Another option for red bugs

By this evening the peppermint shrimp was back to normal. The amphipods had a good amount of die off but the mysids seemed to have bounced back too. The emerald crabs were all graveyard dead. More importantly, the biggest Monti started to show some PE this afternoon. The smaller one is a blue polyp brown that never did show much PE to begin with so it is hard to tell. There are two things that I am thinking caused the problems. First, the amount of surface area on a Montipora is much greater than an Acropora frag or even small colony. One of the pieces I dipped measures about 7" x 5", the other was a small one, about 4" x 4". This greater surface area can potentially carry a lot more chemical back into the tank, especially in the porous areas of exposed skelton. There are areas there that looked like sponge.

The second issue I am suspecting is the tremendous amount of slime these guys produce, again potentially soaking up the chemical carrying it back to the tank. There was one tiny nudi that was obviously trying to get off one of the montis after it was placed back in the tank so I think they were still carrying some nasty stuff on them. There is no rock or other material attached to these guys- just the coral itself.

I do plan to keep dipping but I will be making a couple changes. I am dropping the concentration and will watch to see if it is still toxic to the nudis. I will also be doing a double rinse with good flow to help minimize the amount of chemical brought back to the tank. Hopefully this will give me the benefits of killing the MENs while minimizing the collateral damage. I am curious about the sizes of the DTs that other people have had no problems in. What is the gallon capacity of your system compared to the number/size of the dipped pieces?
 
RichardinMa said:
What is the gallon capacity of your system compared to the number/size of the dipped pieces?
Click to expand...

90 gallons, 300 gallons and 500 gallons.

I was also wondering about the surface area of the montis vs acros - I had the same thought about it being greater and holding more. And yes, most of the acros that I dip produce copious amounts of slime that I swirl off vigorously in a clean bucket of tank water before reintroducing. I don't just submerge in the rinse bucket and then place back in the tank.

I also think reducing your concentration of the chemical is a good idea. That stuff is quite toxic, and I'm sure a little goes a long way. In fact, my method of 4 mls per liter might even be more than enough, but I have not done any controlled tests to prove otherwise.

Glad to hear there was at least some recovery.

Cheers
Mike
 
ousnakebyte said:
90 gallons, 300 gallons and 500 gallons.
Click to expand...

Wow- that is a big difference. The tank these are in is only a 47 bow and the water volume is maybe 40g. The surface area of one piece alone was about 50-60 square inches (top and bottom)! I did swish the pieces in the rinse as well, partly to dislodge any dead nudis and also to rinse them but the sekelton is very porous on these and I think that was the culprit.
 
I wonder if other products used against ants and the sort would work just aswell at this. Ben searching for something with the same content as the Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer, with out any luck here in europe. I have foudnsomething with about 70% Imidacloprid in it.

and another product used for plants, to threat against all sorts of insets, it contains Thiacloprid, at around 0.92%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiacloprid
 
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Concluding that the aforementioned Imidacloprid dip is ineffective, after applying a weak/light dosage on a highly infested specimen, isnt much of a conclusion.

As for the residual crustacean die off you should look within, at your personal level of attention to detail, in regards to the cleansing of the specimen after dipping
 
coralreefdoc said:
Concluding that the aforementioned Imidacloprid dip is ineffective, after applying a weak/light dosage on a highly infested specimen, isnt much of a conclusion.

As for the residual crustacean die off you should look within, at your personal level of attention to detail, in regards to the cleansing of the specimen after dipping
Click to expand...

See my response to this identical post you did in the other thread.
 
eswgato said:
Hmm all the nudies on my monties were toast I can confirm that it does kill them but at 10ml per 1/2 cup of water and my monties are all fine the weaker dose is for red bugs flatworms and the nudies need a stronger dose.
Click to expand...

I just don't see how I can do a higher dose on them at this point. The first dip at the 6ml/2cups nearly wiped the biggest of the colonies. It took a full day for the PE to start to return and the tissue is now white on it. Some patches of polyps are bleached out as well. The second piece that was dipped in that concentration had about 1/4" of tissue necrosis around the edges within 36hrs. I have them all isolated and am still finding new ones so perhaps I will try one small one at the highest dose and see what happens. At this point I have just been sucking them off as I find them each night. A fine tip syringe works well for that. If I come across any tonight I will see about dropping them into the more concentrated solution and see what happens to them.
 
I've read the whole thread. Terrific information. However, it is very difficult to know which product folks are referencing from post to post except for those kind enough to consistently even redundantly identify it.It would be very helpful if folks would note whether Home pest killer or Complete insect killer or something else is being applied. Searching back through multiple posts to find a clue is tedious . It's hard to relate value to particular anecdotal accounts without knowing precisely what is being dosed.
 
The product I have been experimenting with has been the Bayer Complete Insect Control. I finally did get positive kill on the nudis today at the full 10ml per 1/2 cup but I am waiting to see how the montipora recovers after the dip.
 
I had two acros with red bugs. Dipped both in the Bayer Complete Insect control this evening (.5 ml / 2 cups tank water). Went with the very light concentration mentioned a lot earlier in this thread. Wanted to play it safe. Both acros are doing great and no more bugs 4 hours later. I think colors are as good or better after the dip. No question PE is much better.

If you can remove your colony's / acros from the tank, this really seems to be a very good method (at least based on my very short-term results). I originally wanted to try interceptor, but they've suspended production. Supplies are very limited. Actually glad it happened because this method was much cheaper and I didn't have to bomb my whole tank.
 
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Hey all thought I would chime in and offer my experience.

I bought the blue bottle complete insect killer, the 25% more 40oz bottle, and dipped a bunch of corals.

Ironically I came by this thread a few days after my LFS recommended it to me when I asked what would kill nudi eggs. Unfortunately I don't think I had any nudi eggs left from my frist attempt to rid them (FWE dip and tank treatment... I'll post the results of that in another thread). So I can't confirm this works on eggs.

So I had a few zoas in QT and my first really bad *** corals sitting in cups on my counter. Only been in the hobby 5 months and just got back from my first frag fest! So I was pretty nervous but I didn't want to introduce more nudis or some other pest. So I took two of the zoas I had in the QT and dunked them (specifics below). I took them out, rinsed them off and put them in the DT. I waited for a total of about an hour and a half for them both to open. Once they opened I dipped the rest of my zoas in QT and put them in the DT. They opened after about an hour.

At this point I dipped all 15 of the frags I picked up including my prized Darth Maul zoas :D I am happy to report that all corals dipped opened up and look great in the tank!

What I dipped:

1 Pulsing Xenia
1 Acro
1 Bird's Nest
1 Blasto
1 Sympodium
20 Zoa/Paly

First two frags:
- 4ML per 2 Cups of tank water (8 cups total) 15 minutes in the solution -
I'll note that this was twice what the LFS told me and more than what was originally stated in this thread. After dunking my test zoas I chickened out and added double the water to about 1 gallon to dillute the solution.

All other frags
-2ML per 2 cups of tank water (16 cups total) 10 minutes in solution -
Dipped all the other frags in this solution. No difference in either. In fact the first colony, my oldest zoas, were in bad shape in QT. Two days after being dipped in the 4ML solution they are all open again for the first time in a month.

Rinse:

I submerged and gently shook each frag in 1 gallon of tank water for a minute or so.

I then placed them in 2.5 gallons of tank water with a pump for ten minutes.

After that I put them in the DT.

Conclustion

None of the corals showed any sign of illness after the dip. Nothing in the tank showed any signs of being affected by the dip with the exception of my staghorn. He is acting drunk or like he is in a daze but I can't say this is due to the dip as all my other hermits are fine. No other die off noticed. It was hard to see into the water to see what it killed. I did notice a lot of dead stuff though. Dead snails, star fish, pods, etc. It did not kill aptasia!

Next time I will probably use the 4ML dose since it did not have any impact on the first two corals I dipped. Also I had one frag that had what looked like red bugs. The cup it was in was full of little dots. I don't know which coral it was on but what I can say is I left the frags in the cups for a long time, many hours, and I'm assuming that the water got pretty cold. As mentioned before I think the cold killed these things!
 
I tried this today as I noticed a handful of my acro's had red bugs. I did 4 cups of water and 1 ML of the Bayer mentioned above. I put the water and Bayer in a 5 QT ice cream bucket. After mixing the solution I placed the frag in the bucket for 10 minutes. I shook the acro around a few times while it was in there. I noticed one or two red bugs fall off, but there are still bugs on the frag once putting it back in the tank.

Any thoughts on if I did something wrong? Maybe I need to increase the potency of the solution? Is it safe to try right away again?
 
As an update to my last post, I increased the dosage to 1 cup marine water to 1 mL of Bayer for 10 minutes. At 5 and 10 minutes I vigorously shook the acro in the solution for about 10 seconds. I then put the acros back in the tank. After looking the next day, I don't see any red bugs on the coral. Here's to hoping they are gone for good!

Thanks to the amazing power of online forums.
 
will have to use this method if I get them again i have done intercepter nd it worked great but was a PIA to procure
 
TimothyJ said:
As an update to my last post, I increased the dosage to 1 cup marine water to 1 mL of Bayer for 10 minutes. At 5 and 10 minutes I vigorously shook the acro in the solution for about 10 seconds. I then put the acros back in the tank. After looking the next day, I don't see any red bugs on the coral. Here's to hoping they are gone for good!

Thanks to the amazing power of online forums.
Click to expand...

Yes, increase the concentration. I have been using 4 mls/Liter with good results, and only one acroporid doesn't take to it (A. hyacinthus).


Paul777 said:
will have to use this method if I get them again i have done intercepter nd it worked great but was a PIA to procure
Click to expand...

Just make sure you dip the corals out of the tank - don't put this stuff in you tank.

Cheers
Mike
 
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