "6+ days" there as the potential lifetime for a dinospore....not 6+ weeks.  Is "weeks" you mentioned from a different source or maybe a typo? 

 

The dual-bath peroxide treatment write-up in the text also seems based around this 6 day timeframe which seems to reaffirm days vs weeks:

(from p.402)

The two-step, 6 day H2O2 bath treatment was extrapolated from this study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230234979_The_Application_of_Hydrogen_Peroxide_as_a_Treatment_for_the_Ectoparasite_Amyloodinium_ocellatum_Brown_1931_on_the_Pacific_Threadfin_Polydactylus_sexfilis

 

The 6 week fallow period for velvet is because both tomonts and the dinospore free swimming stage are capable of extending their lifecycle if light is present. Which it would be in a fallow reef tank.

[mcarroll]

16 hours ago, Humblefish said:

The two-step, 6 day H2O2 bath treatment was extrapolated from this study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230234979_The_Application_of_Hydrogen_Peroxide_as_a_Treatment_for_the_Ectoparasite_Amyloodinium_ocellatum_Brown_1931_on_the_Pacific_Threadfin_Polydactylus_sexfilis

👍

16 hours ago, Humblefish said:

The 6 week fallow period for velvet is because both tomonts and the dinospore free swimming stage are capable of extending their lifecycle if light is present.

Where is the 6 week/photosynthetic thing from? 

 

I've looked before and the only thing that has ever come up indicating photo-sensitivity in Amyloodinium (velvet) is a hobby magazine article...

...which I don't get why it even shows up on ProQuest or in a Google Scholar search:

 

Quote

 

Fish Diseases Part 2: Single Celled Parasites

T Lougher - UltraMarine Magazine, 2013 - search.proquest.com

… Fish Diseases Part 2 ↑ Amyloodinium B o ris IK … Theronts have been shown to be positively
phototactic which means that they swim towards the light. Essentially this means that they swim
upwards into the water column which greatly increases their chances of finding a host …

 

 

 

Their verbiage from their website is typical hobbyist hyperbole about fish disease which is funny:

"Fish Diseases Part 2: Single Celled Parasites – It’s every aquarists worst nightmare. Tristan Lougher explores the topic of fish diseases and treatments."   

 

Typical hobby fear mongering makes the material questionable. 🙄

 

All I can imagine is that they were looking at another dinoflagellate (one of the many photosynthetic "pest" dino's) and they just didn't know better. 

 

But having the article to read (vs just the one-line teaser) would obviously shed more light on what they did and what they claimed.  (The author appears to be a worker in a fish store, for what it's worth.)

 

Managing Velvet Disease in Marine Fish Hatcheries (thesis from Queensland Univ.) indicates the opposite...in experiments there was no indication of chemo- or photo-taxis.

 

That's literally the only thing I've seen that scientifically addresses photo-sensitivity topic directly.  Other studies have indicated that in the past it was thought that theronts (I think) had an eyespot....but closer inspection proved this is not the case, and that the impression that was misjudged only shows up in a percentage of theronts.  They addressed it only to say that's not what it is.

 

As to the ID of what Ultramarine were looking at in their experiment....from reading studies that have done comparisons of related dino's including Amyloodinium it seems to take scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and phylogenetics to tell dino's apart, especially at the spore or tomont level.  Not really hobbyist tools.  🤨  With this in mind, Ultramarine's author not knowing what they were looking at seems a lot more reasonable than a hobby magazine being indexed alongside science journals.

 

If anyone wants to gift me a digital copy of that issue for the reading, they are availble for 5 pounds (British)....I'm still curious about the article and the issues is available here:  😉

https://pocketmags.com/ultramarine-magazine/issue-42

 

If anyone has a subscription to the actual magazine who could just look up that article in their magazine for me, that would be even better!  😁 @Ratvan?  Anyone?

[Ratvan]

14 hours ago, mcarroll said:

👍

Where is the 6 week/photosynthetic thing from? 

 

I've looked before and the only thing that has ever come up indicating photo-sensitivity in Amyloodinium (velvet) is a hobby magazine article...

...which I don't get why it even shows up on ProQuest or in a Google Scholar search:

 

 

 

Their verbiage from their website is typical hobbyist hyperbole about fish disease which is funny:

"Fish Diseases Part 2: Single Celled Parasites – It’s every aquarists worst nightmare. Tristan Lougher explores the topic of fish diseases and treatments."   

 

Typical hobby fear mongering makes the material questionable. 🙄

 

All I can imagine is that they were looking at another dinoflagellate (one of the many photosynthetic "pest" dino's) and they just didn't know better. 

 

But having the article to read (vs just the one-line teaser) would obviously shed more light on what they did and what they claimed.  (The author appears to be a worker in a fish store, for what it's worth.)

 

Managing Velvet Disease in Marine Fish Hatcheries (thesis from Queensland Univ.) indicates the opposite...in experiments there was no indication of chemo- or photo-taxis.

 

That's literally the only thing I've seen that scientifically addresses photo-sensitivity topic directly.  Other studies have indicated that in the past it was thought that theronts (I think) had an eyespot....but closer inspection proved this is not the case, and that the impression that was misjudged only shows up in a percentage of theronts.  They addressed it only to say that's not what it is.

 

As to the ID of what Ultramarine were looking at in their experiment....from reading studies that have done comparisons of related dino's including Amyloodinium it seems to take scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and phylogenetics to tell dino's apart, especially at the spore or tomont level.  Not really hobbyist tools.  🤨  With this in mind, Ultramarine's author not knowing what they were looking at seems a lot more reasonable than a hobby magazine being indexed alongside science journals.

 

If anyone wants to gift me a digital copy of that issue for the reading, they are availble for 5 pounds (British)....I'm still curious about the article and the issues is available here:  😉

https://pocketmags.com/ultramarine-magazine/issue-42

 

If anyone has a subscription to the actual magazine who could just look up that article in their magazine for me, that would be even better!  😁 @Ratvan?  Anyone?

I dont but that certainly looks interesting, roll on payday

[Andy LaBella]

Hey all.  I know this thread is a little on the older side.  Wondered if there are any new methods for this situation.  I had velvet pretty bad.  Fish were moved to be treated and old tank left fallow.  It's been fallow with my corals and CUC since May.  Velvet should be a distant memory.  I worry about dinos or cyano and moving them to my new tank.  What is my best course of action here?  I can treat the hell out of this tank as it will likely just go away after I am done moving all the coral over, but I want to set up my new tank for success.  It's already failed once as somehow ich appeared about 3 weeks ago and I had to pull all the fish and treat them.  They will be in copper another week or so then on to some prazipro.  The tank is fallow and i cranked the temp to 86.  Gonna get some UV going on it too.  I want this tank sterilized with only good bacteria and pods remaining before I even think about bringing anything back into the tank.Hey all.  I know this thread is a little on the older side.  Wondered if there are any new methods for this situation.  I had velvet pretty bad.  Fish were moved to be treated and old tank left fallow.  It's been fallow with my corals and CUC since May.  Velvet should be a distant memory.  I worry about dinos or cyano and moving them to my new tank.  What is my best course of action here?  I can treat the hell out of this tank as it will likely just go away after I am done moving all the coral over, but I want to set up my new tank for success.  It's already failed once as somehow ich appeared about 3 weeks ago and I had to pull all the fish and treat them.  They will be in copper another week or so then on to some prazipro.  The tank is fallow and i cranked the temp to 86.  Gonna get some UV going on it too.  I want this tank sterilized with only good bacteria and pods remaining before I even think about bringing anything back into the tank.

[Tamberav]

Dino and cyano are likely present in every tank just not visible unless conditions become ideal for them to take over. A little cyano isn’t even a problem and many aged tanks have a spot here or there. Don’t let the clean up tank and take photos and video for instagram fool you. 
 

Going sterile is the problem. If there isn’t competition from a nice diversity then it’s easier for uglies to take over.