found those white bugs on acros!

[Rickyrooz]

We're moving in the right direction! The third treatment I mixed the Interceptor in boiling water which completely dissolved the medicine. This technique speaks for itself because the first two treatments only took out the white bugs but not the black bugs. I added two large dog chewable tablets (23 mg) each of Interceptor for the 120 gallon and 2 tablets for the 160 gallon.


Before treatment

After treatment

 

[meromeroreefer]

I have these dang bugs too!

 

[Rickyrooz]

I have these dang bugs too!

Video does not work

 

[Bluedore]

I’m seeing some white bugs on my acros, anyone know where to get the interceptor or is it prescription only? TIA

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I’m seeing some white bugs on my acros, anyone know where to get the interceptor or is it prescription only? TIA

Prescription only. I was able to talk to my vet and they were more than willing to write a script.

I just went through the entire procedure about a month ago. Killed off my shrimp and knocked down my pod population but the white bugs are gone.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’m seeing some white bugs on my acros, anyone know where to get the interceptor or is it prescription only? TIA

Veterinarian

 

[Bluedore]

Prescription only. I was able to talk to my vet and they were more than willing to write a script.

I just went through the entire procedure about a month ago. Killed off my shrimp and knocked down my pod population but the white bugs are gone.

It will be hard to get a script but saw a some other thread saying DR. G coral dip seems to have the same effect on white bugs. I will probably give that a try first.

 

[NurseYoyo203]

Hi,

i found those little bugs on 2 of my acro colony that had show some stress signs... planing on an interceptor treatment this week-end. tiny tiny white bugs!
good or bad ?

Copepods?? Those are good guys!

 

[david p.]

Copepods?? Those are good guys!

Nop. They were killling my acros

 

[ScottB]

Hi,

i found those little bugs on 2 of my acro colony that had show some stress signs... planing on an interceptor treatment this week-end. tiny tiny white bugs!
good or bad ?

Excellent film work. If you could get one of those buggers under a scope, I would love to know what they look like.

Do we think these are tegastes acroporanus?

I hope interceptor is easier to source in Canada than it is in my state.

*edit: oops. Not sure why the notification sent me all the way back to 2019 posts. disregard.

 

[NurseYoyo203]

‍

 

[MrStoffel]

Are we certain these bugs are acropora specific? I just lost all my birds nest, pocci and stylo’s to these jerks. I made a video of my pocci in some fauna marin dip. Without dip they hardly move, but this made them suddenly very obvious to spot.
I see them on all my acro’s as well, but in much smaller numbers… After dealing with blacks bugs, now i’ve got these. I’m about to call it quits tbh.

 

[ScottB]

Are we certain these bugs are acropora specific? I just lost all my birds nest, pocci and stylo’s to these jerks. I made a video of my pocci in some fauna marin dip. Without dip they hardly move, but this made them suddenly very obvious to spot.
I see them on all my acro’s as well, but in much smaller numbers… After dealing with blacks bugs, now i’ve got these. I’m about to call it quits tbh.

These look like white bugs to me. Access to Interceptor (milbemycin oxime) is different by country, but dosed appropriately they should eliminate them.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Are we certain these bugs are acropora specific? I just lost all my birds nest, pocci and stylo’s to these jerks. I made a video of my pocci in some fauna marin dip. Without dip they hardly move, but this made them suddenly very obvious to spot.
I see them on all my acro’s as well, but in much smaller numbers… After dealing with blacks bugs, now i’ve got these. I’m about to call it quits tbh.

Thats creepy, its crazy how under tank lights you cant see as much as at night or white light, the blue light hides everything!

what did you do?

 

[MrStoffel]

Thats creepy, its crazy how under tank lights you cant see as much as at night or white light, the blue light hides everything!

what did you do?

What makes it more difficult is they started from the inside out. My pocci was a tennisball size and by the time i noticed, most tissue inside the coral was allready gone. When they started multiplying and needed more and more space to feed i could see them on the tips of the coral and noticed something was wrong.

I ended up losing every single stylo, pocci & birdsnest in my tank to these critters. They did get on a few acro's, but never in these numbers. For some reason it also seemed they were not really damaging the acros. After i removed all dead stylo & pocci's, they started to decline and eventually disappeared entirely. I did introduce a sixline to the tank as well, and he was very interested in the acro's from day one.

So far so good, tank is in a much much better state now. I was really about to pull the plug at the time i discovered this, but maybe i got lucky and got a species that was targetting only these genera and not acro's...?

 

[Rickyrooz]

@MrStoffel I believe they live in the corallites of the polyps. When I had them that’s where they would disappear into during the day and they would come out at night, very easy to see with a flashlight.

 

[ScottB]

What makes it more difficult is they started from the inside out. My pocci was a tennisball size and by the time i noticed, most tissue inside the coral was allready gone. When they started multiplying and needed more and more space to feed i could see them on the tips of the coral and noticed something was wrong.

I ended up losing every single stylo, pocci & birdsnest in my tank to these critters. They did get on a few acro's, but never in these numbers. For some reason it also seemed they were not really damaging the acros. After i removed all dead stylo & pocci's, they started to decline and eventually disappeared entirely. I did introduce a sixline to the tank as well, and he was very interested in the acro's from day one.

So far so good, tank is in a much much better state now. I was really about to pull the plug at the time i discovered this, but maybe i got lucky and got a species that was targetting only these genera and not acro's...?

I do feel like there are several different ones with specific host/prey preferences. I found them difficult to differentiate from the smaller, more general pod population. My only choice was to eradicate all of them with milbemycin oxime. Are you able to source that drug in Belgium? It is heartworm medication for dogs.

 

[MrStoffel]

I do feel like there are several different ones with specific host/prey preferences. I found them difficult to differentiate from the smaller, more general pod population. My only choice was to eradicate all of them with milbemycin oxime. Are you able to source that drug in Belgium? It is heartworm medication for dogs.

Hi Scott,

I did indeed find milbemycin oxime here as pills for dogs.
I am now using it in a small QT tank where i keep my new frags for 24h in old tank water mixed up with ground milbemycin pills.
Treating my whole system would be a very last resort kind of thing.
So far i see no reason to, but this has thought me to look even closer to my corals and i am watching them like a hawk.

 

[MrStoffel]

@MrStoffel I believe they live in the corallites of the polyps. When I had them that’s where they would disappear into during the day and they would come out at night, very easy to see with a flashlight.

That is indeed what i also observed. The ones in my short video came out as a reaction to the dip.
Although it did not kill them at all, they got very active and started crawling around.

 

[ScottB]

Hi Scott,

I did indeed find milbemycin oxime here as pills for dogs.
I am now using it in a small QT tank where i keep my new frags for 24h in old tank water mixed up with ground milbemycin pills.
Treating my whole system would be a very last resort kind of thing.
So far i see no reason to, but this has thought me to look even closer to my corals and i am watching them like a hawk.

Hopefully this is enough and you don't have to treat the system. I did treat both of my systems. The shrimp I could not catch all died, along with all my pods. Which of course meant my mandarin dragonette starved . I introduced pods after, but it was not enough, or they were the wrong type.