Steve089
Active Member
Just wanted to share my first experience with buying corals in my local area and then inspecting, cleaning, dipping them in hydrogen peroxide before I placed them into my mini holding tank.
bought a killer deal on CL: live rock, zoa colonies, GSP, palys, mushrooms. Upon pickup and inspection, the seller had put them individually in plastic containers with tank water, which I appreciated. I immediately noticed the plethora of pest algae that I was able to ID from my prior research, tons of bubble and hair algae.
when I got home, I manually removed as pest algae as I could. then I set up a hydrogen peroxide dip and a rinse cup. for the times and ratios for the dip I admit I was unsure after reading several methods... went with a 1/1 ratio of RODI to peroxide for 3.5 min (in hindsight probably overkill). ended up putting some of the corals on new pieces of rock as well.
when I inspected the palys and zoas after the dip, there was so much slime I thought I had nuked the coral. wasn’t pretty at all. the zoas retracted and began to bubble a little at the top of the polyps...I felt immediately regretful and unsure of myself...fast forward a few weeks later and the coral is doing great! the dip seemed to kill all of the hair algae still on the frags.
wanted to share with you all because I thought I had a massive mistake, i.e., tons if slime (I never knew corals did this when stressed) corals not opening for about 5 days. I still think I made a risky move and should’ve spent more time learning how to do a hydrogen peroxide dip the proper way for the corals I purchased.
don’t do what I did! consult the wealth of knowledge online, specifically here if you unsure. I lucked out, but next time will not be so hasty in applying any cleaning/dipping technique for the first time without more knowledge on proper methods.
thanks for reading and happy reefing
pic of the setup prior to cleaning frags
bought a killer deal on CL: live rock, zoa colonies, GSP, palys, mushrooms. Upon pickup and inspection, the seller had put them individually in plastic containers with tank water, which I appreciated. I immediately noticed the plethora of pest algae that I was able to ID from my prior research, tons of bubble and hair algae.
when I got home, I manually removed as pest algae as I could. then I set up a hydrogen peroxide dip and a rinse cup. for the times and ratios for the dip I admit I was unsure after reading several methods... went with a 1/1 ratio of RODI to peroxide for 3.5 min (in hindsight probably overkill). ended up putting some of the corals on new pieces of rock as well.
when I inspected the palys and zoas after the dip, there was so much slime I thought I had nuked the coral. wasn’t pretty at all. the zoas retracted and began to bubble a little at the top of the polyps...I felt immediately regretful and unsure of myself...fast forward a few weeks later and the coral is doing great! the dip seemed to kill all of the hair algae still on the frags.
wanted to share with you all because I thought I had a massive mistake, i.e., tons if slime (I never knew corals did this when stressed) corals not opening for about 5 days. I still think I made a risky move and should’ve spent more time learning how to do a hydrogen peroxide dip the proper way for the corals I purchased.
don’t do what I did! consult the wealth of knowledge online, specifically here if you unsure. I lucked out, but next time will not be so hasty in applying any cleaning/dipping technique for the first time without more knowledge on proper methods.
thanks for reading and happy reefing
pic of the setup prior to cleaning frags
