I bought a frag from a lfs a few weeks ago and dipped it as usual in tropic marin's coral cure. 2 days later, I saw a few red bugs on it that I didn't see before. I noticed no other corals with RB. Anyway, I had to leave town and didn't have time to set up a QT before I left. I was gone for a week, and came home to several RB on some of my other colonies. The corals showed zero ill effects from the RB. Well, anyone that is hesitant to treat shouldn't be. The hardest part of the whole thing was catching all of my hermits. I was unable to catch my 2 cleaner shrimp, but they survived the whole thing. I hope I'm not speaking too early (I still want to do 2 more treatments), but it was so easy, and the only result of the treatment was no more RB. I actually had the only hermit that I could not catch survive the treatment as well. I have not looked in the fug to see if my pod population was damaged. Anyway, the treatment was as painless as could be....
red bugs no more
- Thread starter mvm
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Yeah, I actually took my cheato out and put it in QT with the shrimp. Any idea how long I should keep it in QT to make sure the rb are gone. I dosed the recommended dose, and didn't overdose, so maye that's why I didn't lose the cleaners. Only time will tell...
I had some larger crustaceans survive the first and second treatment, but they were all gone by the third.
Remember that if you remove water and your inverts, you run the chance of reintroducing the RBs into your system. This was specified in the original treatment protocols. I chose not to remove anything from my tank for that reason, and I sourced replacement cheato from someone without any SPS corals.
Remember that if you remove water and your inverts, you run the chance of reintroducing the RBs into your system. This was specified in the original treatment protocols. I chose not to remove anything from my tank for that reason, and I sourced replacement cheato from someone without any SPS corals.
No other reason than a chance that you could remove some larval RBs, or RB eggs or pregnant RBs or adults either in the water you take out or on the animals you remove prior to treatment. I don't know if any of that is even possible, and I don't know how long a RB can live off an acro. I just chose not to take that chance.
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I still don't think its necessary to treat twice or three times for red bugs. I've had red bugs twice now, and its no big deal. Once from a frag I got from Rit and who had redbugs for years I think without ill effect to his tank. The most recent time I believe from a frag from Barb. One dosage of intercepter each time and they all died never to be seen again. Intercepter is as close to a magic bullet as there can be in this hobby which is wonderfully refreshing 
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I didn't care enough about my hermits or shrimps to remove them either and they all made it as well as far as I could tell. I even carefully observed the pod population in my frag tank and even they were motoring about with no issues during the height of the treatment. After treatment my frag tank was still crowded to the brim with pods which I expected to die along with the red bugs... In short, red bugs are an easy fix. If only there was a magic bullet for nudis or aefw or even ich!
.I didn't care enough about my hermits or shrimps to remove them either and they all made it as well as far as I could tell. I even carefully observed the pod population in my frag tank and even they were motoring about with no issues during the height of the treatment. After treatment my frag tank was still crowded to the brim with pods which I expected to die along with the red bugs... In short, red bugs are an easy fix. If only there was a magic bullet for nudis or aefw or even ich!
I've gotten in the habit of dipping everything when it comes in the door. All corals go through a Revive dip, and all SPS's (not just acros) go through a 6 hour Interceptor. All fish go through a 45min Formalin dip at the max recommended dosage. Prevention is the best cure...
Or bryopsis or majanoes...
Or bryopsis or majanoes...
When I spoke with Dustin at MACNA, he told me there had been reports from people who did not treat more than once in their systems, that they had a recurrence of RBs. Dustin also said that certain size systems, low flow areas, could also determine if one treatment worked or not.
I'm sure that could also have come from them not doing it correctly as well.
One treatment might work, but I would err on the side of caution and treat more than just once.
Dave
I'm sure that could also have come from them not doing it correctly as well.
One treatment might work, but I would err on the side of caution and treat more than just once.
Dave
Yeah, I'm planning on treating again this saturday, and possible next making it 3 treatments. My system is small, so it's probably overkill, but I don't want to have to catch all of my hermits again to treat. I think that since my system is so small, that even a few dead crabs could cause a spike, or at the least, a cyano or algae bloom.
