Red Bugs--does fresh water kill them?

[Gyr]

I am doing my first of three planned interceptor treatments to rid my tank of Acro red bugs. I had just changed out my GFO a week before I found out my tank had the infestation. I use the BRS reactor with the canister inside the reactor that contains the GFO. It seems reasonable to me that soaking the canister with the GFO in it in fresh RODI water would kill these marine creatures and any of their eggs/larve (I am not sure how they reproduce).
I would like to save a bit of $ by not changing out my GFO 3X in the next 3 weeks, so I was wondering if anyone knows if my supposition about them not being able to survive fresh water is correct.
Thanks,
Kurt

 

[jonjonwells]

I would say that, yes, freshwater will kill red bugs. I would just not run your gfo until you have completed the treatments. Much safer that way.

 

[Gyr]

I imagine you are right. I just used to have a cyano problem with my tank and now that I've gone with the BRS GFO reactor, my tank is cyano-free. That makes me happy.

I have read that quite a few tanks that went through the Interceptor treatments then developed cyano outbreaks and I was wondering if that was due to going GFO-less for several weeks, or nutrient spike from shrimp/pods dying, or a combo of both.

Seeing that carpet of red slime coming back on my sand bed would make me sad, that's why I was thinking about ways to possibly get around the GFO-less thing.

I have just done my water change and restarted the skimmer and carbon reactor (with fresh carbon). The few snails I couldn't get out of the DT are alive and well, the shrimp (2 cleaners and 2 peppermint and 1 fire) are all presumed dead as I found 1 dead cleaner and the others are MIA. The only shrimp I could catch to remove were my harlequins, which will do just about anything for a choc. chip starfish, including hopping into a net. I couldn't find one of my 3 blue leg hermits to remove before the treatment, and haven't seen him yet. Hope he is okay. I'll get an idea of pod die off tonight with a flashlight evaluation.
As far as the Red bugs themselves, I really have a hard time seeing them, will have to take a photo and blow it up (how I found out I had the little beasties in the first place).

 

[mutateddogbone]

i ran my GFO during treatment and have no signs of bugs. i believe its only carbon that you cant run during treatment, not GFO

 

[Gyr]

Red Bug die off looks promising.

Photo of a stag acro prior to interceptor:

Same stag after one 12 hour interceptor treatment:

We'll see if there is any visible change in coral color, polyp extension in the coming days.

 

[saltygeek]

Color will be better:thumbsup:

 

[edandsandy]

looks good! don't be afraid like we were to treat the tank 2 more times.
when we treated our tank recently for red bugs. we left the interceptor in for 24 hours, then we did a 25% water change out and repeated the process 2 more times... We had a huge cyano break out. but we are bug free now.
we just purchased another clean up crew this week, and I will increase it again next month. Ed freaks out if I spend more than $100 on a clean up crew!

 

[Gyr]

I feel kind of bad, the one cleaner shrimp I had found earlier was completely motionless for several minutes, even when I grabbed him out of the tank, so I put him in the freezer. This morning (after water change and running carbon and skimmer overnight) I saw the other cleaner lying on the bottom, motionless. When I went to grab him he made some feeble movements, so I put him in my QT tank with the other inverts I had pulled out. He is looking better now. I guess I cryo'ed that first one, perhaps, unnecessarily.:sad2: