Little Red Bugs!!!!

[imbuggin]

anyone have a good current place on line to get interceptor?

[Fly Guy]

I would just call your local vet. Mine gave it to me without hesitation after explainingmy problem and that it is widely used in our hobby but she did write up a quick disclaimer she made me sign before selling it to me.

[Fly Guy]

To be honest, i am right at this moment of the belief(belief is too strong a word.....let just say Im thinking strongly), that little red bugs really arent a problem but a symptom.....a symptom of a coral that is not as healthy as it should be.
I know that in my mixed 80 gallon tank I have roughly 75 sps corals(nearly half of these acros) ranging from 2" frag size to softball size colonies. When i frist noticed a few of the red bugs a couple of months ago, they were all opening up, just some not to their potential. I killed the red bugs(and many other things) and in the last couple of weeks i have had both RTN and STN in 2 large colonies and about 8 other specimens. I can add other corals to this list every day. I have fragged the large colonies and It appeared to be successful for the most part at first, then about ten days after fragging, the fragged corals in question....about 25 1-3" frags have RTN'd and died.......all but a handful of them. This was not the work of LRB's as they are dead, along with somethiung else that was holding the AEFW's at bay, which I have no doubt in my mind now, were the original culpits causing my corals to being unhappy, the LRB's were just along for the ride.
So what died with the Interceptor treatments, or what happened with the Interceptor treatments, that allowed the AEFW's to freely and quickly wreak havoc that they were slowly wreaking before???

I dont know for sure as what I have performed is surely not a controlled experiment but regardless, I haveclearly proven for myself that while not discounting the LRB's as a problem, they surely were not my biggest problem and the process of killing them off brought my real problem to front and center, as well as has enabled it to freely kill.
There is the the notion that the acro crabs protect acros from AEFW's. Well they were surely killed by the interceptor treatments.

????

I think i have no choice at this point but to remove all of the softies/lps from the tank and nuke the tank with levamisole and just change water lots to try to overcome the toxins that surely will be created. I am moving all of my sps into their own sps only tank and i would rather my corals die that move this problem into my new system which i have spent more than a little bit of time and money creating.

There are more than a few people who have aefw's I believe, they just dont know it yet.



http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pr...33&perpage=533

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=756327

[King-Kong]

LRBs do bother corals.

I recently purchased this guy: http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/83-acro.jpg

First month here he colored up and began extending polyps; looked tons better than in the store. I also have RB's, however, and now a few days after noticing the RBs on this new [small] colony, the polyps are going away, and the coral is beginning to have small amounts of slime "here and there".

It seems pretty cut and dry that the RBs are pestering this colony.

I plan to dose interceptor shortly. Due to them obviously affecting this new colony, I plan to do it sooner rather than later.

[Fly Guy]

I didnt say that they DIDNT bother/pester corals. There is no doubt that they do damage, as well as no doubt that we dont want them in our tanks. I simply stated that Interceptor has a greater impact on our tanks than we are aware of, and prevention is of utmost importance so we dont have to dose our entire systems with drugs that have been marginally tested at best for a marine application.

It seemed pretty cut and dry to me before i dosed with Interceptor that the LRB's was my problem as well, and I was basing this on about 30 different acros, with only a couple fo them not opening up fully becasue of what i thought at the time was all the result of the little red bugs.

The "pestering" the LRB's can do to acros compared to what AEFW's can do is like stubbing your toe bad enough that it bleeds compared to blowing your foot off with a grenade.

I think the reality of it is that we dont really know exactly what the LRB's do or are capable of doing long term, just as we dont know a lot about how we go about treating for them.

[smeese]

I agree....even thought this had been a battle for a year or two that is about it, there are many things we probably do not even know. Some peolpe do not see LRB's as a problem, but I reccommend treating for them as a whole system treatment. I figure if you can get rid of them why not, I generally put the acro crabs in containers floating around a seperate tank as they seem to die off quickly. I rememer seeing my favorite acro crab hanging on for dear life then finally the Tunzes stripped him off the brach he was holding and he plummeted to his death. I believe these crabs are significant in keeping the corals healthy. A buddy of mine treated stuff in a seperate tub once and had them back in a few months but he is not sure if he took in new ones or if they regenerated due to a unsuccessful treatment. Or both. I hope you figure it out man. I am sorry to hear of your loss.

[clockwork]

I live and have been living with redbugs ..they are not harming my corals to any extent that I notice poor color, poor growth or poor PE.

Let the backlash begin I am used to it......

[Reefer Jerm]

Hello Clocky ol' buddy!!!!!

Clockwork has a wonderful tank! His red bugs are doing minimal if any damage...

I lived with red bugs for 2 years....slowly very slowly irritated several acro colonys to death....treated interceptor....And am VERY impressed!

To treat or not to treat...is the question....

Doc

[Schwaggs]

So has any ground been made on the "treat or no treat" question? I too have had red bugs for around 6 months that I know of and while I rarely see polyps on my colonies and the growth is slow, they are growing quite nicely. The thing that has stopped me from treating is:

My large pod population
100 or so blue-leg hermits
Mated pair of cleaner shrimp
4-8 acro crabs
2 pistol shrimp
Fear of long term issues
Everything is existing without problems

Now I want to start fragging things and trading with others but I am afraid of spreading the buggers.

Should I treat or not?

How can I get the acro crabs out of colonies that I can't move?
Any idea how to catch cleaner shrimp?
To those of you that performed the intercepter treatment, did you do 3 treatments? Are the bugs still gone? Did you do 1 or 2 25% water change and carbon after each treatment?

[Fly Guy]

Schwaggs...ill answer your questions that i think I CAN answer.



My large pod population

-toast, but they will be back in nearly full force in healthy tank within a couple of months...

100 or so blue-leg hermits

get em out

Mated pair of cleaner shrimp

get em out

4-8 acro crabs
get em out......dont know about the colonies you cant move...i would move the entire rock out and gently try to force out with flow no matter how difficult that may seem

2 pistol shrimp

good luck getting em out

Fear of long term issues
Everything is existing without problems

yep..............

Now I want to start fragging things and trading with others but I am afraid of spreading the buggers.

Should I treat or not?

If you are going to be trading with others you have no choice. Knowingly spreading them is like knowing spreading VD. violators will be neutered........but i think you know that already


Any idea how to catch cleaner shrimp?
mine can be caught with my hand but food and a net should work if yours are a little wary...if they are stil wary dont feed them for a while..they will lose there waryness


To those of you that performed the intercepter treatment, did you do 3 treatments? Are the bugs still gone? Did you do 1 or 2 25% water change and carbon after each treatment?[/quote]

i did 3 treatments, bugs are still gone, i did 1 25-30% WC and carbon after each.

[clockwork]

Everytime I post my experience about rbs my posts get deleted so I am keeping my opinon and experience to myself

[Fly Guy]

Originally Posted by clockwork

Everytime I post my experience about rbs my posts get deleted so I am keeping my opinon and experience to myself

Seriously??????

I for one would like to hear more about your experiences with them........It hasnt even been quite a year since ive been even keeping sps....everything i said below is fact according to my experience but that experience is obviously limited.
I cant imagine why someones posts would be deleted for simply stating their experiences.......

???

[Schwaggs]

Well, I decided to treat the tank. I separated my 90 gallon fuge and holding tanks from the main display and moved all hard corals into the main display. I will leave the display and fuge separated a few days past the 3rd treatment, roughly 16 days, that should give enough time to kill any LRBs that may be in the fuge and holding tanks. Over the last several days, I have been picking hermits from the display. I tried to get the cleaners out but couldn't.

An hour after putting the Interceptor in, there was no more movement in the LRBs, in fact, it was very satifying to watch one fall off a colony and float away! Also, after about an hour, I found one of my cleaners swimming randomly upside down. I quickly netted him and put him in the other system. Too early to tell if he will make it. I saw my other cleaner foraging for food as if nothing was going on.

A tip for those of you that will be performing this treatment in the future. I picked up a mortar and pestile on ebay for like $5. This is the prefered method for crushing the pill. Once you have it ground to a powder, put a tablespoon or so of water in the mortar and mix the pill powder and water with the pestile before puting into a larger container of water to pour into your system. This makes it a snap to mix the pill with water. Make sure to rinse all the mixture into your system.

[Viv]

What are symptoms of LRB and AEFW? Can you see redbugs? Do they overrun the tank?

[Schwaggs]

I can't talk to the AEFW but LRB are visable to the naked eye. They seem to like the shaded side of acroporas and easier to see on lightly colored corals. They didn't seem to infest all of my acros, only about 1/2. The smaller colonies and especially frags seemed to be most effected by them. No polyp extension (even at night) and slow to no growth are what I saw. The large colonies I have seemed uneffected by them at all. I wouldn't say they overrun the tank. On a typical 2" branch of their favorite acros, I would say there were 10-15 of them. On a less favored acro, you might see 1 or 2 on the same real estate.