I understand using this if prized a coral is heading down hill, but do you use this every time even when the coral is not showing signs of issues? If so it may be best to give the coral a period of observation before deciding if this is necessary. There can be major issues with using antibiotics frequently even when they may not be necessary.
There is significant discussion going on elsewhere (not sure if it is frowned on to link to other sources here).
I actually do not distinguish between expensive or budget corals. last year, I had almost 15 euphyllia, gathered from both online and local vendors. over the past 2 years. Then that one last piece I added last fall, contaminated my system. My single euphyllia frags were popping heads off every week. Even the ones that were splitting and almost double heads, would have one head pop, pulling the second one with it. That was particularly frustrating, since the LPS died off before it could reproduce. I had to stop adding euphyllia till I figured out how to stop the spread. I was about to let all the LPS die out, then let the system be fallow of LPS. Luckily ciprofloxacin stopped it. I have only a forth of my euphyllia survive the event. If I started treatment earlier, I may still have them. As for proof the cipro was working, I have a colony of the original purple tipped, green "frammer" frogspawn, which has been in the hobby for decades. That colony I assumed would survive, but no. there where 6 heads, but once I saw it was also affected, I knew this was a serous infection and assumed the worst. With cipro I stopped the infection in its tracks and still have 2 heads of that colony survive today. I didn't try to frag it, since the heads were still interconnected.
I have another post regarding the difficulty of adapting euphyllia, where I hypothesize the possible differences between species that have been grown in captivity for years as being the most adaptable and hardy, followed by aquacultured, then wild harvested, being the weakest. I have since changed my hypothesis.
Reefs.com Discussion - Hi all, So we've all heard about the "difficult" LPS, like torches, which are hard to keep, sensitive, "melts" right after they get home. People try to break them down into the Aussie vs Indo strains, how the higher prices are justified, due to them being harder to raise...
www.manhattanreefs.com
So now I use a bare bottom, 5 gallon tank, with a drop in filter and a blue LED fixture. I only use 2 gallons of seawater in there and hold the LPS for 7 days. The only modification from Fish Doctor Humble procedure is that he doses cipro on odd number days, of 1, 3 and 5. Since I prepare so much antibiotics with one 500 mg tablet in 50 mL of water, I am dosing twice daily of 3 drops of solution, to hit the same target therapeutic levels.
There are anecdotal reports of bacterial tolerance to the antibiotic, which is why I do not plan on dosing the main system again. I just added a new euphyllia with this process last week. I will have to see how it does in the coming months to see if the process is successful or not, but initial observations are positive.
