Micro dose of flucozanole

Mickey · May 7, 2024

@Jimbo327 - OK. I get your point. Can you confirm that 200mg per 10 gal (1 capsule per 10 gal) will kill GHA quickly without harming any anemonies or toadstools? I'd much rather get rid of this stuff more quickly as long as it's safe.

At this point I'm at day 5 with the lower dose and my anemones are really looking bad. Several have dropped off the rock and are now sitting on the sand. All are very pulled in. Also have several toadstools that aren't happy. I don't know if this is because of the fluc, or the hair algae, or something else. Very frustrating. I've already lost several large euphyllia colonies to the hair algae and don't want to lose anything else.

Dburr1014 · May 7, 2024

Jimbo327 said:
I'm a big fan of fluconazole for GHA/Bryopsis or fish disease, so I'm not against it at all. I used it to treat my own tank. I'm just saying this antifungal should be used at a dosage that works quickly, and then removed from the system via carbon, etc. We don't want any organisms to gain resistance to fluconazole because it is not killed by the medication (due to low dose or keeping in the system long term), and anything (i.e. mold) allowed to evolve to resist. Mold that can resist will be very bad for your health and home if you can't kill it.

IME, fluconazole used for GHA takes 21 days.
That's full dose, half dose, 1/4 dose, micro dose. In my experiences, which is really not long, it's 21 days. But I have also read that in numerous threads.

Would you rather do a micro dose or full dose knowing in the end it will have the same outcome?
Me, micro dose, and try not to upset the system to much.

Jimbo327 · May 8, 2024

21 days for GHA is about right. I did half dose (1 capsule per 20gal). I don't have any anemones, so I can't say. But I didn't have any casualties when dosing Reef Flux at half dose for 21 days. I was battling bryopsis and GHA. And I did manually remove as much algae by hand as possible before I dosed. When the bryopsis/GHA melts, all that nutrients goes back into your tank. So I did run a little GFO during treatment. I ran carbon and ozone after 21 days to remove the fluconazole.

Dburr1014 · May 8, 2024

MickeyCT said:
@Jimbo327 - OK. I get your point. Can you confirm that 200mg per 10 gal (1 capsule per 10 gal) will kill GHA quickly without harming any anemonies or toadstools? I'd much rather get rid of this stuff more quickly as long as it's safe.

At this point I'm at day 5 with the lower dose and my anemones are really looking bad. Several have dropped off the rock and are now sitting on the sand. All are very pulled in. Also have several toadstools that aren't happy. I don't know if this is because of the fluc, or the hair algae, or something else. Very frustrating. I've already lost several large euphyllia colonies to the hair algae and don't want to lose anything else.

What type of anemone is it?

My rainbow bbt didn't skip a beat when I initially dosed 2/3 full dose. Nor my clam, snails, shrimp, hermits, ect.

Because they pulled in right away I'm thinking it's the fluconazole.

Mickey · May 8, 2024

It's a rose anemone, or rather a bunch of them (5-7). It's split many, many times over the years and I've even traded some back to the fish store. The last few weeks leading up to this it (they?) hasn't look good, but is much worse since I added the fluconazole. I continue to manually remove what I can, but only what can be siphoned off without brushing and removing no more than 1 or 2 gallons of water. Then I filter the water and put it back in the tank. I figured that adding fresh water at this point is like a water change and might help the algae out.

Yesterday they did look a bit better, not good but less bad, so maybe they are on the way back.

REEFRIED! · May 9, 2024

Update. So it’s been 6 days since I did a micro dose for GHA. I only did 3/4 of a pill for 110 gallons. I know I could have done more but wanted to start slow. I am hesitant to add things like this to my tank. I know it takes awhile for it to work on GHA. Yesterday I think I noticed some of it turning white-ish on the tips. Maybe I was just thinking/ hoping it was!!

Mickey · May 9, 2024

That's good news. We're about at the same point. I'm not seeing any visual changes yet, but I still try to siphon out part of the reef every other day and I'm seeing big wads of it being siphoned off so I'm also taking that as a good sign.

Dburr1014 · May 9, 2024

MickeyCT said:
That's good news. We're about at the same point. I'm not seeing any visual changes yet, but I still try to siphon out part of the reef every other day and I'm seeing big wads of it being siphoned off so I'm also taking that as a good sign.

How is your anemone doing?

Mickey · May 9, 2024

Looking better, not good by any means, but at least tentacles are out.

REEFRIED! · May 11, 2024

Update. I’m 9 days in. I am not sure it’s working yet. The GHA is growing!! Today I am going to prune/scrub some back and add another pill or pill and a half. Then wait the three weeks from today to see what happens. I took some morning no lights pics.

Mickey · May 12, 2024

I'm also at the 9 day point. Not seeing growth, bt not dying either though I am able to siphon some off the rocks in clumps so hopefully it's working.

Bad thing is that I'm seeing bubbles on the rock when lights are out and the areas seem to be growing. That's telling me that the dinos are growing worse. I try to direct my siphon to those spots but doesn't seem to be helping any and may be making things worse. I've been dosing H202 twice a day (except when I forget) for several weeks now but doesn't seem to be helping. Last time I checked (several weeks ago) I had a mix of large and small cell amphidinium with some prorocentrum thrown in. Not sure about now so I'll have to check again.

I figure I'll wait for the two week mark before I add another dose of fluconazole.

Dburr1014 · May 12, 2024

MickeyCT said:
I'm also at the 9 day point. Not seeing growth, bt not dying either though I am able to siphon some off the rocks in clumps so hopefully it's working.

Bad thing is that I'm seeing bubbles on the rock when lights are out and the areas seem to be growing. That's telling me that the dinos are growing worse. I try to direct my siphon to those spots but doesn't seem to be helping any and may be making things worse. I've been dosing H202 twice a day (except when I forget) for several weeks now but doesn't seem to be helping. Last time I checked (several weeks ago) I had a mix of large and small cell amphidinium with some prorocentrum thrown in. Not sure about now so I'll have to check again.

I figure I'll wait for the two week mark before I add another dose of fluconazole.

Read up on dosing silicates too.

Mickey · May 12, 2024

I already dose silica, been doing that for several years after my first bout with dinos based on taricha's posts in various long dino threads.

Mickey · May 12, 2024

As a matter of fact, when this GHA problem first started I let it go because I thought it was diatom growth overrunning the dinos which would have been a good thing. By the time I realized it was GHA and not diatom growth it was too out of control.

Mickey · May 15, 2024

Update..... Day 13 and things are looking somewhat better. Anemones are definitely better, at least most of them. Corals no worse though I think I may still lose the red moon coral, space invader and the duncan. Duncan has been closed since before Christmas. But most of the tufts of hair algae are gone. rocks still covered with "green stuff" and seeing too many signs of dinos and some cyano. Dinos still appear to be LCA and SCA for the most part which do not respond to UV so I've upped my silica dosing. I'll continue with no water changes and no cleaning though I had to wipe the glass as I couldn't see much

.

REEFRIED! · May 16, 2024

MickeyCT said:
Update..... Day 13 and things are looking somewhat better. Anemones are definitely better, at least most of them. Corals no worse though I think I may still lose the red moon coral, space invader and the duncan. Duncan has been closed since before Christmas. But most of the tufts of hair algae are gone. rocks still covered with "green stuff" and seeing too many signs of dinos and some cyano. Dinos still appear to be LCA and SCA for the most part which do not respond to UV so I've upped my silica dosing. I'll continue with no water changes and no cleaning though I had to wipe the glass as I couldn't see much .

I’m glad to hear it is working on the hair algae. Hopefully the Dino’s don’t overtake your tank. I had the same thing happen. Dino’s completely took over. The worst case I’ve ever seen. I actually had to remove all sand, and finally beat them back. Then a couple of months lasted I added some sand in the corners of the tank, and they came back, though not as severe. So I siphoned out all the sand I added. I hate the look of bare bottom but the Dino’s are worse. I think that’s what opened the door for my GHA outbreak. I welcomed it at first, but now I am ready to be done with it.

I was a week and a half into 3/4 of a pill in 110 gallons. I saw no decline in my GHA, I know everyone states that it definitely takes all of the three weeks. I noticed no ill effects of adding the flucanazol, so last Thursday I added another pill and a half. So far nothing has really changed. Today I scrubbed some of my aquascape, with an in tank filter running. I will wait three weeks and see what happens. I will keep this thread updated.

Mickey · May 16, 2024

Good luck to you. I added 3 pills to my system and I'm at the two week mark now. Hair algae tufts are mostly gone but tank still looks a mess. I'm dosing more silica than normal trying to encourage lots of diatoms to outcompete the dinos. I'm trying to hold off cleaning the tank in any way until dinos are outcompeted based on advice from Mack's Reef Dino Support Group on facebook. I saw his talk in a video from DFWMAS. Here's two links about getting rid of dinos, method varies depending on what type you have.

Gtinnel · May 16, 2024

So 5 days ago I dosed .15ml of Reef Flux after fighting bryopsis for much longer than I should have. I got lazy and didn’t change anything in my system, refugium is still running, never turned off the skimmer, and kept my gfo reactor running. Most of the longer bryopsis is already gone. There is a small amount still attached to the rock but it is a very small amount.
I really wish I would’ve done this months ago.