Red bugs on your sps? Share your exp.

[Jimbo327]

I have yet to personally see an SPS dominant tank that does not have red bugs. Almost everyone that has a lot of SPS corals has them, most people don't know they even have them. I didn't think I had them and a friend of mine didn't think he did either until someone who knew what to look for came over and proved us wrong. They are everywhere and I really dislike them. They seem to dominate stressed corals. If someone wants to make a lot of money, maybe millions, then find a cure for these bugs. I guarantee the product will fly off the shelves if it works. Until then, I'll just wait.

P.S. Maybe Habib can come up with a "Red Bug Exit", ohhh I should patent that name.

There are plenty of tanks that do not suffer from the red bugs. And there are plenty of tanks that do suffer from them. You really need to know what you are looking for to find them. But once you get them into your system, it is very difficult to eliminate them. The best way is prevention. Use a rigid dipping process to prevent introducing it into your system. I do a series of dips with very high levels of iodine (2x-3x the recommended iodine dip concentration) and visual inspection before any frags are placed in my system. It might kill some frags, but it's not worth seeing those buggers crawling all over my SPS.

Jim

 

[Aquatecture]

Well, so far, i been experimenting and was able to get them out of the coral within a few minutes.

i used a nasal aspirator used on infants i guess your also able to use a turkey baster, but i decided to use this because of its size, and your easily able to control how strong to use it, and of course easy to manuver.
it actually worked, almost all of the red mites have been blown away from the coral, i was even able to suck out alot of them.. im sure it will come back, but heres where my micron filter plan comes into play, ..
with all the powerhead going crazy in there, the mites eventually gets blown down the overflow then to a micron filter bag.
im sure its a long process, but I got all the time.

so first thing in the morning, i will buy a micron bag, and will post updates on its success.

here's a picture

 

[Aquatecture]

and another one in action..

 

[OrionN]

These red bugs are very common. They only affect some of the corals in the tank while other grow really fast without any problem what so ever. I agree the best thing to do is prevention. I would look very carefully at frags and only put in my tank frags that does not have these bugs. I never ever get wild colony anymore thus don't have to worry about this. I only use tank raise frags these day, very small frags at that. So far the only thing I gave up from ever having in my tank are these cool SPS crabs in the SPS colonies.
Minh

 

[ReefRelated]

Aquatecture,
I can pretty much answer all your questions so you won't waste any time or money. I run an Ampmaster 3000 pump and all my water is run through two 25 micron filter socks. I have 2 mandarins, 1 spotted and one psychedelic. I also have an African Leopard Wrasse. I have multiple acro crabs in different corals. I have dipped my corals in the past, infact I even dipped a coral in soda water and killed every single bug on it (almost killed the coral too).

As far as blowing them off and trapping them in the filter socks, it's not gonna happen. I have tried this more times than I could count. I have blown every bug I could see off my corals many times thinking the same thing you are with no results. Trust me, they will be back. I run 25 micron socks and I thought maybe if I just kept them of the corals then they would eventually all be trapped in the socks or die off, didn't happen. BTW, be careful blowing your acros. I damaged my Formosa pretty bad trying to get the bugs off.

Basically what I am trying to say to you is... don't waste your time with any of this. All you will get from this is a headache. IMO, you will never get rid of them. I have tried very hard and I finally gave up after many people told me I was wasting my time. IMO, everyone with an fully stocked SPS tank has these bugs and until I can personally come over to your house and look at your tank with my own eyes, it's hard for me to believe otherwise.

Jimbo327,
I have heard people say they don't have bugs but as soon as a person with a trained eye comes over, they soon learn they actually do have them. Like I said before, I'm waiting for the day I get to see a fully stocked SPS tank that does not have bugs. Until then, I am going to ussume everyone has them. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not talking about someone who has three acro frags in there tank, I am talking about people who have fully established and stocked SPS reef systems. Also I can't believe that anyone with red bugs can get rid of them completely forever. Obviously a person with a couple acros in there tank can easily keep dipping those corals and posssibly get rid of the bugs, this I could see happening. People with fully encrusted corals would have to break there complete tank down to ever get rid of them all.

These are just my opinions and I truley hope I can be proven wrong. Until then, these are my beliefs.

 

[AgentSPS]

Aquatecture,
I can pretty much answer all your questions so you won't waste any time or money. I run an Ampmaster 3000 pump and all my water is run through two 25 micron filter socks. I have 2 mandarins, 1 spotted and one psychedelic. I also have an African Leopard Wrasse. I have multiple acro crabs in different corals. I have dipped my corals in the past, infact I even dipped a coral in soda water and killed every single bug on it (almost killed the coral too).

As far as blowing them off and trapping them in the filter socks, it's not gonna happen. I have tried this more times than I could count. I have blown every bug I could see off my corals many times thinking the same thing you are with no results. Trust me, they will be back. I run 25 micron socks and I thought maybe if I just kept them of the corals then they would eventually all be trapped in the socks or die off, didn't happen. BTW, be careful blowing your acros. I damaged my Formosa pretty bad trying to get the bugs off.

Basically what I am trying to say to you is... don't waste your time with any of this. All you will get from this is a headache. IMO, you will never get rid of them. I have tried very hard and I finally gave up after many people told me I was wasting my time. IMO, everyone with an fully stocked SPS tank has these bugs and until I can personally come over to your house and look at your tank with my own eyes, it's hard for me to believe otherwise.

Jimbo327,
I have heard people say they don't have bugs but as soon as a person with a trained eye comes over, they soon learn they actually do have them. Like I said before, I'm waiting for the day I get to see a fully stocked SPS tank that does not have bugs. Until then, I am going to ussume everyone has them. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not talking about someone who has three acro frags in there tank, I am talking about people who have fully established and stocked SPS reef systems. Also I can't believe that anyone with red bugs can get rid of them completely forever. Obviously a person with a couple acros in there tank can easily keep dipping those corals and posssibly get rid of the bugs, this I could see happening. People with fully encrusted corals would have to break there complete tank down to ever get rid of them all.

These are just my opinions and I truley hope I can be proven wrong. Until then, these are my beliefs.

Agreed! Sorta like AIDS for corals (if I may use the analogy). You will never get rid of it completely but you can keep it in check and preserve the healthy of your corals indefinitely. I had a few pieces get overrun with red bugs. Fortunately these were small colonies which were easy to remove for iodine dips. Now that I have got the population of bugs to a minimum on these corals they are finally starting to inch their way back. One incredible Paletta blue table went from electric blue to white. It is now a pale powder blue. I use a turkey baster to blow the suckers off the corals almost every day.

I just treat them like they are here to stay and with a little routine care I can keep my colonies very healthy and growing.

 

[ReefRelated]

I haven't been trying to manually remove the bugs from my corals recently. My personal belief is that these bugs are opportunistic parasites. I believe they attack corals that are stressed or even slightly unhappy (maybe so slight we don't even realize it but the bugs do). By dipping corals it will stress them out and my thinking is that the bugs will just come back for that reason. I am trying to see how to naturally decrease the number of bugs. My goal for that past couple months is to work very hard on making sure my tank is running perfectly. I am feeding my corals many different things and I am constantly testing my water. When the corals are very happy the bugs don't seem to bother them. In my tank there is a tri-color acro that myself and 2 friends all had from the same colony. Both of there pieces got completely bleached out and covered with bugs and mine didn't. At one point I could find a couple bugs on it but now there is not one single bug to be found. I have never dipped this coral. I have many corals in my tank with bugs on them. My Formosa is covered in bugs. Why would an identical coral from the same colony get covered with bugs in one tank and and zero bugs in another? It has to be related to environment. This is why I am trying to fight these bugs naturaly because IMO doing it manually is just a waste of time. Just my thoughts (for this week at least ). BTW, I like your AIDS analogy AgentSPS, what a battle we have ahead of us with these bugs.

 

[royb]

Ditto what ReefRelated said....

I think it would be a good idea to start looking at what all these systems have in common that have outbreaks of red bugs in them.

Might be as simple as flow, salt mix or not enough lighting.

 

[3_high_low]

I thought I'd chime back in. I've had the bugs for months. I've been treating the tank with Salifert amino acids and the bugs seemed to be less prevalent but after a move to another tank and introducing some new corals they are back in strength. I'm still treating with the amino acids and hoping to stem the tide. We'll see if I can knock them back again.

A hermit crab scaled some cliffs of LR and spent a day atop an infested acro frag. I knocked him off this frag without considering what he might be doing up there. I see no visible damage to the frag, perhaps he was eating the bugs. But I see no hope in having hermits eliminate the bugs - there are so many.

 

[Jimbo327]

Hey fellas,

The red bugs do not just appear when you have full grown colonies. It is not tank condition related! Therefore it is moot to try to find a correlation between red bugs and tank parameters. It is being introduced into the system with new additions to the tank...just like all nuisances like red flatworms or algae. And I think the bugs are spreading, not because of wild colonies, but through frag trades from infected tanks. And once it is introduced, the red bugs will multiply very quickly and take control. If you don't have it, use a dipping procedure for prevention, whether you see them or not. If you have it, when you swap with someone, inform them so they can dip with iodine. I think a lot of reefers are not being informed or do not want to inform others for fear of no one trading with them/getting less $$$ for their frags. A lot of reefers don't even like to talk about it.

One method that seems to help is moving a SPS to a low area of the tank (where the pods are) and they will eat the bugs at night when they come out.

Jim

 

[pi]

ReefRelated/Royb - Your logic is a similar approach I have taken towards the bugs. I basically asked the questions why are they so prevelant now? And, what has changed within the hobby that may have indirectly led to a more hospitable environment for their survival? (it could be simply that more of us are keeping SPS...)

In the past 8 years I have been involved with reef keeping, a LOT has changed. A few weeks ago I made a list of such in an attempt to determine impact to the questions above. Most seemed to have no consequence, but I settled on one that I felt could make a difference.

At approximately the time the bugs were recognized, a large majority of hobbyists halted using additives to maintain our systems. You can see this up to a year ago anytime the "additive usage" questions were asked.

However, the "use no additive" mentality seems to be wavering and possibly aided with input from new studies that are published (ie strontium article by R.H. Farley).

Anyway, I recently started using additives/trace compunds again to gauge the impact to red bugs. After several weeks, I see a reduction in their concentration on certain corals. Whether this is a direct result, I cannot say.

 

[ReefRelated]

Jimbo327,
I think most of us would agree the bugs are being introduced to the tank from other reef tanks by frag trading and such. This makes me wonder why Mihn made his statement "I never ever get wild colony anymore thus don't have to worry about this. I only use tank raise frags these day, very small frags at that. So far the only thing I gave up from ever having in my tank are these cool SPS crabs in the SPS colonies." You have a better chance of getting these bugs from another reefer than you do from a wild acro. I have yet to see a wild acro that just came into the LFS that actually had bugs on it. I would be much more coutious of corals out of tanks, not the wild, if your trying to prevent yourself from getting red bugs.
"I think a lot of reefers are not being informed or do not want to inform others for fear of no one trading with them/getting less $$$ for their frags. A lot of reefers don't even like to talk about it.
I couldn't agree more Jimbo.

"One method that seems to help is moving a SPS to a low area of the tank (where the pods are) and they will eat the bugs at night when they come out."
Do you have any evidence of this? I hope you are correct but I have yet to see anything that eats these bugs. I doubt a hermmit crab would eat them either. I'm pretty sure acro crabs don't eat them. I have watched mine for hours and he never touched a bug. I hope someone can find a predator to these bugs. I think this will be the answer. I am sure something in the wild feeds on these bugs but I don't think it's anything we have mentioned.

 

[royb]

I'm wondering if the trend to raise our alkalinity levels is weakening our coral and causing the outbreaks.

Do any of you consistently keep your alkalinity levels below 10...more like natural seawater?

 

[ReefRelated]

I wondered about alkalinity myself, hi or low good or bad. I have always maintained my alk at 9.6 - 9.9 and I've always had plenty of bugs. It wasn't until recently that I started raising my alk to about 12, I guess because everyone else was. I did also read an article saying coral colors may be better at higher alk (true or not, yet to be determined in my system). Most people I know run around 11-12 so I just joined the crowd.

So to answer your question, I did not personally see any differences at either alkalinity. BTW, why are we all keeping are alkalinity so high? Just looking for different reasons why.

 

[Jimbo327]

The spread of the red bug is definitely from the lack of communication. It's not the additives. If the bugs can survive the very high concentration of iodine dip, it can survive most conditions. Many reefers do not want to acknowledge that they have the red bugs because they want to sell their frags. While others is in the mindset of ignoring the red bugs or classify them as harmless. Whatever the reason, it is a very hush hush topic among infected tank owners. It is very evident just by looking at this thread and the lack of infected SPS tank owners/active RC members that I know have it first hand. Why aren't they contributing their comments? And that very reason is why we are seeing widespread infection of tanks.

I have no problem buying frags from someone with the red bugs, I just want to be informed ahead of time so I can take extra dipping precautions. As for pods, try it and let me know if it works well.

Jim

 

[AgentSPS]

Jimbo327,
I think most of us would agree the bugs are being introduced to the tank from other reef tanks by frag trading and such. This makes me wonder why Mihn made his statement "I never ever get wild colony anymore thus don't have to worry about this. I only use tank raise frags these day, very small frags at that. So far the only thing I gave up from ever having in my tank are these cool SPS crabs in the SPS colonies." You have a better chance of getting these bugs from another reefer than you do from a wild acro. I have yet to see a wild acro that just came into the LFS that actually had bugs on it. I would be much more coutious of corals out of tanks, not the wild, if your trying to prevent yourself from getting red bugs.
"I think a lot of reefers are not being informed or do not want to inform others for fear of no one trading with them/getting less $$$ for their frags. A lot of reefers don't even like to talk about it.

"One method that seems to help is moving a SPS to a low area of the tank (where the pods are) and they will eat the bugs at night when they come out."
Do you have any evidence of this? I hope you are correct but I have yet to see anything that eats these bugs. I doubt a hermmit crab would eat them either. I'm pretty sure acro crabs don't eat them. I have watched mine for hours and he never touched a bug. I hope someone can find a predator to these bugs. I think this will be the answer. I am sure something in the wild feeds on these bugs but I don't think it's anything we have mentioned.

I couldn't agree more Jimbo.



I second every point you made. I started my tank off only wild colonies. it was not until 9 months into the tank that I added my first frag from GARF (nothing against GARF or any other individual trading frags). Immediately I noticed the red bugs and ever since then the population has grown in my tank. While I am convinced that corals CAN live a happy life if the red bug population (on a colony) is kept in check, I would prefer not to have introduced them in the first place. I would recommend that everyone adding traded frags to their tank do a precautionary quarantine dip before introducing to their system. I have found iodine dips to work very well with minimal irritation to the coral.

 

[ReefRelated]

The spread of the red bug is definitely from the lack of communication. It's not the additives. If the bugs can survive the very high concentration of iodine dip, it can survive most conditions. Many reefers do not want to acknowledge that they have the red bugs because they want to sell their frags. While others is in the mindset of ignoring the red bugs or classify them as harmless. Whatever the reason, it is a very hush hush topic among infected tank owners. It is very evident just by looking at this thread and the lack of infected SPS tank owners/active RC members that I know have it first hand. Why aren't they contributing their comments? And that very reason is why we are seeing widespread infection of tanks.

Jim

Man I am feeling you Jim. Your taking the words right out of my head. Good posts.

As far as pods eating the bugs, the only way I can verify that would be to actually see the pod eat it. Did you watch a pod eat a red bug? Just moving it down there and seeing less bugs to me would not necessarily mean the pods are eating them. It could be a number of things. These bugs come and go for no apparent sometimes so I would like to actually see it happen to verify. Don't get me wrong, you could be dead on, I would just like more verification.

 

[AgentSPS]

Jimbo327,
I think most of us would agree the bugs are being introduced to the tank from other reef tanks by frag trading and such. This makes me wonder why Mihn made his statement "I never ever get wild colony anymore thus don't have to worry about this. I only use tank raise frags these day, very small frags at that. So far the only thing I gave up from ever having in my tank are these cool SPS crabs in the SPS colonies." You have a better chance of getting these bugs from another reefer than you do from a wild acro. I have yet to see a wild acro that just came into the LFS that actually had bugs on it. I would be much more coutious of corals out of tanks, not the wild, if your trying to prevent yourself from getting red bugs.
"I think a lot of reefers are not being informed or do not want to inform others for fear of no one trading with them/getting less $$$ for their frags. A lot of reefers don't even like to talk about it.


I couldn't agree more Jimbo.


I second every point you made. I started my tank off only wild colonies. it was not until 9 months into the tank that I added my first frag from GARF (nothing against GARF or any other individual trading frags). Immediately I noticed the red bugs and ever since then the population has grown in my tank. While I am convinced that corals CAN live a happy life if the red bug population (on a colony) is kept in check, I would prefer not to have introduced them in the first place. I would recommend that everyone adding traded frags to their tank do a precautionary quarantine dip before introducing to their system. I have found iodine dips to work very well with minimal irritation to the coral.

"One method that seems to help is moving a SPS to a low area of the tank (where the pods are) and they will eat the bugs at night when they come out."
Do you have any evidence of this? I hope you are correct but I have yet to see anything that eats these bugs. I doubt a hermmit crab would eat them either. I'm pretty sure acro crabs don't eat them. I have watched mine for hours and he never touched a bug. I hope someone can find a predator to these bugs. I think this will be the answer. I am sure something in the wild feeds on these bugs but I don't think it's anything we have mentioned.

Oops I mean to quote and say I agree with every one of REEFRELATED's points (sorry Jimbo LOL)

I couldn't agree more ReefRelated .



I second every point you made. I started my tank off only wild colonies. it was not until 9 months into the tank that I added my first frag from GARF (nothing against GARF or any other individual trading frags). Immediately I noticed the red bugs and ever since then the population has grown in my tank. While I am convinced that corals CAN live a happy life if the red bug population (on a colony) is kept in check, I would prefer not to have introduced them in the first place. I would recommend that everyone adding traded frags to their tank do a precautionary quarantine dip before introducing to their system. I have found iodine dips to work very well with minimal irritation to the coral.

 

[Geepers Creepers]

They were on a small tank raised frag of Acropora I have. The frag has split and branched off 21 times in eight months, full of color and polyp expansion, looks perfect. I think that the parasites are actually feeding on the slime the corals are producing and not the coral itself. But there may be more than one species of similar parasites. We just keep calling what we find as those little red bugs and if a coral dies, itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s the little red bugs that did it. Why canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t someone find out for sure what they are and what they actually are doing on the Acroporas? You may be doing more harm then good trying to remove them.

I will take all your frags with the bugs if you want to get rid of them.

 

[Jimbo327]

If you like bugs crawling all over your SPS, more power to you. But I do not like them, so I don't want to introduce them. But it is true that this type of bugs are specific to certain SPS (mostly purple acropora, and not montipora millepora). And your frag's resiliency is definitely in the minority. Just wait until you put in a really nice frag, and have those little bugger bleach it, then your tune will change. I do not believe there are different varieties of the red bugs. It is just that your particular frag can fight off the bugs better, it only takes a stress-related event to send these buggers into a frenzy. And others have high-powered photographed the damage and the zoo in their stomach. And many many others have seen the bleaching effect. Not too many share your experience.

Jim