Red bugs

[Matt F]

I just bought these really nice milles from Greg’s corals at the Philadelphia splash on sept 14th everything was fine yesterday looked almost I got them yesterday but I came down to look at them and the 2 milles are dead looks like little red bugs. Anyone know for sure? If so how can I get rid of them? They are in a frag qt tank no fish weekly water changes. Sorry for the bad pics

 

[rkpetersen]

Sorry that happened.
Could be red bugs, hard to say for sure from those pix.
But red bugs don't typically cause RTN like that.
More likely to see poor growth, poor color, and poor polyp extension.

 

[Matt F]

Sorry that happened.
Could be red bugs, hard to say for sure from those pix.
But red bugs don't typically cause RTN like that.
More likely to see poor growth, poor color, and poor polyp extension.

Looks like a red something the coral when it was alive was like a pink the red things move around and they were found in both acros and thanks for the help

 

[Goo]

Do they look like this

 

[Matt F]

Do they look like this

These look a lot bigger than the ones I saw the only reason I saw them was red on a the white dead coral so they were little

 

[Goo]

I had something on my leather

 

[SuncrestReef]

I’ve had red bugs on several of my acroporas since January and they have not killed anything. At worst they’ve only caused a bit of irritation and less polyp extension. Here's an up-close macro video showing the red bugs in my tank:

 

[Goo]

Hey Suncrest do they multiply pretty fast

 

[SuncrestReef]

Hey Suncrest do they multiply pretty fast

I don’t really know. I first spotted about 20 of them on a single frag in January. I bought a couple of dragonface pipefish because they’re known to eat red bugs, but the pipefish mostly stay near the sand eating copepods instead. Today the red bugs are on at least 10 of my corals and they probably number in the hundreds, but since they haven’t killed anything I’m not too worried about them.

 

[Jeff Jarry reef]

I believe you can get heartworm medicine in pill form from a vet and that will kill. I have seen this on mr. Saltwater tank he uses intercepter from vet.

 

[rkpetersen]

Interceptor is the recommended treatment.
It will also kill off any ornamental shrimp and crabs unless you remove them first.

 

[tankstudy]

Unless they changed regulations, you still need to get a vet to allow you to get the interceptor pill. Which can be tedious.

You can just buy Dr. G's coral dip which is the same as the pill but mixed with RO/DI water and some vitamin C i think. It's pricey per bottle but you won't have to visit a vet and convince him what you plan to do with the pill.

I have 2 bottles around all the time.