Another option for red bugs

thanks Whisperer - this is amazing

For 17 years I have never had an issue. Now I have been fighting bugs / worms all winter. I have used everything available to fight whatever nasty parasites I have (several different ones). I have lost 60% of my corals.

So last night I took my huge orange cap and some acros and I dipped em in 2 gallons of mix (64 ml of Bayer). Found all kinds if bugs, worms, pods, dirt, crap, and other junk. I am at a point where I do not know what is good or bad on the corals I have left so I just want them pristine and clean.

I looked this morning and nothing is dead - that is good. It is a little early to tell if this got em all, I will probably dip again this weekend.

Looks like this is safe so far. It is much cheaper than the Coral RX, Revive, Lugols, Prohibit (levamisole hydrochloride), Interceptor that I have used all winter. Even using these treatments, I still was having issues. Now for the past 3 - 4 weeks it looks like things are stable. I am just going to treat a few of the corals I want to try to save.
 
Great results Vincent, BTW what is the second orange colony with the orange polyps?
Thanks. I don't know what it is too. It was red with purple tip and long red polyps, however, I think the AEFW makes it looks orange. It was almost death if I didn't trim the dead base months ago.

My tank still has RB on other frags and I can't take them out because they already encrust on my rock. I'm not sure RB will return to the Garf Bonsai or not. I decide to use interceptor next week to treat the whole tank. Bayer is only for dipping new corals.

Here are my experiences with these little bugs. Not every SPS will be damage by these. I can see at least 6 frags have them but only the Garf Bonsai was brown and lost color, the others are still ok and grow well so far.

Here are they.
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2 gallons of mix (64 ml of Bayer).

This dose seems high to me. Recommended dose was .5ml per 2 cup of tank water. 2 gallons of tank water, the dose should have only been 16ml of Bayer Advanced. I'm I not doing the math right ? How are you corals doing today ?
 
I also thought it was a little concentrated when I read his post. I think his corals should be fine as long as dipping time was not too long. I do think that the exposure time is more significant than the concentration (within a reasonable ratio, of course). A higher concentration like his should make exposure/dipping time less since the red bugs will be killed faster, that's just my thought.
 
Of the three current treatments - Interceptor (in tank), Bayer Advanced (outside tank) and Ivermectin (outside tank?) - this treatment is the one I know the least about. Can you provide some details or links on your treatment - duration of treament, dosage, time corals out of tank, product (sounds like you got a different product than the Heartguard product)?

I assume this is an out of tank treatment. I would prefer out of tank vs in-tank (still trying to figure out how to remove a couple well encrusted frags) - afraid "nuking the entire tank of all pods" will have it's own drawbacks.


For out of tank treatments, how do you deal with stray RBs within display system, that might re-infect corals once they're re-introduced?
I did this in a QT tank for 24 hours, treatment is for 50 gallons. Add 3.4ml of ivermectin to 10ml of proplylene glycol and shake well. Slowly pour this into a strong current in the aquarium. Allow to circulate for 12 hours, then use active carbon filter for at least 12 hours. Repeat every 2 weeks for 3 treatments. MAY KILL ARTHROPODS AND OTHER MARINE INVERTEBRATES. I only had to do the treatment once though. I did mine in a QT tank because I had a few sps on large LR and so I did not will my inverts.
I have found that the red bugs stay on the acros as long as you are not blowing them off.
 
I also thought it was a little concentrated when I read his post. I think his corals should be fine as long as dipping time was not too long. I do think that the exposure time is more significant than the concentration (within a reasonable ratio, of course). A higher concentration like his should make exposure/dipping time less since the red bugs will be killed faster, that's just my thought.

I decided to use this method to dip two newly bought frags before putting them in my tank. I had read through this entire thread a few times and double and triple checked to make sure I was buying the correct Bayer product. I must have been rushing through my reading, and I failed to notice that the instructions said, "0.5ml 'dip' per two cups of water," of which I failed to see the . and interpreted it as 5ml per two cups. I actually wanted to play it on the cautious side, and went with 4ml, which turned out to be about 8x's the proposed dose. Needless to say, this concentrated mixture browned out my frags badly. I don't even know if the frags had any pests on them because my dip was so milky white I couldn't even see through the water. This was done on Monday, and although the frags look stressed out and brown, they're still alive and do have some PE. In trying to figure out what the maximum concentrate the corals can take, I would say 8x's the dose is pushing the limit.
 
I find that they do get stunned by the dip and fall off easily especially when you swirl the coral. They do die a few minutes later (see post #49, page 2).
 
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I have a couple of questions....

1. In this thread, I've seen reference made to Bayer Advanced Insect Killer AND Bayer Home Defense w/ germ killer. Both have completely different active ingredients.

Since they have different active ingredients, which product do I use? How are we figuring out which active ingredient is actually killing the red bugs, and least stressful on the corals?

2. I see both that Advanced Insect Killer comes in a liquid or granular form. The dosing recommendation of 0.5ml/2 cups tank water, I assume is for the liquid form? Has anyone used the granular form or figured out a dosage recommendation, for the granular form?

Okay another question....lol.

3. In looking at Lowes website, I'm seeing the following:

BAYER ADVANCED 15 Lbs. 24-Hour Grub Killer Plus Granules

BAYER ADVANCED 4 Lbs. 12-Month Tree and Shrub Protect and Feed Granules

BAYER ADVANCED 32 Oz. Complete Insect Killer Concentrate (liquid)

I wonder, with the liquid version, since it's "concentrate," if that changes dosage at all.

At Home Depot's website, I'm finding 10 Bayer Advanced products. Again, I'm seeing liquid "ready to use" and liquid "concentrate." I'm interested to know which has been used, here, to figure out dosage.

http://www.homedepot.com/Outdoors-G...Id=10053&Nu=P_PARENT_ID&omni=b_Bayer Advanced



I recently picked up a couple corals that have red bugs. One is infested, one has a few on it. They are currently in a QT environment, awaiting dip. I do have CoralRx that I can use, as well as Interceptor, but had thought about trying this newly discovered method.

BTW, Whisper, thank you for having the guts to try this out, and report back the success!!
 
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This is what I use, Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer for Lawns Qt Concentrate
http://www.homedepot.com/Outdoors-G...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
Model # 700270
Store SKU # 722056
I bought mine at HD for 12.99 and TAX. It's the 40oz (25% more)

I have Coral RX too but it is the one that I get for free and the Reefapalooza for free. I'm not sure about the quality of the liquid gel one but the free stuff isn't good. I dip my coral with it, some RB fall off but some were still on the coral even though I sake it.
 
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