PITSTOP has RED BUGS -> help us!

PITSTOP

PITSTOP

New member
After reading about Melev’s plight with the dreaded AEFW’s last night, I decided to take a ride to my SPS reef today for some maintenance and close inspection of the corals.

I have been noticing loss of coloration, bioluminescence, and PE; I had a sneaking suspicion something was amiss. At first I blamed elevated water temperature due to the excessive heat in New England. I bought a 1/5 HP chiller to take care of that situation; the temp now stays at a solid 78-79 F throughout the day and night.

Today, the truth revealed itself…RED BUGS! Some across are dancing with them…

As plain as day, gangs of the bugs spread throughout several of my acro’s â€"œ not all at the base or tips â€"œ but up and down the stalks congregating in clusters.

It’s amazing how fast they can scurry about, damned their accursed souls.

One quick glance at these pics and it is easy to see the damage:

IMG_3389.jpg


IMG_3390.jpg


IMG_3403.jpg


What should I do to get the job done correctly?

I am willing to take drastic measures to insure the long-term stability of the reef…

Provide advice, point me to threads…help me address this issue!

Thanks,

P-Stop
 
Do a seach on treatment with intercepter. I had redbus about 4 months ago, did the three stage treatment, and have been redbug free since then....now nothing will be going into the tank without a six week QT.
 
Print that article out and bring it down to the local vet, and get some Interceptor. If you can, pull all the acros and put them in a QT tank and treat in there. I say this because interceptor will basically kill everything with a shell. Leave the acros in QT for a week, and you should be good to go.
 
sometimes vets will not give you the drug... I treated my whole system. its been 2 weeks since the treatment and all is soooo much better. I removed my crabs and shrimp. it will kill pods and crabs but some crabs can and will survive... the improvement of the corals has been dramatic.. and pods can be replaced and will eventually come back
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7879095#post7879095 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poknsnok
sometimes vets will not give you the drug... I treated my whole system. its been 2 weeks since the treatment and all is soooo much better. I removed my crabs and shrimp. it will kill pods and crabs but some crabs can and will survive... the improvement of the corals has been dramatic.. and pods can be replaced and will eventually come back
Click to expand...

I agree, but there are things like acro crabs that really cant be replaced.

If you can do it in a treatment tank, thats best, if not, you'll lose some crustaceans. Depends on your situation to say whats best for you.
 
an arco icrab s nothing compared to the corals your trying to save!

i had redbugs and did the whole tank...there is nothing stating if the red bugs have a dormat stage or anything like that...IMO of course...I WOULD TREAT THE ENTIRE TANK...take no chances....shelled critters are easy to replace...long time corals are not.

Up to you....HTH.

Good luck!

RK
 
Hmmm...I love my trapezoid acro crabs...


OK, so I need to visit a vet w/the article in order to acquire a prescription for intercepter...


Can a regular medical doctor prescribe intercepter? If so, a few of my neigbors could write a prescript for me...


Should I follow the recommended dosage in the wikepedia article?

What is the recommended regimen? Please provide the dosage, tips for dosing the system, how many water changes, etc.

Are the 3 treatments with Intercepter over a 3-day period (1 treatment per day)?
 
http://www.1800petmeds.com/pselect.asp?LV=263&PG=Interceptor

I am going through the same thing now with the red bugs. Unfortunatly I don't have the ability to setup a QT tank for Acros right now, I have a chillar on my main system but not on my QT tank and it gets up to 85 right now in the QT. I have a mandrin which eats copepods(which a red bug is) and I picked up a dragonface pipefish which is a natural preadetor of red bugs. I Plan on picking up another. I also have used seachem's reef dip and the two colonies I have affected showed improvement and you could see the bugs fall off. I am going to try and control them till it gets cooler and if they are affectin the health of my colonies still I will do interceptor. If I did it now they would die from heat in my QT tank.
 
Last edited:
Agreed - the Interceptor kills waaaaaaay too much in the reef - QT is a no brainer...will post progress in the next few weeks - I can't even begin treatment for another 3 weeks minimum!!!

Please corals, do not die on me!

Will the RED bugs eat the corals to death, or will they take a break? Will good water quality and growing conditions keeps these guys in check?

Can a regular MD prescribe Interceptor? Are there different dosages available?
 
Well i know you live far away from the reef but if you wanna save you coral then do it as soon as possible.

And you got some sweet coral...
 
fishy555 - I am reasonably certain I've had the red bugs for well over a year now; another 3 weeks is not going to make a difference, my corals will survive just fine, thanks for your zealous concern - go watch reruns of WKRP in Cincinatti...
 
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