Red Bugs

[Pitcom]

Well thanks to the cz photo war thread i noticed some red bugs on a couple frags i recently got. I took a close look st some of my colonies and sure enough there are bite marks on a few of them. I have the ability to remove each acro colony and frag from my system because i have them mounted on thier own rock or base.

My question is, if i'm going to do some interceptor dipping, do i need to do the entire tank? Or can i just remove all of my sps and dip them in one big container?

 

[KEEPERZ]

Pitcom- treat your whole system with interceptor 2-3 times and watch if the bite marks continue,could be aefw,hopefully not.

 

[Pitcom]

Pitcom- treat your whole system with interceptor 2-3 times and watch if the bite marks continue,could be aefw,hopefully not.

I was hoping i wouldnt have to do the entire tank as i have a ton of snails and i have several skunk cleaner shrimp that are pretty old. Will it kill all my pods? I have a couple of wrasse in my tank that only eat pods. I'd hate for my possum wrasse to starve to death.

 

[KEEPERZ]

The shrimp and crabs would most likely die but most of the pods will be ok,enough for the wrasse to live? Probably,can't guarantee that-the snails should be fine also. The corals will love you for it though if that helps, I stopped adding shrimp awhile back because I have not finished adding coral yet.

 

[twon8]

bite marks and red bugs dont' go together, but bite marks and aefw do, i'd do a close inspection of all mille's and tricolor's

 

[Pitcom]

what do aefw look like? I have a couple pics of the frags with bite marks on them and there are several red bugs in the same area.

 

[KEEPERZ]

Anthony is correct- but if your seeing red bugs(not a big deal to fix) run the ceptor on the whole system and pull a coral with bite marks. Drop that coral in some fluke tab treatment and see if flat worms jump off-then you'll know for sure

 

[Pitcom]

Thanks for the responses and information. I've never had to buy any of this stuff before. Is there any type of fluke tabs im looking for? Should my LFS have it? I have some clear containers i can use for the dip to see if any fall off. If i do find thats where the bite marks are coming from what do i need to do to the system?

 

[KEEPERZ]

Aquarium Pharmaceuticals fluke tabs is what I use,some lfs's have them. Interceptor is something you need a prescription for-sometimes- from a vet-

 

[twon8]

you can also just pull the colony out and use a turkey baster to blow off the coral, if you see small clear things coming off you've got bad news.

the eggs are also something to look for, small brown circles bunched up usually in the crux of branches or under mille's scales.

 

[Pitcom]

So far the only corals with any bite marks are my secale colony and one of my two tri color valida colonies. I fragged up my secale and those are the frags with bite marks.

 

[Pitcom]

I heavily lugol dipped the colony and i had 6 worms fall off. I fragged the nice part of the colony into a few frags and am just going to get rid of the rest. So far i only had bites on two of my colonies, do i just get rid of them?

 

[KEEPERZ]

Just because a colony has aefw doen't mean you have to trash it, but you do need to do a few treatments and watch it closely, it seems that the flat worms are choosey eaters. You will help the coral tremendously by dipping them outside of your display and scraping eggs off. Your tank will most likely have them as long as there is acro to eat that they like.There is no known full in-tank treatment that is recommended for aefw yet...

 

[twon8]

that doesn't sound good, they like to go for tricolor's first

 

[Pitcom]

that doesn't sound good, they like to go for tricolor's first

I've had the tricolor in my tank for 8 months and i just noticed the first bite marks. It's quadrupled in size since ive gotten it so they must have just started on it. Bite marks are also localized to one branch. It came from the same lfs though as the secale colony i just fragged up.

 

[gflat65]

There is almost no telling when one might have entered your system. Once you've got them, you've got them. They are no fun to deal with. I did the Levamisole treatment about two years ago and lost a lot of acros (presumably killed the AEFW's...). I now dip everything incoming in TMPCC and cut acros off of their bases (and look for dead tissue). The TMPCC will pretty much turn them to mush at or just over recommended strength (I typically overdose acros). Sounds like people are having luck wih the Fluke tabs, but I think they stun the AEFW's more than kill them. Whichever method, they should be blasted with a turkey baster when you pull them from the dip to dislodge anything that might be hanging around. Good luck with them.

 

[gflat65]

Here is a thread with some pictures, etc.

http://www.club-zoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8652

 

[Pitcom]

Here is a thread with some pictures, etc.

http://www.club-zoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8652

Hey bud, i had the same EXACT colony that had the flat worms as you. I couldnt believe your colony, mine was slightly larger but it was exactly the same coral. I ended up fragging mine up last night. I got rid of 80% and made 4 frags of the really healthy area after a couple extremely heavy iodine dips. I dipped the acro in ( ratio = 40 drops of lugols per 16 ounce water). I also dipped my tri color and i watched the worms fall off of the eaten area.
I am crossing my fingers they don't show up anywhere else. Looks like i won't be transffering anything from this tank into my new show tank though unless it goes through a qt period.

 

[reefermadness]

I just treated about two weeks ago, I was waiting to redue all my rock. After two years I have upgraded my lighting so corals had to move. The interceptor works awesome...I bought a 10gal from Meijer and a heater, plus one of those small filters. I dosed the whole pill (.23 g) for 24 hrs. They develop a slime and the bugs fly right off. My irritation spots are healing and the polys are all out for the first time in a while....It is really easy to do, except get the corals out and set backup!

 

[gflat65]

I miss that one. The healthy shot is in the forth post. It came from fishdoc, who got it from garf as a green and gold bonsai or something along those lines (may have been something Norm made up on the spot). I know a few people in Nashville that have it, but I don't get up that way very often anymore.

All of my favorties went first... Garf PB, Mike Paletta blue (tenius), MI bluetip bottlebrush, efflo/soli, nana/validas (tricolors)... Fishdoc hooked me back up after the treatments, though (and did so after the move-he's awesome). Once you go through it, you will likely become obsessive with QT'ing. The Levamisole treatment was tedious and took almost a full 6-7 hours the way I was doing it (back hurt for weeks...). Then the coral deaths. Not a fun time. I've had no signs since then. I did lose every acro I had in the move, too, so I got a fresh slate then. Nothing takes them out like no food source for an extended period of time.