SPS pests and treatment options

[edandsandy]

Just my 2 cents.

I have never heard of blowing off red bugs from a coral without a preceding treatment e.g. Interceptor. Blowing them off alone is not a sole treatment option that I am familiar with.

Interceptor is generally considered the best treatment option, and the losses by most are deemed acceptable.

I do not have experience with dragon face pipe fish, but I have heard it may take time for them to settle into feeding on the red bugs. You will also need to consider compatability with other inhabitants, but you probably have already.

Thanks for your 2 cents
We have been putting this treatment off for a couple of weeks now. I think I have finally talked my husband into it. We are going to MACNA this weekend and wants to talk to a few speakers before we do this. I agreed with him, but in the same breath I said we might loose $100 in crabs but we are loosing a lot more $$$$$ in corals.

 

[Dave71]

Thanks for your 2 cents
We have been putting this treatment off for a couple of weeks now. I think I have finally talked my husband into it. We are going to MACNA this weekend and wants to talk to a few speakers before we do this. I agreed with him, but in the same breath I said we might loose $100 in crabs but we are loosing a lot more $$$$$ in corals.

I will add one more input. IME interceptor was effective in killing these bugs, but it was not until I left it in for 24 hours that my tank was finally rid of them.

I treated 3 times using the 8 hour soak method, and while they were always reduced, I always found a couple moving around a few days later.

After I did a 24 hour treatment, they were gone completely.

The above said, the 24 treatment caused more secondary losses than the 8 hour treatments.

Have fun at MACNA, had a great time last year.

 

[edandsandy]

I will add one more input. IME interceptor was effective in killing these bugs, but it was not until I left it in for 24 hours that my tank was finally rid of them.

I treated 3 times using the 8 hour soak method, and while they were always reduced, I always found a couple moving around a few days later.

After I did a 24 hour treatment, they were gone completely.

The above said, the 24 treatment caused more secondary losses than the 8 hour treatments.

Have fun at MACNA, had a great time last year.

Could you please explain to me "after I did a 24 hour treatment" is?

 

[Dave71]

Could you please explain to me "after I did a 24 hour treatment" is?

Here are some links I found useful -

http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=14402

http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-23461.html

Basically, I tried to use shorter treatments 6-8 hours, but found they did not have 100% kill rate. Similar to the last link I posted.

I did not follow Borneman's advice to take out the colonies etc...I only noticed that the length of time to treat with Interceptor was not sufficient for me using the 6-8 hour treatments.

To put the nail in the coffin so to speak, I left interceptor in the tank for 24 hours.

If memory serves me right, I also increased the dosage some.

 

[bhelne01]

I recently had an infestation and won
i set up a four buckets, one with iodide, furan 2, interceptor and fresh water (RO )dip. and dip all of my sps 20-30 minutes in the first three buckets and 3 minutes in the fresh water. after that i treated the tank with interceptor

my tank looks great and there are no signs of parasites in the tank.

 

[tahiriqbal]

Very informative thread Mark and thank you everyone for sharing your experiences and knowledge.

 

[edandsandy]

We completed the 3 treatments, We waited 24 hours before we did a water change out.
I can say we are now red bug free!

Thanks everyone here for posting your treatment plans and all your patience with me and answering all my questions!

 

[Dave71]

We completed the 3 treatments, We waited 24 hours before we did a water change out.
I can say we are now red bug free!

Thanks everyone here for posting your treatment plans and all your patience with me and answering all my questions!

Very glad to hear it!!! It is a good feeling. :celeb2:

 

[edandsandy]

Thank You Dave71, we read every post you recommended...
It really helped us to make the decision to treat the tank safely.

 

[rogerwilco357]

ok i just found out i have the aefw and started basting them off , now i want to setup the qt tank this week and dipp them but in what the coral rx or the coral revive which is best and which is easier on the coral , i have the flat worms on both the millepora and the smooth acropora i was reading where someone said they only hit on the smooth acro's and not the milli's but that is not the case here..let me know which dip works best.

 

[scottwhitson]

The AEFW we had LOVED milli's more than the smooth skinned acro's. We had good luck with revive but I wouldn't dip any Echinata's in it. We lost two frags from dips.

 

[Keyvan S]

I highly recommend Coral Rx. I going through the same issue right now> I have taking all my Acro's out of my DT and placed them in my quarantine after dip in Coral Fx (it smells like Pine Sol). IMO you have dip them at least two more time 14-15 days in between each dip...this will insure that all AEFW have been eradicated:uzi:. The cycle of AEFW eggs are 15 days.
Most importantly you have to make sure there is no Acro's in your main tank for at least 5-6 week, this will insure that the AEFW are not laying eggs on another Acro.
If your SPS are attached to your rock work (like mine were) you either have to move the whole rock in your quarantine tank or break off the SPS and scrape every last bit of the SPS of your rock...it sucks but IMO if you don't do it right the first time they will reek havoc again.

Good luck.

 

[Mandragen]

So I have read that the treatment is 25mg per 10g of water and this is with a pill for 50-100lb dogs am I correct? I have a couple pills for 26-50lb dogs, does anyone know if this will work or what the levels of the active compound are in the different pills, are they the same? Would I need to double the amount?

I have just spotted these tiny little red/orange dots on two of my corals, they seem to move quickly are those red bugs? They don't seem to be bothering the corals at all and I have seen an increase in smaller fauna since the tank has gone fallow with not fish because of crypto. I just want to make sure these are harmful and actually red bugs before I treat it. Could they possibly be something that isn't harmful?

 

[Shock130]

edit

 

[Dave71]

So I have read that the treatment is 25mg per 10g of water and this is with a pill for 50-100lb dogs am I correct? I have a couple pills for 26-50lb dogs, does anyone know if this will work or what the levels of the active compound are in the different pills, are they the same? Would I need to double the amount?

I have just spotted these tiny little red/orange dots on two of my corals, they seem to move quickly are those red bugs? They don't seem to be bothering the corals at all and I have seen an increase in smaller fauna since the tank has gone fallow with not fish because of crypto. I just want to make sure these are harmful and actually red bugs before I treat it. Could they possibly be something that isn't harmful?

What types of corals are they on? If the corals are not bothered then I would wait and see rather than assume and treat.

Double the amount.

http://www.1800petmeds.com/Interceptor-prod100142.html

 

[Mandragen]

thanks yeah I didn't think they were bothering anything but the more I look they may be cause of some coral discoloration and polyp retraction.

if someone could figure out the dosage I would need for my tank I would be grateful. normally I'm great with these problems but I can't seem to wrap my head around this equation. I have an approximate water volume of 130g and would be using the pills for 50lb dogs which contains half the active compound as the larger pill.

 

[Dave71]

I am going to suggest a relatively simple approach, that does not require scales etc...

For your tablet you can treat approx. 190 gallons of water. Basically half the volume of water that the larger tablet treats.

Now this is not an exact dosing science, so some may say just use the whole thing.

But lets suppose you want to be more precise.

Steps:

1. Crush the pill into poweder
2. Get a small measuring device. I like Salifert Test spoons for this.
3. Determine the number of spoons of powder you have created from the crushed pill.
4. Divide 190 by the number of spoons. You now have the gallon per spoon measurement.
5. Dose with the number of spoons it takes you to get to 130 Gallons.

Just my approach.

 

[Mandragen]

nice. great idea

 

[lgndrympterry]

any ideas on whether or not htis is invert safe? I have three calms i dont know what to do? and i all ready added it

 

[Dave71]

any ideas on whether or not htis is invert safe? I have three calms i dont know what to do? and i all ready added it

If you are asking if Interceptor is clam safe, I have not heard of an issue with clams.

Pods, shrimp, and crabs are the main issue.

FWIW - I have dosed Interceptor with a Maxima, and it is still going strong.