red bugs

cloakerpoked · Mar 21, 2009

Well, I was looking at one of my acropora today and saw that it has red bugs on it. Needless to say, I'm not very thrilled at the prospect of having to dip all my corals so I have a question that is two-fold.

1.) Do I need to dip each coral, or do they typically localize on one colony at a time

2.) What dip should I use to kill them and make sure they don't come back

Thanks in advance for the advice.

raynist · Mar 21, 2009

You are probably going to have to treat the whole tank. Do you have any shrimp or crabs? I dip everything I get, even if I get it from someone I know. I use interceptor.

--Ray

cloakerpoked · Mar 21, 2009

I have about 5 emerald crabs, and a few brittle starfish. I haven't seen them on any other corals, just one that I got from somebody else in the club. I'd rather not lose all my SPS though, so if that's what I have to do then that's what I'll do...

raynist · Mar 21, 2009

If you only see it on one, take it out right away and do an interceptor dip for about 6 hours. I would put some tank water in a bag, add a pinch of interceptor and float the bag. Do this ASAP as they will move to other corals.

I would tell the person you got them from too just in case they don't know so they can treat it.

cloakerpoked · Mar 21, 2009

What color box do you use when you treat with interceptor?

raynist · Mar 21, 2009

cloakerpoked said:
What color box do you use when you treat with interceptor?

Hmm, I don't have the box any longer. Just the pills. I think I got the one for large dogs.

Sikryd · Mar 21, 2009

From my knowledge and those around here, they don't actually kill and eat coral, unless it is dead already. they will irritate it though and the polyps won't come out.

cloakerpoked · Mar 21, 2009

After doing some more reading, I'm going to stick with my iodine dip that I just used, and do it again on this colony in a week. I'll repeat that cycle a few times and see if that kills them all. If it does, then hopefully they were isolated in that one spot. I'm trying to avoid "nuking" my tank with a chemical unless I absolutely have to.

raynist · Mar 21, 2009

Is an iodine dip supposed to kill them? I know they can multiply fast.

cloakerpoked · Mar 21, 2009

There were a ton of little red dots that were unmoving after my dip. The coral also looked very stressed, so we'll see if it comes back. For now I haven't seen any others, so I'm going to be watching closely. Not sure where they came from, because I haven't seen the bugs at all until today.

AquaWorldPSC · Mar 22, 2009

Interceptor will work fine but only as a last resort. It comes in a white box, for large dogs. It's good to keep handy when you put new acros in your tank and use it as a dip. (I learned the dipping part from Ray)

Poseidon · Mar 22, 2009

I treated my whole tank when I had them. Came out just fine, no ill effects what so ever, BUT I as a rule I don't keep crabs.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Before treatment

TWO HOURS into the first treatment:

I did not have any other noticeable effects on the tank other then the disappearance of the bugs!

Hope that helps... Oh, and if you see them on one, they are probably on another. In my tank they seem wot really like stags, purple monster, and Garf Bosai, I could not find any on the Millepora though!

cloakerpoked · Apr 10, 2009

Well, here we are a month or so later and the iodine dip managed to kill most of the red bugs, but never eradicated it. Now I'm ordering interceptor and will be nuking my tank in a week or so.