The Red bug on my coral ?

Maybe the the guy who suggested Levamisole wasn't accurate from my maybe vague descriptions on the phone about my problem. He works mainly in fish desease so maybe Levamisole is a good drug for fish parasites.

Think Levamisole might work like Flatwork exit ? :) My friend has a huge flatworm problem. Then again not a good idea if it affects crustaceans. Another story/thread maybe :)
 
Hi Eric, thanks for this great work.

I've got access to "Sentinel" (milbemycin oxime + lufeneron). Lufeneron is apparently a benzoyl phenyl urea with chitin synthesis inhibition properties... I was planning on giving it a try. Can you think of any reason why that would be a bad idea?
 
Should work fine - the chitin synthesis part is great to prevent molting, but I do not know the half life of this drug once they are no longer exposed and no sure of the pharmacodynamics of it in between molts - and so I woudl want something that kills the copepods before they molt as the duration of ecdysis and the interim periods are not known. In other words, in dogs and cats, a drug is given systemically so the molt prevention prevents the living adults from making it though ecdysis, but the coral treatment is only for hours, and I have no idea how often they molt, or any other effects of lufeneron on other metabolic processes during treatment or how long its effects last. i.e we know squat yet, but little by little we might learn more...and my previous long posts aren't finiished yet...There's more, so hang in there.
 
I have a green Clown Goby which has been hangin around the most infected coral and I noticed that he seemed to be eating either my coral or the buggers :) He circles the coral and nips here and there. I know they lay eggs on corals but he is the only one there and I don't see any eggs.

I took a video of a nip -> http://www.ink.is/clown.wmv (630kb)

While waiting till I get my hands on the dog meds I tried for kicks the Coral Dip from Seachem (Had a bottle that was given to me some time ago). While knowing that I wouldn't whipe them out I wanted to see if I couldn't make a dent in the bug population and it seems to have worked and the corals opened up few hours after I put them back in.

Eric.. Did you get a chance to look up the dosage of milbemycin to use ? Im planing on getting some next week :)
 
Arnar,

A predatory fish/marine creature to these specific copepods is something that we all long for (at least I do), but I am not so sure about the Clown Goby. We had a yellow Clown Goby for almost a year, and only removed him as he started pulling polyps on the more "hairy" corals. He was witnessed to have yanked and eaten (we could see him chewing it) 3 polyps from a blue milli before the shock wore off enough for us to chase him off it and eventually capture him out of the tank. It is documented that Clown Gobies are known to nip at coral polyps, but that for the most part they will not do irrepairable damage. It is perhaps this behavior that you are witnessing ?

The Seachem coral dip is mostly comprised of Iodine, which is what Lugols is, so they both should have similar results. Those results being as Eric noted in one of his posts in this thread. I know that we have also used it to good success on coral frags and small colonies :). The biggest trick to success being finding that sweet spot between concentration of Lugols/Coral Dip and the proper dip time that will kill the pests but will leave the corals alive.

BTW, on the live predator front, we put a pair of dragon faced pipefish into our prop tank almost 2 months ago now and they don't seem to have made any difference. Although I suspect it is like most any live predators, some of a species may have a taste for the pest we want erradicated and some just may not. I am still hopeful that an alternative to the Interceptor treatment will be uncovered.
 
It might be that he is eating bits of coral but It looked like he was nipping at the bugs since he was circulating this specific coral,which is the most infested one, and did the same behavior for some time.

I've had him for a year and never witnessed him eating corals.... but maybe I havent been paying enough attention either ;)

Wasn't their nipping behavior on corals for placing eggs under the branches ? Shame if he is eating my corals since he is one of my favorite fishes :)
 
Yeah, that is exactly what i saw my citron doing. I really hope he is just going after the bugs and when there gone he stopes his nipping. Maybe he is the reason my outbreak is so light.

Justin
 
Arnar,

He was our favorite little fish also and it broke my heart to have to sell him back to the LFS, but like I said, we actually say the little bugger chewing the polyp :(

Like you said, when they are mating and laying eggs they are very destructive, but what we witnessed for the year leading up to his "downfall" was the occassional nip at a polyp from time to time, and never really from the same colony and the polyp would almost always heal and be back out within a couple of hours/days at most.

I guess the thing to check would be if there is any coral damage where the fish is nipping. If he is truly nipping at the bugs then there should be no visible damage to the corals. Even the little force required to pry the red bugs shouldn't lead to visible damage, I wouldn't think, but I could be mistaken on that point. (as it has been noted that they can be troublesome to pry loose)
 
Arnar - I haven't had any issues with my Green Clown Goby + my Acropora. He spends much of the day in a pair ... but maybe due to colony size, or just one [hard to mate by itself ;)] ... I haven't had any damage I've seen.

IMO, there's a wide difference between the many clown gobies - and while I wouldn't expect them all to be safe, I know I'm not alone without major problems from the Green Clown Goby.
Maybe I'm missing the problems ... but in two years, I haven't thought about removing him.
 
yeah we had a yellow goby that loved a neon green acro colony and after a while we could actually see the neon pplyps in his fat little belly !!when we get colonys in the shop that have these little guys in there i get them out quickly so the coral can deal without the stress of these little buggers!!
 
Maybe it is just more the yellow gobies than the green ones ? Not to get terribly off topic with this thread though :). From what I have seen it appears that the yellow clown gobies are quite a bit smaller than the green ones, which was why we liked the yellow ones better.. but oh well :), maybe we will give a green one a chance.. been several months since we took the yellow one back to the LFS :)
 
hehe... I like the green bugger so much I might forgive him for biting the corals :) If thats what he is doing.

I haven't seen any damage on my corals though.

Hopefully Eric will get back to me soon with those dosage sizes :D
 
Sparks - I dunno. But I wouldn't be surpised the yellow were `worse' ... but sadly maybe not be suprised if the green ones aren't as low impact as I'd like to think either ;)
 
Bump for Eric.. he mention ed that he had more to add and don't want this thread to fall off of his radar :)
 
super interested in dosages and overall application
(dose, water change, etc.) , keep us up to date
 
Hopefully Eric survived the Holiday season and can post his further findings, as he alluded to previously :)


Happy New Year :D
 
Eric, do you know or have any information on how long these acro bugs would last in a tank without any acropora present. I ask because if I were to take all the acropora out and place in a separate system to treat with Interceptor, would the acro bugs die-off and if so how long would it take before re-introducing the coral back into the main system again?

Thanks, Mike
 
I have just stated my treatment. I have removed all acros to a quarantine setup. So far everything seem okay. Just curious what everyone does about encrusted parts on rocks. I have one acro that was encrusted about the size of a 50 cent piece. Any suggestions?
 
i have those htings, but theyre clear come out at night and look like little shrimp, look in your magfloat, o nthe inside part of the tank, it shoudl have little bugs in the bristles
 
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