Red Bug Treatment

RiverReefer

Toothless Reefing
I found some red bugs on my ora blue bottlebrush, i have about 10 species of acropora in my tank so i have to assume that they are on all of these. For a while i've been having problems with coloring on that specific bottlebrush and I have tried everything including dosing vodka (which has increased coloration tank wide) but the BB seems to still not be coloring up how it should. I have to assume that it is because of the RB and I also have to assume that they have traveled to my other acro species in my tank. I need to do a tank wide treatment to get rid of these things for good. Taking out the specific acros and treating them out of the tank is not going to work so I'm going to do the tank treatment. I know there are alot of people on here that have had RB and live with them, but I really want to get rid of them.

I'm not sure how they got in there but i did get a frag from cory about 9 months ago and I did dip interceptor like i do with all frags it did end up that he had found RB in his system (he posted it on here so i'm not calling him out) after i put the frag in my tank so they probably came in with that frag and the dip didn't kill em all.

So basically looking for some different methods that you folks that have succesfuly used to entirely rid your system of the RB. Cory i know you had posted a while back that you thought you had gotten rid of them in your tank. Is that still the case or did they end up making a come back? how did you do it? anyone else that has advice or different methods?. Right now basically what I was leaning to was this...

http://www.hardcoreaquatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144

-take all the inverts out of the tank
-turn off skimmer
-take out carbon
-treat tank for like 8 hours
-do a 10-15 gallon WC (46 bow) and run carbon for a while.
-re introduce inverts
-repeat 7 days later and then again 7 days later.

one question, will the interceptor kill my GBTA? Will the interceptor kill my ricordia? thanks for the help
 
Dragonface pipefish are suppose to eat them. I've never heard of anyone using them yet though.
 
A friend of mine had inquired how I finally managed to beat a Red Planeria infestation. I told him my procedure using Levamisole Hydrochloride (Sp?) and warned him of the usual problems associated with the treatments.

All went well with no losses of anything but the flatworms and one other pest, Red Bugs. He claims he has not been able to find a single RB since the first treatment. He said he has inspected colonies that he knew where infested with them, and even with a magnifying glass, none where to be found.

I'm NOT saying this for sure will work, but just passing info that came back to me from the use of this product.

If you were to try this as a means of irradication, I would suggest making a dip first to be sure it works before treating your tank.

If interested, I can give you a link to purchasing Levamisole (it has become next to impossible to find lately) and the dosing amounts used.
 
Stick with the interceptor for redbugs.An AEFW infestation might warrant a whole tank levamisole treatment, but interceptor is much milder and has been proven to work. The current trend is to treat for longer time periods such as 12 hours, as 6 doesn't seem to work as well.
 
so you think the methods above in that link but for 12 hours each treatment and three treatments? will the interceptor kill my ricordia and gbta?
 
I've never read of losses to ricordia or gbta but I guess that losses could occur. There's some good info here even though Borneman suggests an out of tank treatment:
The "CURE" for Red Acro Bugs

while his treatment does work, some including myself have had re-occurrence after treatment. One treatment that I have found to work with better end results is one that Eric Borneman suggested. While the link to his site doesn't work I'll will post it here:

""Suggested Treatment Protocol

Based on my observations and work described here, I suggest the following as a treatment protocol for Acropora colonies that have been colonized by the parasitic copepod, Tegastes acroporanus ("red bugs") as a modification of the novel protocol developed by Dorton. The process is more labor intensive, but should be more effective in preventing any future need to treat Tegastes-parasitized Acropora in the display tank (provided quarantine is utilized for any new coral acquisitions). It should also help to reduce the current epizootic within reef aquaria by limiting the potential for spread between tanks by trading or purchase of Tegastes-colonized fragments or colonies.
1. Assume that every Acropora in the tank is colonized, even if there are not visible copepods on the colony.
rationale: copepods are cryptic on normally colored colonies, can be cryptic on pale colonies, and are small enough to be easily missed by examination through tank glass or even by direct observation with the naked eye. Furthermore, the copepods are motile, and swim between colonies. Therefore, any colonies removed for treatment may leave unnoticed indivuiduals on other colonies or allow for copepods that abandon hosts being removed for treatment to locate uncolonized Acropora.
2. All Acropora colonies should be removed from the tank and placed into a container for examination. This can be perfored one colony at a time. A magnifying glass, magnifying lamp, dissecting scope or some other method should be used to slowly and carefully examine each colony from every possible angle. The Corals will tolerate extended handling periods out of water to facilitate examination. The copepods will be covered with a smooth and somewhat shny carapace and with coral mucus and a thin film of water. Without examination from multiple light incidence angles, it is possible that individuals will go undetected. If a colony is too large or too densely branched to allow for a complete examination, consider it to be colonized. Any colonies that are determing to be free of copepods can be placed into a quarantine tank without treatment, but I would suggest reexamination prior to reintroduction to the main display tank.
rationale: Examination by the naked eye is insuficient to detect all copepods.
3. All Acropora colonies found to have copepods present should be treated in a treatment tank or container where dose levels and colonies can be carefully monitored. The treatment tank can be large or small, and can be used to treat many colonies at once or one at a time. The water should be circulating strongly across colonies to not only for drug exposure but to help dislodge dead copepods. Following treatment, each colony should be re-examined in water under magnification to ensure 100% kill rates. Copepods still attached to the coral can be probed with a needle, pin, pipette or syringe and removed from the colony. If copepods are found to still exhibit any motion, retreatment should occur immediately.
rationale: treatment in the tank should be avoided for several reasons: a) it will be impossible to assess whether or not a 100% kill rate has been achieved; b) in tank treatment will result in mass loss of other suscpetible species including amphipods, shrimps, lobsters, crabs, polychaetes, nematodes, copepods, and possibly other Invertebrates which have not been tested for toxicity to the drug ; and c) repeated treatments can result in resistance making future treatments more difficult.
4. Treatment dosage appears to flexible, if not variable. Given the apparent low toxicity to Corals even at elevated dosages, I would suggest a dose level equal or higher (up to 10x) than suggested by Dorton. Dorton suggestes three separate treatments of six hours. Upon examination of treated colonies, six hours appears to be insufficient for a 100% kill rate, while 12 hours seems to be more effective. In the one test where coral mortality was observed, the treatment time was only six hours, and in all other tests, no ill effects to the coral were seen with extended treatment times. It appears that time, and not dosage level, is the critical variable towards providing 100% kill rates for the copepods. Regardless of the dose or treatment duration, all colonies should be carefully examined before they are removed from treatment. For colonies being treated that are too large or densely branched to allow for examination, the treatment should be continued for 24 hours with careful monitoring to ensure that the colonies are enduring the treatment well and that the water does not become fouled from excessive mucus production, other fauna killed during treatment, or other stressors. If these conditions occur, treatment tank water should be dumped into buckets, sterilized by the addition of bleach to the water, and disposed down a sanitary sewage line. The treatment tank should then be refilled with tank water and new drug added to the water.
5. All treated Corals and completely free of Tegastes acroporanus, as well as those examined and found to be uncolonized (#2 above), should be placed into a quarantine tank filled with tank water filtered through a coffee filter or other filtration apparatus. The quarantine tank should have filtration, water flow and light sufficient to keep treated colonies alive for five days.
6. No Acropora should remain in or be placed back into the main display tank for five days. This is the longest period of time it has taken for any Tegastes acroporanus to survive without a host from observations to date. This assumes that there are no other surrogate hosts for this species, and that the observations of death from 3-5 days without a host are realistic of what would occur in a display tank.
rationale: It is possible, even likely, that during the removal of colonized Acropora, some copepods swim off the colony into the tank. They will seek out other hosts. It is also possible that some are in the tank at any moment seeking new hosts, even without the process of colony removal. As far as can be ascertained, they are direct developers and thus do not have a free-swimming larval stage and they do not lay eggs on the host or substrates that can later hatch. However, they can live without a host for several days. Ensuring that any copepods left in the tank after removal of hosts die requires, at my best estimate, 3-5 days. I suggest five days to be conserative.
7. After five days, colonies in quarantine should be re-examined under magnification and if found to be free of copepods, can be returned to the display tank. If copepods are found on any colonies, repeat steps 3-7."
 
awesome...

thanks for the good info kev. Only problem i have no with that method which seems to make more sense then treating the entire tank is this...

my acro are full blown colonies and not just frags that are easily removable...completely encrusted around large rocks. Only way to do this is to remove the rock completely, because even if i break off the main colony from the encrusting peice that will leave a host peice for the left over red bugs to live on while i'm treating the colonies and they will still be in my tank when i put the acros back in. Only thing i can do i guess is to remove the rocks and place them in the treatment tank, then treat the entire colony/rocks and then re-aquascape the tank when i put the rocks back in...this better work. Just one treatment for 12 hours is supposed to work? then quarantine tank for 5 days for leftover red bugs to die then add acros back huh. What a pita....DIP YOUR CORALS!!

kevin do you happen to have an extra MH pendant and a spare tank i can use for a hospital tank for five days?
 
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I would just treat the whole tank. I have had no issues with treating the whole tank in the past and would do it again. I slightly over estimate my water volume as I would rather have a little too much as compared to not enough. In dip form I use about 10-30x what the recommended dose is with no issues.

They say one dose works because red bugs are live bearers and there are no eggs or anything to worry about. There have been reports that 6 hours is the border line for 100% kill with interceptor and 8 hours is enough. Treating a little longer will not cause any issues other than losing more shrimp, crabs, pods, ect that might have otherwise made it.

If my tank were mature, I wouldn't bother trying to take coral out that are all encrusted and just treat the tank. I would always wonder if a frag had fallen somewhere I couldn't see it and was still alive hosting the bugs or something like that. I would rather do the intank treatment once and be done with it.

My routine is

Make enough fresh salt water for a 30-40% change. Remove all carbon, uv, or other media that could absorb any chemicals in the tank. Turn off air supply to the skimmer. I leave all reactors and skimmer running just no air or media.

crush pill in bag (1 large dog pill treats 380 gallos I believe) and add some tank water to the bag and mix. Pour this mixture in a high flow area preferably in the sump.

Let tank circulate for 8-10 hours. Do 30% water change, turn on skimmer and add heavy carbon.

Watch tank to make sure everything looks good. Corals should have better polyp extension pretty much instantly once the red bugs are all gone. I would change out the carbon after a few days and then watch for any signs of re-infestation.
 
Couple years ago I treated my whole tank for red bugs. I used the same method as Mike G, but did 3 treatments for 12 hrs. each a week apart. I didn't lose any corals, but did lose my cleaner shrimp and all the crabs in my tank. Didn't lose any snails and haven't had any red bugs since.
 
I've treated tanks with interceptor several times. Never with any losses, and always with success.

3 treatments for 12 hrs, a week apart. I also QT each new frag and hit it with a high interceptor dosage overnight.
 
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