What do you use to magnify your corals for visual inspection?

[dbugg]

Jeweler’s glasses? Hands-free magnifying glass? Reading glasses? My first corals are in quarantine and I’m paranoid about making sure they go in the DT pest-free. My DT has been stable and almost perfect for 6 months FOWLR. What works best to inspect your corals for pests? Also, I didn’t re-frag anything before they went in the QT. Now I’m learning I should have. Can I dip them again? How often can I dip them while in QT, without causing damage, if I’m paranoid? Thanks

 

[KrisReef]

How long have the corals been in the tank? Dips and inspections are to remove pests from suspect corals. If you have had them awhile and they are not showing pest issues you can dip them every day for the next year and if they are not there now they are not going to show up in another dip tomorrow?

Removing the bases helps prevent introduction of pest eggs that are layed on the bases, not on the coral flesh.

So if you need to remove them to prevent pests, the time you have observed them without pests is important.

In the future, cutting the frags from old plugs and putting them on new is a good practice, but if the plugs are clean, brand new and without funk then it is pretty easy to know that you don't need to refrag clean corals.

On the other hand, if the plug has tube worms and algae and funk that makes the plug difficult to see, cutting of the frag is a great way to remove possible infection sources. HTH>