Red bugs on your sps? Share your exp.

[ridetheducati]

At this rate, everyone will have the "Kooties".

Does anyone want to help me design a reef safe SPS condom?
We collectively have to devise an erradication plan.

Someone mentioned the bugs only infest "weak" frags/colonies. Define weak. I dont consider a growing specimen weak. Someone care to shed some light.

Observation:

All frags/colonies that have acro crabs do not have the bugs.


My 6-line does not notice the infected corals.

 

[G-money]

I think that perhaps the reason we are seeing different people getting different results with different biological controls is because, as mentioned above, we are likely dealing with more than one "pest" species. Also, the obvious that individual fish are indeed individuals.

The presence of acro crabs is not an issue because I only have one infected colony (actually a frag) and about 15 uninfected colonies of all different species and only one of those has a crab in it. I have seen one or two bugs on colonies here and there, but they don't last there - they dissapear (i.e.- move on, likely). Therefore, IME I really think it is a stress related issue and then perhaps secondarily an Acro species specific issue (certain sp. more susceptible than others).

 

[ridetheducati]

Something just hit me..

All those that have the "Kooties", have you used any type of medications in their system?

Two years ago I used Red slime remover to clean up a slime problem. Red slime remover is an anti-bacteria product.

Is it possible the remover killed a benefitial bacteria while allowing another bacteria flourish that the bugs enjoy eating?

I view the bugs as parasites, they are definately not helping the Zoox.

 

[ridetheducati]

Graham,

I concur. Seems to be stress related. I am going to increase my golden pearl feeding regimen. I have tons of photo energy, but I feed relatively light. Coral maybe stressed due to nutrition.


Has anyone tried a parrot fish? Just kidding

 

[newkie]

The frags I got from Newkie where a green montipora that wasn't doing well in his tank and a blue tipped stag. Grrr, I hate it when I get more than I hoped for.

Doug, I checked last night and didn't see any. Feel free to stop by this weekend and take a look for yourself. Sorry anyway to hear about your problem.

 

[DaveP]

I have these critters on about 1/2 of the sps in my tank since early December. I have been following this thread and sent a sample to Dr. Ron. These "red bugs" are definitely not harming my corals at all. Everything is healthy and growing. Am I the only one??
DaveP

 

[ridetheducati]

I cant speak for others, but my bugs are not helping matters. Bugs are not bothering the polyps, however, the zoox maybe a different story. Since 95% of my SPS are frags they all are suffering.

 

[dsb1829]

Doug, I checked last night and didn't see any. Feel free to stop by this weekend and take a look for yourself. Sorry anyway to hear about your problem.

Got a bit of heat for this when I talked to Chris (you know the whole public acusation), but I was able to swing by Saturday and inspect his tank. But within a couple of minutes I was able to find a nice tri-color colony with enough of the little red guys on it to see. Easiest way to spot them is to look for a little bit of sliming out of the colony.

FWIW Chris had ordered from DR Mac, who has already been mentioned as a possible source of these. He will have to fill in the blanks on where else he ordered from.

The weird part is the corals that I got from him are not the normall infested types of acropora. This would lead to the conclusion that they can be on any acros, but flourish on the tri-colors and purple acros.

I increased flow with an additional ph in my acro section and this seems to have cleared a few bugs from site . We will see what the outcome of this is in a few months or more. To date I have seen no damage and only a minimal amount of additional sliming out of the affected colonies.

ttt...

 

[SDBDRZ]

I have been watching this thread close because it seems like a lot of guys in my area have red bugs.

I have two frags that I got in the last week or so that are infected with red bugs. I have isolated these two frags to a Q tank (they never went into my display tank) What I had hoped to do is try and see if they can be erradicated.

My first attempt was to freshwater dip the larger of the two frags (about 3") and see what effect, if any, this would have. Well I dipped the acro in RO/DI water. The only thing I did to the RO water was adjust the temp to match the Q tank. I dipped the acro for 1 minute and then put it back in the Q tank. The acro slimmed up pretty good and I could see a lot of red bugs in the slim but none were moving. I have checked the frag 24 hours later and did not see any red bugs. The acro itself was showing polyp extension and it does not seem to be effected by the dip. I am going to continue to observe the frag because I have seen the red bugs crawl in the polyp openings down inside the acro so I am going to wait a few days and I will post an update.

I thought it would be interesting if someone else with red bugs could try and isolated a coral and freshwater dip it to see if they have similar results.

 

[coralite]

The FW dip was my second course of action after the iodine based dips. The bastards were slowed down for a 15minutes or so but the end result is the frags got stressed to the point of death. None of the guys fell off or died that i could see. Based on my experiences, I would not recommend for anyone to dip their sps in FW. Borneman concurs in this respect in his newest book.

What Gobiodon species are you using? I have a few of the black and they seem to be more interested in hanging around the P. damicornis in 2 tanks though I do see them apparently pop the surface of infected acros. One of the black clown gobies is eating a frag of damicornis but that has been stressed for a long time for unknown reasons, but not all once. I get the impression it is consuming necrotic flesh from the frag since it is only grazing the edges of receded areas.

 

[SDBDRZ]

The FW dip was my second course of action after the iodine based dips. The bastards were slowed down for a 15minutes or so but the end result is the frags got stressed to the point of death. None of the guys fell off or died that i could see. Based on my I would not recommend for anyone to dip their sps in FW. Borneman concurs in this respect in his newest book.

I realize the FW dip is not ideal and the Iodine based dip would have been my second course of action. The reason I went with the FW dip was based on past experience. I transfered 10 or so sps frags from my flatworm infested office nano to my 120g and did not want to transfer the flatworms. I dipped all the frags in freshwater for 1 minute prior to placing them in my 120 and did not lose a single frag or transfer flatworms to the tank. I do not, on a regular basis dip or recommend dipping frags in freshwater, I am just trying to see if there is anyway to get rid of these guys. How long did you dip the frag in freshwater?

The frag did slime considerably and the red bugs seemed to be suspended in the slime when I placed the frag back in the holding tank. I could not tell whether or not they were alive or dead. Maybe in my case the sliming had something to do with it. At any rate I checked the frag again this morning and there are still no signs of the red bugs. I will post an update if they come back. I am going to hold these frags in the Q tank for a while.

 

[coralite]

flatworms are very sensitive to FW dips and they should fall off whatever surface w/in a minute. For the copepods, I started at 5 minutes and i think worked it up to 10. There was definitely alot of sliming but the koodies didn't care.

 

[DaveP]

IMO these fresh water dips are causing more harm than good. I have not had any problems with even heavily infested frags. Also I am sure there are more red bugs in the tank somewhere that will just reproduce if they are killed with a fw dip.
DaveP

 

[OJsreef]

I've done FW dips for only 2 or 3 min. W/good resaults... IE no bugs, by swirling the acro/ frag around and back and forth with vigger. The ones (bugs) that are still attached to the coral just float off after putting the coral back in the tank.


DaveP
I've never seen any of the bugs on the rock at the base of the coral, only on the coral it self. Anyone else notice this or just me?

Thanks:OJ

 

[DaveP]

The red bugs in my tank decrease drastically at night. I have no idea where they go....has to be on the rock work or sandbed or something. ANyone else notice a decrease at night time?
DaveP

 

[SDBDRZ]

I have witnessed the red bugs going into the polyp openings on acros. Maybe they go inside the acro at night.

If they are spreading to other acros once introduced to a tank it would stand to reason that they must crawl on the LR or somehow get from one acro to another.

 

[SawCJack00]

My bugs disappeared. I took some drastic measures, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone else, to eliminate another problem that I was having, and a side effect seems to be that the bugs died off. I'm not willing to post what I did because it could cause a great deal of harm to peoples tanks, but if you absolutely need to know PM me. I've been bugless since April 25th.

 

[Jake]

Hey Jake (Adams),

I think the clown gobies might be spawning or getting ready to. They clear out a small patch of flesh off an sps and lay their eggs on the bare skeleton. Just a though as to why the black gories might be picking at your coral.

Regards

Jake

 

[taekim78]

damn i look at my sps frags and guess what i found... them red bugs!!!!... the corals seems to be ok but slimes alot. hope they are not going to kill everything... arggg so much time and money invested in this tank and now this... shoot i better dip all frags and colonies i get... another lesson learned the hard way

 

[busterold]

I have the bugs on my acros too but they seem to be orange instead of red. So far I don't see any detrimental effects to the acros, no slime, nothing. Growth seems to be slowed but I've had a problem with my PO4 lately.