Red bugs on Acros.

[D12monkey]

For those of you that do not know what Red bugs are. Here's picture I took. And this link has several more photos. (http://www.smallreef.com/img/BUGS2/pics.htm)

[D12monkey]

They are a little bit difficult to see via the naked Eye.

[D12monkey]

Here's what you would need to look for.

[D12monkey]

Ok now that you know what to look for. Here's what you need to do... This has been my own story and it's been quite successful. As far as I know there isn't any side effects of this treatment. It's has been done on numerous tanks and nobody had any big problems. Now here's the disclaimer: :D I do not responsibilize myself to anything that can happen to your tank... Like I said this is my presonal experience. PREFORM AT OWN RISK!!!!


Now that's taken care of: There is several ways to take care of this problem. Three ways from my research:

1.) The use of a Dragonface pipefish (Corythoichthys haematopterus). "The Natural Way"

Further info can be found on this website. Information/Purchase (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=282)

[D12monkey]

2.) The use of a heartworm medication known as Interceptor. (Prescription is needed to aquire this.)

3.) The use of a quarantene system... And the use of dips i.e. Lugol's solutions or reef dip.

The treatment that I will be discussing here is the second treatment as it's prob the most effective if your whole system is contaminated.

[D12monkey]

Well I decided to treat the whole system with the heartworm meds called Interceptor because I watched over the period of a month and a half, all my acros slowly deteriorating in health. It got to the point that I thought I was going to loose some acros.

Signs and Symptoms of a red bug infestation are:
-Fading of colors of the affected acros.
-Reduced polyp extension.
-Stunt/slowed growth.

These are the best signs indicating a red bug infestation.

Treatment: After searching for a long time I was able to identify the problem that was affecting my corals. I came upon this website (http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=439155) that allowed me to identify what was going on. Well you can read exactly how the treatment is to be preformed. I on the other hand was in a bind. I could not get a hold of the medication via the internet like they said was possible and I did not have an accurate enough scale.

My treatment was as followed... I was lucky enough that the most heavily infected acros were not secured to any live rock or anywhere permanent. While waiting for my scale to come in I actually took some of the meds that I was able to acquire locally and treated a small container with approximate 200x the dosage because I did not have any way to weigh the pill.

I placed the most heavily infected pieces with looked like they were going to die into the container. And closely monitored the progress.

After about 1 hour I could tell that the majority of the red bugs were not moving about as much. This rapid progression I think was due to the fact that I had a small syringe and was blasting the slime from the coral away so that the medicated water was actually reaching the red bugs.

After about 2 hours and taking several red bugs under the microscope. I could see that there was not life in the bugs. Just to be on the safe side I opted to leave the coral in for one more hour.

After 3 hours I have replace the coral in the tank. I was surprised to see how fast the polyps started to extend again, even while being treated.

After I got my digital scale I. Prob about 3 days after the first treatment, I then followed to treat the whole tank using the appropriate dosages of 25 mg per 10 gals as Dustin Dorton suggested. But because I felt that I had gotten most of the red bugs and I had my pom pom crab that I did not wish to loose I dosed a little lite. I believe I have close to 70 gals of water in my system but I treated the same amount as if I had only 50 Gals. I allowed the treatment to go through the 6 hours of “soak.” And then I proceeded to do a 50% water change, and run the skimmer again. No carbon was added to the tank and I suffered absolutely no loses in livestock. About seven days later I again proceeded with another treatment. No loses there also. It’s been now a month since treatment and no signs of red bugs again.

Tanks Dustin. ;)

[D12monkey]

I now QT all my corals and dip in an interceptor solution and allow my corals to sit in this solution for about 2 hours.

My recommendation to everyone is to follow Dustin's treatment schedule and treat accordingly.

Like I said this was my experience. I cannot vouche that it'll work for everyone but it worked for me.

[FragOutpost]

Very informative post! I'm glad to hear that you didn't lose any livestock.
Awesome photos! Great job and thanks for sharing your experience. This thread deserves a sticky.

[reefkeeper]

I have not experianced this problem in over 10 yrs. of keeping SPS. I do Quarantine and do a Lugols dip on all new SPS. This may be the reason, I am very glad do find out that there is a way to combat this problem. Once again it shows how important it is to Quarantine...

Thanks for the great info.