Red Bug Alert
When it rains it pours they say, so my bad week keeps getting worse :( . I am hoping it doesn't become anyone else's bad week now....
We spotted some redbugs on some acros this morning. Looks like they are mostly on a few seaworld frags. It's impossible to say where they came from but I'm going to let seaworld know so they can check their stock.
We are treating with inteceptor now.
If you have recently purchased acros (they are acropora specific) and you did NOT do a preventative dip before putting them in your tank then you should take a CLOSE look at the acro's. They do not appear to have spread to most acro's in our tank, but even if you don't see any you might want to take them out and do a Lugol's dip if you did not do so before hand. Here is a quote from RC by Eric Borneman about Lugol's Dips in regards to red bugs...
Please get in touch with me or Mark if you need further information or assistance.<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=2978370#post2978 370 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EricHugo
We used two heartworm medicines - Interceptor and HeartGuard- took a long time to kill bugs, and even after 24 hours, some were still alive. Like I said, this is ok in a QT tank if you have the time and dollars to spare and can procure the drug. To be fair, the corals tolerate the meds well, but it is defintely not an approved use of the drug, and treating the tank will, if it is effective against these crustaceans, be effective against all the other things you don't want to kill - not the least of which would be the biomass pollution resulting from mass bug, bacteria, and worm kill of a well populated tank.
Ordinary 10 drop/liter Lugol's is basically worthless, too, but we used 5-10ml liter for times from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. At five to ten minutes, the 5ml dosage stressed the corals, and they had some bleaching. The 10ml dosage was worse. But, at less than 5 minutes for the 5ml dosage, and 2-3 minutes for the 10ml dosage, all corals tolerated it fine, no bleaching, and 100% kill of bugs. The vast majority had died and turned black, falling to the bottom, within seconds. I pipetted a few bugs off the coral and put them directly into a dish with that strength Lugol's under a dissecting scope and they went catatonic almost instantly and were dead within 30 seconds. I am not sure what allows those remaining few to survive for up to a few minutes, but some do. None survive beyond it. We were able to reduce that time to 1-2 minutes at 5ml dosage if a pipette was used to dislodge any stragglers that failed to jump off the coral or die outright in that time period. Like I said, a magnifying glass will confirm that they are clear. Of course, those corals have to be put into a QT tank for the period during which the bugs remain alive in the tank without a host because some do jump off when you move a coral in the tank - and they swim very well and frequently swim stright back towards other Acropora - amazing to watch.
If it turns out they have a complex life cycle or actually do have other potential hosts, then we're in trouble. But, so far so good and no reappearance after treating around 100 or more Acropora of many species.
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