Black Bugs - An Acro keepers worst nightmare?

[ReeferB28]

I've had some experience with these black bugs. Luckily, it was my QT tank. And I had no sps. These dang things were super resilient. I did however manage to eradicate them from my system by gradually dropping the tank temperature to upper 60s for 2 months or so. I have definitely noticed the correlation between increased ocean temperatures and and increasing amount of pest populations. Just something to consider. My 2 cents.

 

[ZaneTer]

Does anyone have any pictures of these black bugs?

 

[Joao junior]

For me, the best way so far has been blasting the corals and taking off the bases

 

[sevitz5]

So, I believe I am battling these same pests. I’m loosing colonies of sps from the base up. My parameters are stable, so I’m suspecting bugs. Few questions:
1. What strength / schedule / length / process works with intercepter?
2. Will this kill any of my fish? LPS?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would love to see people’s macro pictures of their black bugs.

 

[ReeferB28]

For me, the best way so far has been blasting the corals and taking off the bases

Yep, same jerks that were in my qt

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Are these coming in on wild stuff? Anyone catch these from someone else’s tank?

 

[305Reefer]

So, I believe I am battling these same pests. I’m loosing colonies of sps from the base up. My parameters are stable, so I’m suspecting bugs. Few questions:
1. What strength / schedule / length / process works with intercepter?
2. Will this kill any of my fish? LPS?

Read the thread. Interceptor doesn't kill them. We are talking about black bugs here not red bugs. No dip ive found kills them except Prime Coral's Prevent STN. And I tried them all... bayer at insane dose, revive at coral killing dose/time, Melafix, Dr G's SPS Dip (Interceptor in a bottle) etc...

As someone mentioned above, i finally was able to kill off the last of them by blasting them off corals, cutting all dead tissue and base, dipping intensely and moving to QT. Took my the best part of a year to make it all work out.. 6 months now without any black bugs.. but i lost 75% of my collection before I finally got it handled. Nightmare pest.

 

[Backreefing]

Hello friends I don’t know what I’m talking about with regards to the black bugs. But if these are coming in hitching on to wild acropora. Then what luck has anyone had searching for a natural predator ? Like but not limited to dragon faced pipefish, certain demsel fishes ( springeri ) , wrasses of many types, even sea horses . Ect.
My thoughts are there has to be preditors or the entire natural reef will quickly become nothing but dead acropora and tons of black bugs . Thx Ted

 

[sevitz5]

This is what I’m battling.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

OP, I had to deal with black bugs a while back. They can be beaten and are not as big of a deal as some people make them out to be. I treated them like red bugs and did several dips with Ivermectin. Ivermectin is very similar to Interceptor, its a liquid form of animal de wormer, Interceptor is a pill form. You will need to get it from an animal Vet. It will take several dips over several weeks to break the life cycle of the bugs. I have heard that Bayer dips will work as well, stuff kills everything, but I have no experience with Bayer as a coral pest dip. I can say Ivermectin works on AEFW, red bugs and black bugs for a fact since I have hands on experience. I would speculate it would also work on MEN as well. I had to call a few local Vets and finally found an exotic animal Vet that was willing to help when I had red bugs. I needed to bring an infected coral frag as the patient. I got to check the little pests out under a microscope eating my frag. What was super cool is the Vet asked if he could send the frag to a colleague at the Monetary Bay Aquarium for research on the pest. Of coarse I let him have the frag in the name of science. Hope this was helpful, keep us posted and good luck.

You can purchase ivermectin at a feed supply store. It's 1% cattle and 2% swine. However, ivermectin in liquid form is oil based.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Has anyone tried a nicotine based flea/tick/heartworm pill? Such as Confortis? What about frontline spray, the original (long shot but hey) it was originally a pesticide for vegetables. Other than that, there has to be something that eats them in the wild, even at night or at least actively hunts them so viciously it will find them in the day.
Someone suggested ivermectin. In my experience ivermectin will kill just about any pest internally and externally on a dog, except for ticks (that I know of) but it will kill mange (both types) mites and lice.
What about seven dust? I actually had this contaminate a tank one time and while it didn't affect the corals any and every kind of "bug", worms, copepods, you name it went belly up. I mean they went crazy trying to escape and then died. Didn't take much. So little in fact it took me a while to realize what happened. Some went air born in the house and apparently got close enough to the tank to settle into the water.

 

[Earl Karl]

In my Phase 1 Coral QT tank, I have a pencil wrasse that destroys all pests. The Pencil Wrasse is by FAR the best pest control fish you can have. Snipes everything down from flatworms to bugs. You can even hear the "snap" outside of the tank whenever they pick at the rocks.

Unfortunately with Indo down, black bugs have been common nowadays due to Acros pretty much only coming from Australia, where black bugs are prevalent. This is coming from a person (me) with an association with few wholesalers.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

One more thing, I'm sure this was probably one of the first things tried, but what about iodine? The lugols at full or close to full strength? Then rinse the corals to remove the bugs?

 

[Earl Karl]

One more thing, I'm sure this was probably one of the first things tried, but what about iodine? The lugols at full or close to full strength? Then rinse the corals to remove the bugs?

It's VERY hard to kill black bugs. They even survive super concentrated bayer dips. Bayer just stuns them, which is why you have to powerhead the coral to blow them off.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Has anyone posted photos or videos to iNaturalist forum which has multiple PHD marine biologists as well as other scientist that partake in insect, animal, fungus, plant, coral, etc identification? Someone there might have some insight and know what they are which would be the first step in figuring out how to effectively kill them.

 

[zromano]

@OP I would suggest collecting these bugs and keeping them alive. I’m sure that we could find someone on the site and if not, I would be happy to help you research and find someone to study these bugs briefly to identify the species. I’m near Atlanta and Charleston, both of which have large aquariums and may have specialists for some research. An identification of the species would help to identify how to attack them. Let’s take afoxolaner for example. This is Nexgard essentially. But it attacks a specific type of flea (bug obviously) and crashes its central nervous system. I’m not sure you’ll ever find a medicine specifically designed for this bug - don’t think there’s a feasible market out there to justify production and R&D. However, you may be able to find the species of the bug and test a few different medicines to see how it affects the acro and the bugs. Just my two cents, feel free to shoot me a PM.

edit: just realized this is an old thread

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

It's VERY hard to kill black bugs. They even survive super concentrated bayer dips. Bayer just stuns them, which is why you have to powerhead the coral to blow them off.

Yeah, I read the posts. It sounds terrible. Don't know much that could withstand iodine at full strength though. But who knows.

 

[Earl Karl]

Yeah, I read the posts. It sounds terrible. Don't know much that could withstand iodine at full strength though. But who knows.

If it can survive super concentrated bayer (not the one you get at Home Depot), I don't think Lugol's ain't gonna do anything unless you put enough to kill the acro. Even then, you might just end up with a dead acro and still alive black bugs. At most you can stun them without killing the acro.

Only way to get rid of them is full strength bayer or lugol's dip and baster or powerhead them off the coral. Then you flush those f****** for good.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Has the Kombia angulata been identified as an Acropora pest in aquaria? Does this resemble what you're seeing? Was trying to figure out what it could be.