Red Bug Treatment

jcook54

jcook54

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Well, I finally started treating for the red bug infestation that I've had for a few weeks. I had an out-of-town trip last week and didn't want to treat right before I went away so I delayed things a bit. I have Interceptor but also went ahead and bought some Dr. G.'s Coral Dip. For this treatment, I used the Dr. G's dip at a ratio of 1mL per 4g of tank water. The active ingredient for both options is Milbemcyn oxime and from what I've read, the Dr. G.'s is a little easier on the other tank inhabitants. Plus, you can get it without a vet and I wanted to see how well it works.

Preparation: I've spent the last few days picking crabs out of the system and moving them to a QT tank. Every time I thought I had them all, I'd find another but I really do think I've got them all removed. I removed all of the matrix, live rock and other pod "houses" from the tank so they wouldn't get nuked and I can hopefully get the population to rebound in a timely manner. Other than that, I didn't dip any of the effected corals for 2 weeks so I'd have a good population of red bugs and be able to see results. Honestly, the infestation wasn't even all that bad. I really had to work to see them and none of the corals were showing any ill effects.

Treatment: From everything I've read, there's not a huge risk of over-dosing the system with Milbemcyn oxime (MBE). I ended up dosing at 1mL of Dr' G's per 4 gallons of tank water. I rounded up on my total volume estimation and ended up assuming an 80g system and therefore dosed 20 mL. That was a 8:00 am this morning so I'm 4 hrs in. At this point the corals, fish, and snails all seem to be just fine. I have noticed quite a few dead pods floating around so something is certainly going on. Just a second ago I found a dead blue leg hermit so ti looks like I didn't actually get them all. After 8 hours, I'm going to do a 10g water change and add a carbon reactor to start pulling the MBE out of the system. I'll report back once that's done and in the coming weeks.



https://www.aquariumspecialty.com/dr-g-s-sps-lps-coral-dip-solution.html
 
dealing with situations like this actually deserves it's own forum in all reality.

This wasn't really an emergency for Justin - but for some it would be. Having a quick go to place on the local forum would be a good thing for someone attempting to deal with something like this the first time.
 
Are there any natural predators for red bugs ?
I don’t know what I would do if I were to have this problem.
 
Dmitri said:
Are there any natural predators for red bugs ?
I don’t know what I would do if I were to have this problem.
Click to expand...

I looked into this as well and the only real predator that I could find was a pipefish of some sort. I didn't want to go that route so I didn't investigate further. Here's the thing - MBE is an effective whole tank treatment for red bugs with a long history of use. It's got some nasty side effects but it works. There have been reports of some resistant type of red bugs but most of the concern with MBE losing it's efficacy seems to be surrounding "black bugs."

At one point I asked myself "why even treat for them?" I didn't notice any negative effects and I honestly don't know how long they could have been in the display system. That particular system is pretty static and I really don't understand how I got them. My working tank is the frag system and I've got a pretty good dip/QT/dip routine in place. My guess is that I've had them for a while since the QT and frag system is only a year old. The answer to why I decided to treat for them was twofold: 1) I sell & give away a lot of frags and personally guarantee that the frags I offer are pest free to the best of my knowledge. Red bugs untreated in any of my systems means I can no longer say that. 2) I wanted to document how the treatment does or doesn't work. There's all kinds of info about treatment but I couldn't find a lot of first hand experience on ARC. Of course a lot of folks have had them but it's not something that has been talked about too much recently.
 
Well, after 8 hours I did a 10g water change and added a carbon reactor. Fish, snails, urchins & corals all seem just fine. I would have removed the urchins but I totally spaced on them but thankfully they seem fine. Tonight I'll bust out the flashlight and look for pods. They should pretty much be all wiped out but I've heard some better thing about the Dr. G's so I'm hoping to see something. One thing I forgot to mention was that after a few hours I did blow off all of my corals and saw a few red bugs blown away. In the past they've been pretty good about staying put but they blew right away and I'm assuming they were dead. Of course time will tell and I plan on keeping an eye out for them and dipping the corals that they seem to like the most (tri-colors) to see if I can find any living ones. I am going to do a 2nd treatment just to be on the safe side and the damage to the pod population is already done. I am happy to report that while I was doing the water change, I did see a blue legged hermit that was busy picking at the rock work. Not sure if this is a good or bad sign in terms of red bugs?
 
T-48 hours. I've been keeping an obsessively close eye on the coral and taking lots of pictures and haven't spotted any of the bugger yet. Fingers crossed that it worked! I'm going to treat a 2nd time just to make sure I've got them all but so far, so good.
 
I started the 2nd treatment today. I have not seen any red bugs after the first but figured that the damage to the pod population was already done and I'd rather be safe and not have to do this again. I have seen one issue that I assume is related to the treatment - my purple stylophora colony has turned white. Not skeleton but it has lost all of it's color. I'm not too concerned with this since I've always had issues with purple stylophora losing color in both of my systems. It's possible that it has nothing to do with the treatments and is more tied to the large, frequent water changes I've had to do.
 
jcook54 said:
I started the 2nd treatment today. I have not seen any red bugs after the first but figured that the damage to the pod population was already done and I'd rather be safe and not have to do this again. I have seen one issue that I assume is related to the treatment - my purple stylophora colony has turned white. Not skeleton but it has lost all of it's color. I'm not too concerned with this since I've always had issues with purple stylophora losing color in both of my systems. It's possible that it has nothing to do with the treatments and is more tied to the large, frequent water changes I've had to do.
Click to expand...
If you lose your purple stylo, I got a rainbow stylo that I can cut you a good size frag for free.
 
Glenn Is holding my Purple & Rainbow stylo's too. Be easy to run over to his house and grab a few pieces.
 
Hey y'all, I wanted to go ahead and post my final result for future reference.
  • The Dr.G's Coral Dip worked. I treated my entire tank and I haven't seen a red bug since. I treated twice just to make sure but it's been a while and I believe they are gone. I don't have any red bug predators that could be keeping the numbers down and, of course, I've been watching like a hawk.
  • I removed all crabs but ended up forgetting one in the tank and after I treated, it was still alive. I also have a large pistol shrimp that made it through. I just checked on him under the tank and he's still doing his pistol shrimp thing.
  • Pod population has been absolutely decimated (as expected) An hour or two after treatment, the water column was full of dead pods. I even checked in the overflow where they usually hang out and couldn't see a single pod.
  • All fish, corals and snails were fine. No indications of stress at all. I did have the purple stylo turn white but that has happened before and I don't know if it's directly related to the treatment but I'm starting to suspect it isn't. I know it's one heck of a coincidence but I've seen it happen before with this exact coral and it had nothing to do with anything new added to the tank.
  • In my experience, TLF Revive did the best job of getting red bugs off the coral frags. I'm sure Bayer would also do the trick but it clouds the water and I was unable to really see any come off. This could also be because I had previously dipped everything in Revive and it did a really good job. I waited a few days between dip tests but I never saw anything like what I saw with the Revive.
 
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