Good Redbug question...

[Ludwigia73]

Uhhhh, that is, good question... not good redbugs! LOL

My tank is not even set up yet, but I just thought of something by reading another thread. Has anyone had success "starving" redbugs as a quarantine method? Here's my thinking...

Back when I was heavily into SPS, I got them like 3 times. Before I treated the first time, I had a heavy mysid shrimp population. I liked that alot. Once I treated redbugs, not only did I wipe out the entire population, they would never live in my tank ever again. I tried importing them from other tanks, even after over a year of water changes. It may have gotten into the rocks, and they're extremely sensitive. Anyhoo, I sometimes see live rock for sale from someone's system that is being torn apart due to redbugs, and I was thinking if you cured the rock for 4 weeks or so, and there wasn't any hard corals available for them to eat, what's the chances of getting them again?

Probably won't take the chance, but it's an interesting idea.


Starting out, I'm going to do everything right, right from the beginning. I'll cure the rock, freshwater dips, 2 lavamisol dips 3 days apart during quarantine, and a strong interceptor dip following that, with another week in quarantine after that, with 10% water changes daily to get the interceptor out of the frag plug or rock it's attached to. The water from quarantine will NOT go back in the tank. This is going to be a show tank, and with all the extra work hopefully worth it, will never have one of those gawdawful flatties or bugs again.

So, whaddya think?

 

[ReefWreak]

As long as there is no Acropora tissue to be had, I don't see a problem with it.

And starting right isn't by starting with levasimole, which is sometimes effective. I have never heard someone suggest levasimole over fluke tab. I would just mix the fluke tab and interceptor together in a large vat (maybe a few pills since the dosages don't really matter IME). Probably good to cook the rock for a few weeks since you're essentially doing it anyway, leaving them in the dark submerged, with a powerhead, heater, and skimmer.


BTW I treat EVERYTHING that comes into my tank with super-heavy doses of interceptor and fluke tabs for long periods of time (6hrs), and I still got redbugs. I don't treat fishes, but I doubt that fishes could do it. It's getting hard to ensure keeping the tank clean with out actually having a separate QT system...

Glad to see you really getting back into the hobby Chris

 

[45commando]

Chris,that is actually one of the treatment methods that I read on-line(I forget who originally suggested it).When I used to keep SPS & got hit with red bugs,that is how I treated my system-I just didn't like the idea of dosing the entire tank & killing all the pods.So,I removed all the SPS colonies to a seperate tank & dosed the interceptor in there.I left all the colonies in the seperate tank for 6 weeks,in order to starve the main system.I then added the SPS back to the tank & never had a problem with red bugs again.HTH

 

[jeffbrig]

Everything I've read says that red bugs do not lay eggs, and that they'll starve in about a week without acro tissue to eat. Based on that, a few weeks without acros in the tank should be a successful treatment. The problem for established tanks is that it's darn near impossible to remove every trace of tissue after acros have encrusted everywhere.

 

[gasman059]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11296640#post11296640 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jeffbrig
Everything I've read says that red bugs do not lay eggs, and that they'll starve in about a week without acro tissue to eat. Based on that, a few weeks without acros in the tank should be a successful treatment. The problem for established tanks is that it's darn near impossible to remove every trace of tissue after acros have encrusted everywhere.

second that.