(upbeat percussion music)
- All right, this is actually going to be a fun one for me.
You might think that coral dips,
what are they? Who cares?
But you know what?
There's actually some really cool stuff.
So, best of 2019
coral dips,
we're going to share this all with you,
starting with most popular and then
- [Andrew] Yeah, most popular,
for general pests,
so kind of like your
once-over type deal,
but then there's some specific ones
like best for euphyllia, LPS, and softies,
best for algae,
probably a DIY
for SPS,
and then we'll wrap it up with
- Best in show
and then what we'd like to see for 2020.
All right, so most popular in 2019,
as voted by you guys, ones you guys are picking up,
which one is it?
- [Andrew] Boom, Coral RX.
Yeah, I mean, this one has been around for quite a while,
and we used it in a couple videos where we
gave you our whole dipping procedure,
and it's one of those natural-type ones,
probably like tea tree oil or something like that
and a few other things.
- Yeah, so there's a lot of them have pine oil and whatnot.
So, this is the number one, as voted by you guys,
most popular of 2019.
All right, so best of 2019 for general pests.
I mean, what does general pests mean before we hit it?
- Yeah, I think everybody should have some kind of coral dip
in their cabinet or what have you
and at least dip everything,
so if you're not going to get into all the different
types of dips and specific ones,
there should be one for general pests,
and these are like nudibranch-type pests
or maybe some flatworm-type pests or things like that.
- [Ryan] Fireworms, bristleworms.
- [Andrew] Yeah, absolutely.
- [Ryan] Yeah, all kinds of copepods and stuff
that fall off.
So, just general one,
it's really kind of like a three-way tie.
You can pick up any one of these things.
They're all really about the same thing.
So, Coral RX,
the KoralMD from Brightwell,
and the Coral ReVive from Two Little Fishes,
all very, very similar products.
All of them, you open it up,
instantly, it smells like PineSol.
It's those types of oils,
irritates those pests.
Some of it just straight-up kills them.
A lot of times, it just causes them to fall off,
especially if you're swishing it.
They'll crawl out of their little crevices,
and you can literally see on the bottom
everything that came out of it.
Also, super, super safe.
- Yeah. - Right?
You're not really going to kill anything in this.
You could do it without a lot of concern about
hurting any coral,
just a generic, easy dip.
That's probably why they're the most popular.
By the way, this was the most popular one out there,
and right behind it was actually ReVive, so
the two most popular.
That's why it's in that general group of coral dips.
So, most popular or actually the best,
if you're just going to use it,
use any one of these three.
We should probably actually maybe next year do
like a cost analysis
because some of them are more concentrated than others,
and so if they're all kind of the same,
get the cheapest one.
All right, so now we're moving on to using the right tool
for the right job
and best coral dip for euphyllia,
for green star polyps, for softies,
zoanthids, which are super popular to dip.
What is it?
- Yeah, some of the brown algaes and infections
and things like that.
These are iodine-based dips,
and the two most popular on our site
is the Topic Marin Pro-Coral and the
Brightwell MediCoral.
So, impossible to say
which one works better than the other because
I just don't think you can have a viable test for that,
but when it comes to value-wise,
this one's way cheaper
because it makes like 60 gallons, based on their
concentration, versus like 10 gallons
based on their concentration,
so I can get a lot more use out of that one.
- This one costs like $3 more, I think,
or something like that, but
again, you make like five times as much,
so I, again, also, I can't definitively tell you
one of these is better than the other,
but I'm going to buy based on cost, so
best one for the year, I'm just going to go with the
MediCoral from Brightwell.
It's the best option.
Again, in this case, what we're doing
is trying to fight infections and stuff,
and you can see all kinds of videos out there on YouTube
where people take like
zoanthids that are totally closed up, right?
And then you dip them, and all of a sudden,
tomorrow, they're open.
Green star polyps that mysteriously won't open,
same thing, right?
And that brown bacterial slime that infects
a lot of euphyllia,
totally solve that as well.
It's like an antiseptic-type of dip,
and I will tell you that I used it a lot on zoanthids
combined with freshwater dips to get the nudis and stuff
off of them, and so they'll just jettison
and jump right off, right? - Yeah.
- And you'll see them floating around the bottom.
So, for that type of coral,
best of the 2019 is the MediCoral from Brightwell.
Okay, so again,
right tool for the right job.
Best of 2019 for fighting or eliminating algae
from your frag plugs and not adding all that to your system,
which one is it?
Yeah, this is direct advice from WWC.
We got Josh on the phone here, and
I've seen it used around the office and everything, too,
and it's hydrogen peroxide.
So, go to your local grocery store, pharmacy, what have you,
grab some peroxide.
Now, there are some caveats to that.
WWC uses it on zoas,
where they will fully immerse zoas in a solution,
but no more than like five minutes
because they can't handle it,
but some other corals and a lot of LPSs and SPSs,
Josh said, was like a little more sensitive
to the hydrogen peroxide,
where they won't even dip it in the solution
for any amount of time.
Rather, take the frag plug,
or if you've got a big LPS with a solid skeletal base,
and there's some algae on it, you can kind of
dip it in there and brush it off,
or just take a toothbrush,
dip it in the hydrogen peroxide,
scrub the frag plug off,
but it's that hydrogen peroxide that does kill the algae.
- So, this is a big deal
because you can get altha, you can get bryopsis,
you can get all kinds of really nasty algaes.
They come out, like all kinds of weird ones,
and they come on the base of your LPS.
They come riddled within the rock of your zoanthid colony,
and you just don't want to add
that to your tank, right? - Yeah.
You can see it growing on the
frag plug, right? - Yeah.
And so, hydrogen peroxide works super, super well on that,
and so one of the things that you've seen
is make sure to kind of swish the coral.
If you're going to dip the whole coral in it,
you can try it by diluting it even,
going from like five-to-one
or 20% solution to water,
but in that case, you just want to swish it
and make sure that all the zoanthids close up first,
and they're protecting themselves,
and then dip it for a pretty short period of time,
a matter of minutes, and it will
actually kill all of the algae that's on there,
and then you won't be adding that to your tank.
You can, like he said, also take really fine touches to it.
Grab a paintbrush and literally paint it
onto the algae around the frag plug.
You could dip just the frag plug in there
and not hit the actual coral.
You could use a toothbrush with some of it on there,
but in this case, you're going to get all that off there.
Especially on your
euphyllia,
- The skeletal, yeah. - the skeletal structure
that has all kinds of stuff on it a lot of time,
take a little bit of that stuff.
You can dip the whole thing in there,
or you can just kind of scrub it off with some of this.
Works super well.
We've actually used it in tanks where
they had like total plague algae outbreak.
- Oh, yeah.
- And you can just take something like this
and literally spray it right on the rock.
- Yeah, the clownfish harem tank,
Chad would drain it down to like 25%
and then spray the algae directly with hydrogen peroxide,
let it sit, fill it back up like a water change.
It doesn't pollute the water.
It oxidizes itself out, right?
And then,
you're good to go,
and it did take care of the algae problem in that tank.
- Yeah, I mean, it won't get down to the roots.
It may come back in that case, but
like on your frag plugs, it usually works
super, super, super well,
so for algae, using the right tool for the right job.
Most of these will not kill algae.
This guy will.
I continue on that line of
right tool for the right job.
Best DIY coral dip for SPS,
what is it?
- Yeah, this is one I've used personally
because I've had acro-eating flatworms
nearly wipe out my system.
Fragged everything, put them in the tank.
Bayer Complete Insecticide Killer,
it's all over the forums.
Many of you guys seen it out there,
and this is one
that you just don't take lightly.
If you're going to use it, you don't take it lightly.
Safety is the number one key here.
- Yeah, so all those insecticides have all kinds of
health issues and stuff with them,
so you don't want to put your hands in the solution.
You're going to wear Arma gloves
and not get it on your skin.
Who knows what it's going to do to you, but it's not good,
so read the instructions on the back of it,
and make sure to not
breathe it or get it on you or whatnot,
but
it kills acro-eating flatworms, for sure.
- It did for me,
and even Josh said
a while back that he used to use them all the time.
Maybe at home, he probably uses it, too,
if he was going to,
but it did actually work.
It worked for me,
like eggs and everything.
- They explicitly said that it just doesn't work
in a work environment,
but you can make your own risks at home.
I don't know.
I actually probably wouldn't unless I really needed to,
but I'll say for acro-eating flatworms,
you can get a lot of things to get them to fall off,
right? - Mhm.
So, just clipping it off of the base at that point,
making sure you don't get any of those eggs or anything
actually solves a lot of the problem right there
without the dip,
but if you want to do a DIY dip for that,
it's super, super common.
You can go out there and read about
the concentrations that people are making.
You're not dipping it in 100% strength that
or anything like that. - No, no, no, no.
- Go find out,
and the community kind of evolves every year
in how they use it and how much they do,
so go read about it, but it's the Bayer Complete
Insecticide.
Really does a number on acro-eating flatworms.
All right, so best in show of 2019.
Which one of these is the best available coral dip out here?
- [Andrew] Which one was my go?
You know, it depends on what I'm treating,
and so of course,
the right tool for the right job.
I'm going to use this in a specific case.
I'm going to use these in a specific case.
I'm going to use these in another specific case,
not like one for everything.
- [Ryan] Yeah, I agree 100%.
So, once you start to understand
a coral dip isn't a coral dip isn't a coral dip
and are all used for a very specific purpose,
I can use these on pretty much everything.
Then, when I have euphyllia, and I have zoanthids
and whatnot, I can start to use these
for a very specific purpose.
If I got algae and I don't want to add algae,
I'm using it for a very specific purpose,
so there isn't really a best
in show of 2019, other than
really acknowledging that you use the right tool
for the right job.
All right, so what we'd like to see
for advancements in coral dips in 2020.
- I mean, this is not a really technical area,
but there are some improvements that we'd like to see.
I'd like to see some better info
on the bottles of what it does.
Some of them have here on like,
"Removes monti and nudibranchs,"
and it has a list of things that it does.
It doesn't have which corals can it work on
because we talked to Josh at WWC, and he says
some of these, they don't work on corals.
He wouldn't put corals in, certain types of corals in them,
while others, he would,
so maybe some little research on that
on testing some corals.
I mean, we can easily frag off a few pieces
and try them out on different ones
and see the results.
- So, absolutely.
So, I know a lot of the information always comes
from the community and how they're doing it, but
I'd like to see all of these guys
up their game a little bit, and some of these things,
maybe the concentration of this works okay
for chalice, or
maybe it needs to be a little lighter
for that type of coral than a zoanthid,
which is capable of protecting itself a little better.
So, I'd like better information on all these,
what you can use it on
and maybe different strengths and stuff,
and this is totally stuff that they could do on their own
and do experiments.
You could give better advice to all of us on how to use it,
and I think in that, I'd also like to see a dipping kit,
right? - Yeah, if you line up
a small sample of each one of these bottles,
and maybe half a size,
but an iodine-based one, one of these tea tree
or these natural-type ones, maybe,
and you'll probably get into this one next,
but maybe peroxide in a bottle, too,
or just a kit that says, "You could dip your corals
in all of these.
Here's the types of corals, and here's which ones
to use them," but
I only have to buy one thing,
and I can cover almost every coral that I want to bring in,
so that would be awesome.
- Then distinct advice on how to use it.
- Yeah. - "On zoanthid,
you can do a two-step dip.
On your acros, only one step."
And you could really find out how to use these things
to a better effect, so I'd love to see a little kit
that tells you how to do this,
gives you a little bit more advice.
And then, lastly, I'd actually like to see peroxide dip
come out, right? - (laughs)
- I mean, that seems kind of crazy.
You guys can just go out and buy one of these things,
and it's just fine. - Yeah.
- [Ryan] Right?
However,
when they start to make it,
two things will happen.
One, more people will know
that you can use peroxide as a dip
and fight all of those algaes in your tank
because they will literally probably say,
"Coral algae frag remover,"
or whatever on the front of it,
and like, "Well, now I know what it does."
It's not "hydrogen peroxide topical solution USP".
- Yeah. - Right?
And then, second,
they can start to play with it a little bit and say,
"Ah, you know what?
This is the right strength for
your zoanthids and acans and whatnot, but for SPS,
you can still do it, but it's really, really low."
Who knows?
So, they can give you directions
in a way that this brown bottle
is never going to tell you, right?
- Yeah. - So, do-it-yourself community
out there, man, go buy this.
I would probably buy this myself
and just save some money,
but at the same time,
the existence of the retail one
shares so much information with everybody out there
that it's valuable to know
that there is a dip out there for that,
so I'd like to see somebody come out with
something similar or a hydrogen peroxide-based dip
and be open about what it's inside of it,
and pay two extra bucks for
a picture of a coral on the front, I guess.
I don't know, but
let's expand the knowledge of how to use these things,
and that's my goal.
So, if you want to see
all of these coral dips, you can go over to our website,
and there's a little coral dip category.
You can see what everybody thinks about each one of these,
whether or not they agree with
our approach our how we use it.
So, head on over to the site,
and check out our coral dips.