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 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.
