If you’ve been trading corals for any length of time now, you probably already know how easy it is to get coral coodies, pests, and parasites. Therefore all reefers are encouraged to dip most corals before introduction to the tank but did you know, that simple dipping is not really enough to remove some pests?
Although most coral dips will shock or stun many coral pests, you still should use moving water to dislodge and remove tough buggers, especially Acro Eating Flatworms and Tegastes copepods. If you’re dipping a few frags at a time it’s simple enough to create a jet of water with a baster or a small powerhead, but larger fragging operations may need something more substantial.
This where the Coral Typhoon comes in, introducing reefers to the first automatic coral-dip washing machine. The Coral Typhoon consists of a circular vessel made of polypropylene with an attached powerful Blueline water pump. The pump is plumbed primarily to drive a series of small water jet nozzles of a modular locline, but it also produces a spinning water movement inside the container.
The locline water nozzles are easy to position and reposition for maximum washing potential of your coral’s specific shape and the spinning water motion helps to carry the undesirables away from your precious corals. Furthermore, a built-in prefilter is installed in the Coral Typhoon to catch the dislodged pests where they can easily be removed from the coral dip washing machine.
The Coral Typhoon is available in two sizes, a large 7 gallon container for $550 and a smaller 5 gallon container for $500. The price does seem kind of steep for what is essentially a frag rack, tank and a pump but at least the concept is sound, and it encourages more reefers to be more thoughtful and thorough when dipping their corals. [Coral Typhoon]
