Red Sea has come up with a fancy way to describe its new coral dip by referring to it as an, “induction bath”. Time will tell if this vernacular sticks or not but it is a reef dip nonetheless. Last week, we learned a little about DipX when our sales representative came by for his scheduled visit with us at Aquarium Specialty.
According to Red Sea, DipX is a highly effective dip for safely introducing new corals and live rocks to your aquarium. All it takes is a 15-minute bath in DipX before placing a new coral in the aquarium and it will drive away unwanted “hitchhikers”, thereby maintaining the safety of your reef.
As many of us know, new corals often come with unwanted “hitchhikers” hidden deep inside the corals’ crevices. These various tiny creatures are often invisible to the naked eye, and once in the aquarium, they can spread to other corals and potentially damage our delicate reef eco-systems.
Over the years, reef hobbyists have used various brands of reef dips and even generic baths solutions such as fresh water, Iodine or even household disinfectants, all of which repel some of the hitchhikers, but not all of them.
For the past few years, Red Sea has been cultivating tanks with infested corals and comparing a wide range of commercially available dips and other repelling ingredients, examining both their effectiveness and their overall safety for the corals.
The result of their research is DipX – a unique blend of essential oils, without inorganic disinfectants. Red Seas observation and tests have shown that DipX is completely safe for all varieties of coral and more effective than any other solution they have tested to date. There is no mention of what brands they have tested but it would be interesting to know if they have tested all of the major brands of dips that are commonly used.
According to Red Sea, corals that were bathed in DipX still shed unwanted “hitchhikers”, even though they were previously dipped in other solutions. On the other hand, corals that were dipped in other solutions after they were bathed in DipX did not repel or shed anything.
DipX sounds like a great product but like other coral dip products, it doesn’t kill any unhatched eggs deposited on the coral or substrate. To our knowledge no coral dip is effective at killing unhatched eggs at this point in time. Perhaps someone will eventually figure out an all-in-one solution that kills eggs and adults. Until that day, then we strongly recommend setting up a quarantine tank, isolating corals for a minimum of 30 days and dipping them every 7-14 days before moving the new coral into the main display tank.
