Red bugs

[kevin_e]

I spotted red bugs on many of my coral this afternoon. This manifested itself in 24 hours and I am not aware how, nor does it really matter.

I found black bugs on my montipora too.

I'm going to go with a Sentinel treatment.

I did treat my tank for red bugs a year ago using Bayer dip. I have since moved my tank twice. Most recently, the tank was moved 10 days ago and in the process, I removed my sand bed and went bare bottom. I have not added any coral in at least two months. Out of curiosity, do eggs remain dormant in sand? Did I cause this when I stirred the sand?

 

[xtlosx]

You treated your entire tank with Bayer dip, or individual corals?!

Regarding sand, I don't believe the red bugs will burrow in the sand as they tend to need a host, ie, SPS.. As someone who just went through three Sentinel treatments, be prepared to lose your shrimp(s), crabs and have a die off afterward. I didn't notice the algae bloom until round three. Now with heavy GFO, heavy skimming, things are settling down.

Sorry to get off topic, but as someone who just did this, don't be worried about doing it, other than losing the above, it didn't have any other ill effects whatsoever. What is amazing is almost overnight after the first treatment, my SPS were visibly much happier.

 

[kevin_e]

No, Bayer dips were in seperate containers.

I don't have any shrimp and very few snails or crabs. Without my sand, I shouldn't see a huge die off of microfauna. Should work well for me.

I'm hoping to begin treatment on Monday.

What was your treatment protocol?

Very curious outbreak. Someone mentioned a temperature shift (which happened when I switch out my thermostat and switched back to halides) causing outbreak.

 

[xtlosx]

No, Bayer dips were in seperate containers.

I don't have any shrimp and very few snails or crabs. Without my sand, I shouldn't see a huge die off of microfauna. Should work well for me.

I'm hoping to begin treatment on Monday.

What was your treatment protocall?

I didn't deviate much from the normal protocol. I used the large dog tabs, and for my 150G I did half a tab each time. Dosed about 10PM at night, and changed 10% the next morning at 10AM. Repeat for two more weeks, and after a full three weeks of treatment I haven't seen a single red bug.

On the last treatment, that evening I went and got a nice clump of chaeto with pods and seeded my fuge again. My Mandarin is very happy with my decision to do that Three weeks of zero pods, and our mandarin is still fat, happy, and hunting 24x7.

 

[kevin_e]

Sounds good. I just dropped in 1/14th of a pill at 10 am. I'm going to wait 6 hours and do a 25% water change.

 

[kevin_e]

Will 6 hours of treatment suffice, or should I go longer?

 

[Wazzel]

The generally accepted treatment is a 12 hour soak. I just did my first treatment Saturday and the 12 hours did not hurt anything else. I did a 10% water change and will run carbon for the week.

 

[kevin_e]

The generally accepted treatment is a 12 hour soak. I just did my first treatment Saturday and the 12 hours did not hurt anything else. I did a 10% water change and will run carbon for the week.

Mine will run about 20 hours. I wasn't ablew to do a water change yesterday, but I'll do a 10% water chnage today and run carbon myself.

 

[xtlosx]

Sounds good. I just dropped in 1/14th of a pill at 10 am. I'm going to wait 6 hours and do a 25% water change.

Are you doing this for a whole tank treatment? That seems like a very small amount, and not the right time, but that's just me.

 

[kevin_e]

Are you doing this for a whole tank treatment? That seems like a very small amount, and not the right time, but that's just me.

My tank is 20 gallons with approximately 7 gallons in the sump; it's the right concentration. It's recommended to use 25 mg per 10 gallons. For my application, roughly 75 mg is recommended. With a pill being 1000 mg, 75 mg would be roughly equaivalent to 1/14th of a pill.

The time is just that, time. Doing a water change within 6 hours or 20 hours is pretty irrelevent. A 10% water change doesn't remove the chemical completely. It just dilutes it by 7.5 millgrams. The product would still be in the water at nearly the same concentration.

Until my 3 weeks of treatment are up, there is really no sense in stressing over the product in the water. I'll just contnue reintroducing it to the tank every week.

 

[xtlosx]

My tank is 20 gallons with approximately 7 gallons in the sump; it's the right concentration. It's recommended to use 25 mg per 10 gallons. For my application, roughly 75 mg is recommended. With a pill being 1000 mg, 75 mg would be roughly equaivalent to 1/14th of a pill.

The time is just that, time. Doing a water change within 6 hours or 20 hours is pretty irrelevent. A 10% water change doesn't remove the chemical completely. It just dilutes it by 7.5 millgrams. The product would still be in the water at nearly the same concentration.

Until my 3 weeks of treatment are up, there is really no sense in stressing over the product in the water. I'll just contnue reintroducing it to the tank every week.

Good work.. Getting rid of these bastards was the best thing I did for my tank. Everything perked up overnight and my growth has rocketed since then. They were a MUCH bigger problem than I ever thought.

 

[kevin_e]

Good work.. Getting rid of these bastards was the best thing I did for my tank. Everything perked up overnight and my growth has rocketed since then. They were a MUCH bigger problem than I ever thought.

It was strange, they just appeared over night. Someone mentioned that a temperature chnage could have triggered it.

 

[xtlosx]

It was strange, they just appeared over night. Someone mentioned that a temperature chnage could have triggered it.

For me, I noticed a flea on one coral, then it went away for the most part.. Things got hectic here and I was fighting other fires, and months later, they were EVERYWHERE just nagging everything. I had an alk swing, other stuff along the way, and now that my alk swing is done, stability is back, the red bugs are gone the SPS growth, polyp extension and color are better than ever.

I had a perfect storm here, and hope you get your system back in order. These little buggers are evil. As a result of this all I have implemented a full Bayer dip treatment to not have to go through this again.