Here’s my review of a rock with purple clove polyps on it dipped in fenbendazole so you don’t have to! 

I found a dip ratio on reef2reef of about 1/4 g of medication to 1 cup of water. Left 2 big rocks in for about 45 minutes, then soaked it in a bucket of tank water without meds for about 30 minutes, then placed directly back in the display tank. After the dip, I did nightly ~10% water changes every night as well as polyfilter pads and carbon. Here are my results:

**Dead within the following week:**
- Kenya trees (unintentional)
- toadstool coral (unintentional)
- purple clove polyps absolutely nuked
- firework clove polyps (unintentional but didn’t mind)
- GSP (unintentional)
- all astrea and trochus snails

**Alive and well:**
- fish
- hermit crabs
- fighting conch snails
- big Mexican turbo snails, nassarius snails, cerith snails
- reef cleaner shrimps (even bred during treatment)
- BTAs
- maxima clam
- urchin
- macro algae
- brittle stars, bristle worms, pods, stomatella snails (obviously some could’ve died but they’re still everywhere)
- hammer coral, alveopora, montipora, cynarina, a lot of different zoas, zoas soaked directly in the fenbendazole, bubble coral, blastomussa, candy cane coral, mushroom corals

I truly don’t know how/why it discriminated in its killing of inverts. Maybe someone in marine biology on here will know why. Soft corals were all universally wiped out besides zoas and mushrooms. 

Overall, I have mixed feelings. I feel very sorry for the snails and coral I killed. I really liked the toadstool. However, if purple clove polyps are really as bad as people say, then it was probably worth it in the long haul. In hindsight, because my clove polyps were only on two, easily-removable rocks, I should’ve tried manual removal first. But if anyone needs a soft coral eradicated, then it could be worth a try. 

Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far!



Fenbendazole vs Purple Clove Polyps: method, results, & review