Parasitic Tegastidae copepods "Black Bugs"

[Frogger]

THE KILLING DOSE
I have calculated out the dosage that seemed to kill the black bugs and it is nearly 3 times the recommended dose for red bugs.

One 23mg tablet will treat 135 gallons of water.
3/4 of a tablet will treat a 100 gallon tank. This works out to 16.7mg of Milbemycin Oxime per 100 gallons. One tablet is 23mg (M.Oxime) and weighs 94mg.

As I did 5 doses I do not know if the earlier doses played any part in killing all of these bugs. You might have to do multiple treatments.

I make no promises that you will have the same success as me, it may wipe out your entire tank. I have no shrimp, crabs or clams in my tank so I do not know how these would be affected, based on the red bug treatments probably not well.

[Razor Ramon]

Thanks for the up date ! Keeping my fingers crossed for you . Hope you got them all .

[Razor Ramon]

Do you have a 2 week up date we’re you able to nuke all the wee beastys .

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon

Do you have a 2 week up date we’re you able to nuke all the wee beastys .

Ok update time. Last treatment was March 23 (3 weeks ago). I have kept a close eye on the corals and I have not seen one black bug since March 23.

The treatment was not without its problems. I lost most of my amphipods, bristleworms, feather dusters, spaghetti worms, etc. Not sure if it affected any of the smaller organisms in the tank.

Many of my acros are looking better, however my Jason Fox has taken a turn for the worse since I started the treatment my strawberry shortcake is half looking great and coloured up nicely but half of it has lost quite a bit of colour. There are a couple other corals that are not really doing great. The other 15- 20 or so acros are looking great with increased growth.

Not sure if the issues with these acros are from the actual treatment, the bugs before the treatment stressing them or recently I had my Giros revert to alternating gyre mode once or twice a day, it kicked up quite a bit of gravel covering everything with dust and making the water column cloudy. The gyre thing has been happening for the past few weeks until I finally figured out yesterday it was happening. I think I have fixed it by completely reprogramming it.

[Frogger]

7 week update. No signs of black bug, checking only once every week or 2.
Jason Fox recovering from tip dieback and loss of tissue. Other corals seem to be doing well. Amphipods and other things making a good comeback.

So it seems my last dose was the killing dose.