Using Pipefish to eat red bugs and Blacks

[Tank2379]

Anyone use them to eat these guys up? I recently encountered some black bugs on my Red Digi. Was wondering why that one didn't look well for a few weeks. Finally put a magnifying glass on it and saw a bunch of black bugs on it. I have a Pipefish in one of my LPS tanks and decided to toss it in there little did I know that Pipefish went to town on those little BB... It's been a few days and now I am starting to see the polyps come out again.

Has anyone tried doing this with red bugs? It would seem a little bit better than Intercept and let nature take it's course... But this is just my experience with this...

 

[NatureNerd]

FROM AN EARLIER POST: I know I sound like a broken record, but Dragon face pipefish are not the answer. They will eat some Red Bugs but not enough to make a big difference for your corals. I did a semi-scientific experiment on this topic. I literally counted bugs on one coral branch every day for a long period of time before and after getting a DF Pipefish. I spent a lot of time doing the needed macro-photography and entering data in a large spreadsheet.

At least in my experiment, it is not a good idea . After adding the pipefish, you will initially see a drop in bug populations but then this population stabilizes at a lower, but still significant, number of the pests. Coral health will still be effected. Eventually you will then use interceptor or sentinel and it wipes out your pod population and then the pipefish slowly starves to death. Only get a Dragonface Pipefish if you are sure of a steady population of pods and you really want to care for its needs. I do not believe it is an answer for these pests. Just my opinion.