Eliminating Blue Clove Polyps with Fenbendazole

[MnFish1]

Well, it's my turn. I've got a pretty bad BCP problem in my 265g peninsula.

I've noticed when I try to mechanically combat the BCP, my skimmer overflows and I get big phos spikes. In fact, one day I scrubbed some on the rocks, and pulled big mats of em off the sand bed - Within an hour ALL THREE of my super healthy Borbonius Anthers were dead. Ugh.

I've removed the turbo and trochus snails that I could find. Lots of nassarius in there that I'll never get to I'm sure.

Fingers crossed that my Euphyllia (especially the torches), clam, zoos, and Acans will be ok. Everything else in my tank is SPS and should be unaffected.

Correct plan is:

dose 1mg/gallon
leave skimmer running (Why would it be shut off? seems some people do so under the guise of avoiding skimming out the fenbenadole, but it seems the evidence suggests that it does no such thing, and if it did, you'd know, right?)
continue kalkwasser dosing
continue calc reactor operation
continue Reefmat operation


If I don't notice any ill effects on the important stuff, I'll likely NOT do a water change, and dose again in 7 days. Then after another week or two, I'll run carbon and do a big water change. Of course, I expect a pretty large nutrient spike, as I have LOTS of bcp, and if the phos gets out of hand, I'll do water changes / Phosgard as required.

If you care to look at the progress, here's my tank live view:

AXIS

67.209.193.144

IMHO - looking at your beautiful tank - there is nothing to remove

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

Thank you! It is a beautiful tank, but the BCP are most definitely hindering the SPS growth.

 

[Oshanickreef]

Well, it's my turn. I've got a pretty bad BCP problem in my 265g peninsula.

I've noticed when I try to mechanically combat the BCP, my skimmer overflows and I get big phos spikes. In fact, one day I scrubbed some on the rocks, and pulled big mats of em off the sand bed - Within an hour ALL THREE of my super healthy Borbonius Anthers were dead. Ugh.

I've removed the turbo and trochus snails that I could find. Lots of nassarius in there that I'll never get to I'm sure.

Fingers crossed that my Euphyllia (especially the torches), clam, zoos, and Acans will be ok. Everything else in my tank is SPS and should be unaffected.

Correct plan is:

dose 1mg/gallon
leave skimmer running (Why would it be shut off? seems some people do so under the guise of avoiding skimming out the fenbenadole, but it seems the evidence suggests that it does no such thing, and if it did, you'd know, right?)
continue kalkwasser dosing
continue calc reactor operation
continue Reefmat operation


If I don't notice any ill effects on the important stuff, I'll likely NOT do a water change, and dose again in 7 days. Then after another week or two, I'll run carbon and do a big water change. Of course, I expect a pretty large nutrient spike, as I have LOTS of bcp, and if the phos gets out of hand, I'll do water changes / Phosgard as required.

If you care to look at the progress, here's my tank live view:

AXIS

67.209.193.144

have prime ready. nassarius will be fine. i had mine return after 6 months. switched to a new tank as i moved and hoping none made it in the new tank...

 

[MnFish1]

Thank you! It is a beautiful tank, but the BCP are most definitely hindering the SPS growth.

I had BCP in my tank - I thought it looked great - staying confined (by neighboring coral) - probably was eating small things like parasites, bacteria - and filtering the water. I don't want to debate - because every situation is different - but - can you explain that statement - that they are definitiely hindering SPS growth? Because - there are a lot of tanks without Blue clove polyps that have the same problem. What I'm trying to say is - If the conditions are right in your tank, blue polyps will not take over SPS. If this were the case, the entire ocean would be Green star polyps or clove polyps. I might consider that before this dosing adventure

 

[MnFish1]

have prime ready. nassarius will be fine. i had mine return after 6 months. switched to a new tank as i moved and hoping none made it in the new tank...

Of course the people that don't believe Prime detoxifies ammonia are not here. I would not use that product personally - however - IF YOU DO please post the results

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

I had BCP in my tank - I thought it looked great - staying confined (by neighboring coral) - probably was eating small things like parasites, bacteria - and filtering the water. I don't want to debate - because every situation is different - but - can you explain that statement - that they are definitiely hindering SPS growth? Because - there are a lot of tanks without Blue clove polyps that have the same problem. What I'm trying to say is - If the conditions are right in your tank, blue polyps will not take over SPS. If this were the case, the entire ocean would be Green star polyps or clove polyps. I might consider that before this dosing adventure

I think you're right in most of these statements - BCP would not overtake any of my SPS. BUT, it certainly would and did inhibit their growth. Practically no surface was left open, making it difficult for SPS to encrust a base. Not impossible, but not easy.

A more important factor is their nutrient demand. They are most certainly competing with my more desirable SPS in that regard.

Anything like BCP (GSP, Xenia, Pocilipora) that grows uncontrollably ends up as an eyesore on a reef tank, especially an SPS tank. Even visitors that weren't "Reef savvy" could tell that the BCP was a weed.

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

RESULTS!

So far so good. Not a trace of visible living BCP left in my tank, and my infestation was one of the worst I've seen, if not THE worst. I treated with one packet of dog dewormer. For 36 hrs I didn't notice any effects, on BCP or anything else. So I treated with another packet. Initially these treatments upset the LPS and Zoas, and clouded the water. Tank looked slightly sickly for maybe a day. Then the BCP started wasting away. I ran the skimmer and UV the entire time, cause why not?

After about 12 days, I did a 10% water change, siphoning off some of the BCP carcasses. Put a batch of activated carbon under the reefmat, (Which I also ran through the entire process). Im not so much concerned with removing the fenbenzadole.

Last week I put my snails back in. Turbos, Nassarius, Trochus. All doing fine so far. Only collateral damage in my case was all my super cool sponges died, as expected. I'll take that trade any day. Clam, SPS, LPS, urchin, conches, mushrooms, all healthy. If you'd like to see the results, see my webcam link from previous posts.

In my opinion, some keys to my success (Yes, opinion, perception, YMMV, etc)

- Why turn off the skimmer or UV? That's madness. At a time when you're certain they'll be die-off and nutrient spikes, you turn off the nutrient export, then act surprised at an algae bloom? uhhhh.

- Why the hurry to remove the Fenbenzadole? Leave it in longer (or if you don't REALLY need snails, why not forever? Longer treatments probably allow for lower effective doses and better chance of getting all of the BCP.

- Get ahead of the expected phosphate / nitrate spike. Reefmat helps massively. I also did a tiny bit of carbon dosing in the days after treatment, and ended up going the other way, nearly bottoming out my nutrients. Still no algae bloom or anything like that though, and my nitrate and phosphates are stabilizing fine.


In 6-8 months I'll try to post an update. I do expect an eventual resurgence on some level, and plan to immediately add more dog dewormer at the first sign of BCP.

 

[Reeferbadness]

RESULTS!

So far so good. Not a trace of visible living BCP left in my tank, and my infestation was one of the worst I've seen, if not THE worst. I treated with one packet of dog dewormer. For 36 hrs I didn't notice any effects, on BCP or anything else. So I treated with another packet. Initially these treatments upset the LPS and Zoas, and clouded the water. Tank looked slightly sickly for maybe a day. Then the BCP started wasting away. I ran the skimmer and UV the entire time, cause why not?

After about 12 days, I did a 10% water change, siphoning off some of the BCP carcasses. Put a batch of activated carbon under the reefmat, (Which I also ran through the entire process). Im not so much concerned with removing the fenbenzadole.

Last week I put my snails back in. Turbos, Nassarius, Trochus. All doing fine so far. Only collateral damage in my case was all my super cool sponges died, as expected. I'll take that trade any day. Clam, SPS, LPS, urchin, conches, mushrooms, all healthy. If you'd like to see the results, see my webcam link from previous posts.

In my opinion, some keys to my success (Yes, opinion, perception, YMMV, etc)

- Why turn off the skimmer or UV? That's madness. At a time when you're certain they'll be die-off and nutrient spikes, you turn off the nutrient export, then act surprised at an algae bloom? uhhhh.

- Why the hurry to remove the Fenbenzadole? Leave it in longer (or if you don't REALLY need snails, why not forever? Longer treatments probably allow for lower effective doses and better chance of getting all of the BCP.

- Get ahead of the expected phosphate / nitrate spike. Reefmat helps massively. I also did a tiny bit of carbon dosing in the days after treatment, and ended up going the other way, nearly bottoming out my nutrients. Still no algae bloom or anything like that though, and my nitrate and phosphates are stabilizing fine.


In 6-8 months I'll try to post an update. I do expect an eventual resurgence on some level, and plan to immediately add more dog dewormer at the first sign of BCP.

The idea of turning off your Skimmer is that the dewormer is supposed to take 72 hours to be effective. In this case, and after 3 bouts of fighting (over the course of 2 years) 2 with skimmer on, last one with skimmer off, skimmer off was more effective. My tank actually failed (i posted about this also, Red Sea xxl 750 seam fail, just got a new tank from RS even though it was over warranty, and will restart fresh, but that's another story). BCP should be banned from the trade, they are a scourge. As a side note, when my tank failed, i moved a bunch of live rock to my other 180 g tank, which had some GSP, and miraculously, most of the GSP shriveled up. I am pretty sure this was from live rock transferring some fenbendazole to the other tank and freaking GSP out. Could be a good option for those who also made the mistake early on of adding GSP to their tanks and want to get rid of it safely without a major hassle of taking out rocks or tearing down the tank.

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

I see.

My skimmer is an ultra reef that I fitted with the Red Sea sensor that turns down the pump to regulate the skimmer. That probably prevents accidentally skimming the FenBenzadol out of the water before it's well mixed.

After a few hours, I'm sure you don't need to worry about that. If a skimmer was capable of pulling all the Fenbenzdole out of the water, why the carbon and water changes?

I strongly think that most people are dosing much too high of a concentration, but for too short a duration.


If I had to do it again, I'd mix up a few packets of dewormer in a dosing container and have it dose a little every day until I see a result, then half the dose every day for a few days, observe. That'd allow me to find out how much it really takes to start being effective in my particular tank, so that I know what to do when it pops back up in a few months.

 

[Tritie]

Has anyone used fenbendazole from Fenben Labs? I started treatment for BCP yesterday at 2mg per gal. Coming up on 12 hours and looks like I never added a thing.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

Has anyone used fenbendazole from Fenben Labs? I started treatment for BCP yesterday at 2mg per gal. Coming up on 12 hours and looks like I never added a thing.

Greetings, Your post is #710 If you have time go back to post #533. This begins my bcp journey. I dosed 1-4 gram packet of Panocur C. Did the trick. Thankfully. Good luck.

 

[Tritie]

Greetings, Your post is #710 If you have time go back to post #533. This begins my bcp journey. I dosed 1-4 gram packet of Panocur C. Did the trick. Thankfully. Good luck.

You dosed ~20mg/gallon?

 

[Reefasaurus X]

Has anyone used fenbendazole from Fenben Labs? I started treatment for BCP yesterday at 2mg per gal. Coming up on 12 hours and looks like I never added a thing.

I’ve used the fenben labs product in the white bottle and found it to be useless. I have always had success with Thomas labs, Fish Bendazole, but they don’t make it anymore. I just ordered some panacur c upon peoples recommendation.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

You dosed ~20mg/gallon?

My tank was and still is a 200 gallon system. I dosed one 4 gram packet of fendbenozol powder under the product and package name Panacur C.

 

[Reefasaurus X]

I had BCP in my tank - I thought it looked great - staying confined (by neighboring coral) - probably was eating small things like parasites, bacteria - and filtering the water. I don't want to debate - because every situation is different - but - can you explain that statement - that they are definitiely hindering SPS growth? Because - there are a lot of tanks without Blue clove polyps that have the same problem. What I'm trying to say is - If the conditions are right in your tank, blue polyps will not take over SPS. If this were the case, the entire ocean would be Green star polyps or clove polyps. I might consider that before this dosing adventure

You’re asking a legitimate question. The difference in the conditions of a tank and in nature are very different. In nature, GSP or BCP couldn’t take over the entire ocean because it would get shaded out by SPS and LPS colonies that grow very large, not to mention fish that feed on certain corals. That’s just one example. I had a tank that had become 20% BCP on every open surface. It definitely inhibits the growth of SPS. I suspect that chemically there’s something in a tank that happens when you have so much soft Coral. But more specifically SPS has to encrust over the BCP to grow, and that’s much harder to do than growing over an unclaimed surface. I had no choice but to use this full tank treatment and it’s the best thing I ever did. Once your tank is infested, there’s no spot treatment that’s going to work.

 

[jda]

You don't need much fenbendazole to kill them over time. If you want it done now, then it takes more. Faster = riskier. The small amount in the AngelfishPlus food kills them over time and if you keep feeding the food, then they stay gone. Be patient.

 

[MnFish1]

You’re asking a legitimate question. The difference in the conditions of a tank and in nature are very different. In nature, GSP or BCP couldn’t take over the entire ocean because it would get shaded out by SPS and LPS colonies that grow very large, not to mention fish that feed on certain corals. That’s just one example. I had a tank that had become 20% BCP on every open surface. It definitely inhibits the growth of SPS. I suspect that chemically there’s something in a tank that happens when you have so much soft Coral. But more specifically SPS has to encrust over the BCP to grow, and that’s much harder to do than growing over an unclaimed surface. I had no choice but to use this full tank treatment and it’s the best thing I ever did. Once your tank is infested, there’s no spot treatment that’s going to work.

I was able to keep it in at bay by separating it onto one rock. I understand, though, your delimma.

 

[Reefasaurus X]

I was able to keep it in at bay by separating it onto one rock. I understand, though, your delimma.

That was a smart move.

 

[littlebigreef]

I think there's some really useful information being shared here.

In #709 @Fasthandsslowmind

"I strongly think that most people are dosing much too high of a concentration, but for too short a duration."

I think a different way to view this is that a strong initial dose knocks out the bulk but not necessarily everything. I found this to be the case on my initial treatment. However, about a year later I had to dose again and then I did a second full-dose follow up treatment 6-7 weeks later. That was the last I've ever seen of them in my system.

I think both approaches can be effective. Its just a matter of 1) how long you're willing to have your clean up crew out 2) how long you want your skimmer off and 3) How long you want any non-targeted softies, blue ridge coral, etc in a holding tank.

In #710 @Tritie

"I started treatment for BCP yesterday at 2mg per gal. Coming up on 12 hours and looks like I never added a thing."

The Thomas Labs (discontinued) had been the go to. It would seem the alternative from Fenben Labs is ineffective. Its been my experience that it's immediately noticeable in the first half hour and then more so in the initial 12 hours.

In #711 @Glenner’sreef

"I dosed 1-4 gram packet of Panocur C to 200 gal"

It seems that with Thomas Labs discontinued Panocur is the best option. I've been wondering what was an effective dose/ concentration for the Panocur option so thank you for sharing!

In #716 @jda

"You don't need much fenbendazole to kill them over time. If you want it done now, then it takes more. Faster = riskier. The small amount in the AngelfishPlus food kills them over time and if you keep feeding the food, then they stay gone."

I've seen you post this solution on the thread previously. Everyone has different tolerances for risk and (to the extent people claim they closely follow the directions) some folks have had different results. My own experience with dosing is that its not inherently riskier to do a large dose up front. I found myself in the unfortunate ****uation when I also had to dose ReefFlux for Bryopsis concurrently. Fortunately the problems were taken care of on both accounts without any ill-effects.

I just want to say thank you to everyone for keeping this thread alive and current with the products available. I often refer other reefers back to it when they're dealing with BCP infestations (aka - the gd devil) lol.

 

[Tritie]

I have dosed 222mg of Fenben Lab's fenbendazole in my Fluval Evo 13.5 after the initial 2mg/gal did not work. All I really have are mushrooms and zoas in there, but there are 2-3 LPS frags. Its been 12 hours again and everything is still happy, even bristle worms and limpets. Going to do a 5 gal water change ad run some AC. I have some Safeguard suspension for my horse. I've been reading on other threads that people here have dosed it to get rid of GSP and xenia. Haven't seen any detrimental results in those posts, though I do need to get in there and read a bit more. I will likely try this route and hope it works. If not, I will order some panacure.