Thank God for Interceptor! Acro newbies please read!
 

I was always one of those reefkeepers that thought to myself "I don't have or couldn't have redbugs!" I've always blamed it on my husbandry, or because I didn't have a calcium reactor, or I have too much nutrients in my water column etc (even though I clean my glass less than once/week).

Man, was I ever wrong. I previously thought I did a pretty good job at observing my SPS many times for bugs or nudis etc (inside my tank), but never saw anything. I guess I don't have a trained eye like some of you guys do because to me these things are almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Until NOW! :eek:

After putting acros in my tank (frags and colonies) these past few months and slowly watching them decline in health (lose PE, loss of coloration, blotchy white spots etc), I decided to take a suffering acro out of the water and place it in a separate container with some tankwater in it. I then took a turkey baster and blasted it with water inside the container. Afterwards I placed the coral back into the tank and examined the container of water. It took a long time, but I finally noticed some red bugs swimming around. I didn't see that many, but at least it confirmed that I had red bugs.

I picked up some interceptor yesterday and performed my first recommended dosage for 6 hours followed by a 25% water change. I did notice my bali tricolor had better coloration as well as crazy PE on my pink milli almost immediately after that water change. Two more treatments to go! :cool:

Today I noticed that my acros are doing sooo much better. Better coloration, more PE, just healthier!! Most of my hermit crabs that I removed before the treatment died, but it was a small price to pay to save hundreds/thousands of dollars worth of current and future acros.

My message to all of you that wonder why they're losing color, or why there's no PE etc; and you also know that you are diligently maintaining your parms as best you can is to do the turkey baster test!! I hope I can at least help out another fellow reefer with the same symptoms to save any future loss of SPS due to thinking "That will never happen to me!" ;) I feel so much better that it's not my husbandry but because it was something else.

Now if only there was something that would consistently treat monti or acro nudis :confused:

Very nice reference! *bookmarks it*

It's a good feeling isn't it:)

Re: Thank God for Interceptor! Acro newbies please read!
 

Sorry I don't understand this. So did you remove the hermit crabs before the treatment, then performed the treatment, then put the hermit crabs back to the tank, and then most of the hermit crabs died?

I have Acroporas covered with the “bugs” and no problems in over four years. I fraged them several times. Acroporas are all fine and they grow and attach fast. Never lost one or had one bleach.

Re: Re: Thank God for Interceptor! Acro newbies please read!
 

Yes, that's exactly what I did. Unfortunately they don't do too well with the treatment. There are others who say they were unaffected, but I followed the dosage pretty good but it still didn't help.

You're pretty lucky, but I bet you'd see results if you performed a treatment :)

I hope you tell the people you sell/trade them to that you have red bugs:)

FWIW it's a good idea to wait about a week before putting arthropods back into a treated tank. I had the same experience with loosing crabs I put back in the next day.

Chris

No, these bugs that people are finding are living on the coral as they do in the wild. I know for a fact that they are harmless to the coral and that they are found on them in the wild. They just live on acroporas because of the slime they produce. The corals don’t even know they are there. They collect particles trapped in the slime, they don’t eat the coral. These bugs have been around for years now with all the publicity with the internet they have become a problem.

People are looking closely and finding them now. Everyone with acroporas will find them eventually, they just don’t know they have them yet.

interesting concept gobie, but in the wild the PARMS are perfect, in captivity the corals are already stressed some(some), and the bugs on them irritate them even more, so they dont flourish.
just my 2c

Well IMO that's irresponsible.

Any links to studies that prove they don't harm corals in the wild? I have no doubt that they occour in the wild or we wouldn't have them in our tanks. IME red bugs DO harm corals in aquariums and I know of many other experienced sps keepers that would concour:)

Chris

I agree that redbugs are "harmful" to acros. I couldn't believe the difference in how my corals looks after getting rid of the LRBs. The only problem I see with your argument, Gobie, is that in the wild, there are natural predators to red bugs that we don't have in our tanks, allowing the LRBs to "get outta control." Without anything to keep them in check, too many of them can/are problematic to our acros. FWIW.

I know a few people that always had the bugs and never did anything about it and their acros are growing like mad. I just followed their lead and have had the same success. Maybe they do harm some acros in captivity but not the species I have or I just have a very healthy coral.

BTW i put in interceptor about 5 hours ago on my 1st of 3 treatments i will do, i have 450 gal water in my system, i will do a 100 gal wc, and run 1.5 lbs of carbon for 24 hrs, i will do this again in 7 days, and 7 days after that. I believe i will let the interceptor sit for 8-9 hours each time, and the 2nd and 3rd time i will increase dosage each time by 50%

Good luck with your treatment, hope everything goes well! :)

It sure is :)

I'm sooo happy it's not because of my husbandry. Up to this point I thought that it was my water parms etc. I am diligent when it comes to the overall health of my tank, and like to keep it looking immaculate. I spend at least 1 hour per day maintaining a "clean-looking" tank. Up till now I thought I was wasting my time :mad:

woah.. wait a second...


Gobie, I know you think that you are 90% right, but i sure hope you tell people that there are red bugs on the corals... If there is even the slightest chance you are wrong for red bugs in any system... or if some one has a spicies of acro that is prone to red big damage.. you introduced a carrier coral.... ... ignore the rest of this post if you have told every person you have provided frags for before they got the corals...

it is very damaging and incredibly highly unethical to trade a infected coral with a known parasite that many well respected people have had, and have doccumented the damage it does to their corals... and the amount of health that came afterwards...

I know you have seen a couple of tanks..

let me look at the score..
"a few people's tanks i have seen" don't think they are harming.


vs..

probably 800-1000+ reefers, many have documented pictures before during and after infections.. including illiregular growth formations, coloration mishaps, stn, rtn, surly not all the fatalities wiht bugs are to blame on them.. but i haven't ran into to one person who said i wish i didn't treat for the bugs.. including my self.....

with how confident you seem about red bugs not damaging any acro, i hope you arn't "holding back telling" afraid people won't trade with you if you tell them... if you are right, then there is nothing lost.. if you are wrong.. you might as well throw a 9 volt battery in the people's tank who you gave frags to, inorder to round it off...

[/rant]




if you have a known parasite or plague in your tank either don't trade, or make it INCREDIBLY clear that your tank has it.

could you please provide a scientific source, or a paper or an article that backs this up?

They just live on acroporas because of the slime they produce. The corals don’t even know they are there. They collect particles trapped in the slime, they don’t eat the coral.


we know they feed off the coral's slime.. but an overwhelming # of cases points to that it irritates pretty majorly as well

I just dosed interceptor for the first time. YES I saw them TODAY! Damb things. dirtyreefer I also went through the same heart ack thinking it was me....

There's one in every crowd :rolleyes:

oh well.. i wonder how long we will wait for a paper or article containing his view...

conversly

gogin through my bookmarks when i had it..

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=470939

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...03/feature.htm


good article:)


"Such colonies continue to grow well, and healthy, the owner thinks nothing of trading the fragments of that colony with other reefkeepers. Once in a new tank, the parasites travel to Acropora species/variants more to their appetite and can eventually kill such colonies. My experience has been that if left untreated, only about 20% of Acropora species/variants are killed by the parasites, perhaps another 25% are stunted, or loose color, maybe another 25% are carriers, and the final 30% are immune and do not become colonized. Of course in times of other tank stresses like high temperatures, poor circulation, low calcium or alkalinity values, the additional ‘pressure’ that these parasites put on a colony might be enough to push other colonies ‘over the cliff.’
"

I hope your treatment was successful! Keep us posted on the results! :)

well i lost most of my hermits(NBD) lost all of my acro crabs..., i saw dead bristle worms floating around, my sally made it along with my pistol shrimp.. no red bugs in site woo hoo...
only issue is the carbon made a big cloud in my whole system, very grey water.. i rinsed for 15 min, and couldnt get all the dust out.. i used Kent carbon, in a 100 micron bag (15 coffee cups of it in the bag)

That's why I'm worried about buying SPS from people on here. People who just sell it knowingly that they have red bugs. It's just not worth it.

Well, I would never sell a coral to someone knowing I have the bugs. And I like to think that everyone that’s into SPS would do the same. Knowing what we go through to keep everything healthy and how much money we spend on this hobby.
Anyone that would knowingly sell me a coral that was infected, I would simply KILL!!:uzi: :wavehand: