Red bugs......what would you do?

[Chaloupa]

My tank is 7 months old and I have redbugs....I have many acro frags glued here and there....I am unsure as the best way to treat...it has a sand bed.....would you;

1) take out the hermits and shrimps and treat the entire tank to be sure that you got it all OR

2) would you try to remove all the frags, and colonies and treat in a Q tank.....can all SPS reefers who have had redbugs give their input PLEASE?

Can you also give reasons for each...and dangers of each? I thank you in advance!

[niloc16]

definitely take shrimp and crabs out and nuke the tank. taking out the frags does not guarantee that eggs or other RB are not in the system treating the whole system is the best chance. its very easy to do the interceptor nuke attack. been there done that

[marie]

I had to do this last year. I couldn't catch my shrimp but they made it through alright. I missed 1 hermit crab and he made it through the first treatment but I couldn't find him before the second treatment and was never seen again :sad:

[Chaloupa]

colin...did you notice any problems afterwards with pods etc...do you have a sandbed? any concerns??? Can you give me your treatment dose etc...I have found conflicting stuff...and do I turn off the skimmer while using Interceptor? (never been there, nor done this:sad:)

Marie...other than the loss of a hermit.....do you have a sandbed? Did you have any trouble?

Thanks so much for the replies too! I appreciate all the info I can get before I take the plunge.....kind of makes you think you have an STD...Uh, my name is Sarah, and I have redbugs....

[tang daddy]

I'm sure you've done the research on red bugs on the net can't remember now it's been so long but once a while back I got the bugs too and it was not fun I basically stripped the reef of all sps and monti's and placed them in a quarintine for alittle over a week, sadly to say the quarintine tank was a 5g and I lost 2 frags but the rest survived. Sort of an ich like bug without a host for acouple days they die also they dont lay eggs on the sand but like I said I forgot how they multiply so please don't quote me, but interceptor was used for 36hrs then a water change and quarintine for 8 days all is well now and definately they are gone so try finding the post on red bugs fully read it and understand how their life cycle works then choose your option. The reason why I didn't choose doing the tank is because 1- smells funky 2-didn't feel like trying to catch the inverts(couldnt catch cleaners) 3-it was easier to go in with a screw driver and unmount frags btw reef glue or putty costs alot so weigh the options I never did mount the frags back just have them sitting on top hopefully this was helpfull.

[fishface]

i also vote for treatment 1. i was terrified of doing this but it's really not all that bad, in fact, i've never seen PE in my coral's before, or since treatment!

i tried my best to get all my hermits out but couldn't get them all, also couldn't catch my shrimp...none lost.

what i did for my pod population was to remove the soccer ball sized hunk of cheato from my fuge and keep it in a bucket of water. after treatment, waterchange, waterchange, waterchange...then carbon. replace the cheato and voila! no more bugs! they say to treat minimum of 3 times, i only did it once and have yet to see any problems since.

good luck, and read this through: http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45859

[Aquattro]

I treated whole tank, couldn't catch most shrimp, only lost 2. Hermits made it thru. I noticed a slight decrease in the pod population for a week or 2, but they made a full recovery. Never saw bugs again, and would never add a frag to my tank that didn't get dipped in Interceptor first.
Oh, and I left my skimmer on, figured more O2 was good...

[christyf5]

I've treated my tank a couple times, I never found my hermits to be affected. Never had any shrimp because of my wrasse. Interceptor will kill any starfish you have as well so get them out of there as well.

I treated my whole tank because I have some colonies that have encrusted on the rock and besides having to chip them off the rock I didn't want to leave anything behind for the bugs to survive on while I treated various colonies and frags. Not to mention I just have too many for that anyways.

As for pod population decline. I did notice some dead pods floating about but didn't notice much of a decrease in population, they were still hanging about in my overflow in pretty good numbers and my wrasse managed to still ferret out many from within the rocks and such.

As for dangers, I have never encountered any. Its business as usual in the tank while you're treating for most of the critters (although the first time I treated there was a lot of nailbiting on my part). At about hour four you can see the redbugs aren't happy campers and start to fall off the corals, about hour 5 you can actually see polyps on corals you didn't see polyps before. By hour 6 I was preparing my big waterchange (which usually took me into hour 7) and running carbon. At about 8 hours the tank looked sooo much better with all polyps fully extended on those corals that were having a rough time previously.

I don't think I've ever treated interceptor with a sandbed, only since I've run my tank BB. You might want to consult with some DSB people :biggrin:

[Chaloupa]

THANK YOU for the replies!!!!!

Tangdaddy, Reef Raf, and fishface...do any of you have a sandbed? The reason I specifically ask that is some of the reading I have done says not to treat entire tank when you have a sand bed....I just want to be sure before I jump in and treat...also can ANYONE give me dosage?

[christyf5]

from here (http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=439155#439155)

"The dosage used in an aquarium to kill redbugs is 25mg (0.025 grams) per 10 gallons of actual tank water . That is 25mg of the entire tablet. Each tablet in the pack of 6 will treat about 380 gallons. The tablets are ground with a mortar and pestle into a fine powder. "

[Chaloupa]

Thank you Christy!:biggrin: How big is the margin for overdose error? Anyone know..I could tell ya what it is ifor dogs.....but not for aquariums! When I calculate my tank.....how do I know actual water volume with live rock etc in there?

Oh yes, and after this....all frags go in Q tank and get treated no matter what!

[christyf5]

Thank you Christy!:biggrin: How big is the margin for overdose error? Anyone know..I could tell ya what it is ifor dogs.....but not for aquariums! When I calculate my tank.....how do I know actual water volume with live rock etc in there?

Oh yes, and after this....all frags go in Q tank and get treated no matter what!


Eric Borneman reported using 10x that dosage with no ill effects. In fact his testing suggested that the dosage should be much higher than what I posted (Dustin Dortons treatment dosage). To be honest, at the beginning when I was treating I had access to a scale and measured it out exactly, however I don't have access to a decent scale so I was just taking a piece of the pill and grinding it up (ie. one pill does 380G so I'd use about a third of the pill or a little less). Its better to use more than less IMO.

For calculating the tank volume hmm, I found a calculator for that that calculates tank volume with sand and rock and stuff. Give me a bit and I'll find it for you :biggrin:

[christyf5]

Hah! Found it. I rock! :razz:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/volcalc.html

For doing the calculations, I don't bother with figuring out how much water my skimmer has in it etc. I just unplug everything, let it sit and then figure out water depth of tank and sump.

[Chaloupa]

perfect! Thank you! I really appreciate it, and see my weekend job!

[marie]

I have a sandbed in my tanks sarah, the only casualties I noticed besides the redbugs was my mysis shrimp and about half my population of amphipods and that was with the 3 treatments

[Aquattro]

I also had a 3" sand bed at the time. No problems to report

[Chaloupa]

OH GOOD! Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate all the input and will be treating this weekend!