Parasitic Tegastidae copepods "Black Bugs"

[Razor Ramon]

Thank you , for doing this thread it will be a great help with other reefers to come . You are very detailed in what you do and it’s great that you pass it on . Thanks I’ll keep following in on your war on these tough coral bugs.

[Bblinks]

Tagging along. Thanks for the detail write-up Glen.

[Frogger]

Tuesday night update. Last dosed interceptor Saturday am, did a 20% water change on Sunday pm, turned skimmer on Sunday pm and added carbon on Monday.
I am happy to say that I have not seen a single black bug since Saturday night. However I have 37+ acros (including cuttings) and I really can only see one side of about a half dozen of them. I have not taken any out of the tank and put under a microscope. Often these little buggers hide inside the corallites behind the polyps so they are not always visible. But considering on Saturday before I did the latest dose I could easily see about 30 of these guys on my orange passion. Under the microscope there were easily more than a hundred on the coral.

No changes to any of my water parameters (nitrates, phosphates, alkalinity and calcium usage).

Maybe its me but I can see extended polyps during the day on corals that normally do not readily extend their polyps and usually only at night if they do. I actually see "some" (I use that word loosely) polyps on my RR Pink Floyd. I have had the coral for almost 2 years, it has never grown a millimeter although it has maintained its colour all this time. It has been 1.5 years since I have seen a polyp on it.

Keeping fingers crossed, will do another treatment (hopefully last) at the same dosage about 2.75 times recommend on Saturday just to be sure. Copepods are either free spawners or broadcasters (females carry eggs until hatching) so I do not think that unhatched eggs are an issue, second dose should take care of any extras just in case.

[Frogger]

Friday night update. I was getting hopeful. I have been looking closely at my corals, orange passion particularly. I have been checking day and night at least 3 to 4 times a day using a pair of 10x optivisors (true 10x power). These are about the most powerful magnifying glasses you can get. Way more powerful than any hand lens. I hadn't seen one black bug all week. I started thinking maybe I got them all.

Tonight I pulled out the dissecting microscope (true 40x power) pulled the orange passion out of the tank and into a glass of water making sure not to expose the coral to the air and carefully inspected the coral looking into the corallites and between the polyps and I found 1 very active black bug. Where there is 1 there is likely more. There is also a good chance when I put the bright lights on on the microscope that the black bugs either hide under the polyps or go to the underside of the coral. So I do not know how many remain on this frag.

The good news is there were 3 to 4 of these guys per corallite (polyp) last week before I did the last treatment where as this week I could only find 1 on the entire coral.

I know my dosage is getting close. I will treat again tomorrow with a rate 10-15% higher than last week. This should hopefully be the killing dose. Unfortunately my amphipods and bristleworms will take another hit. Hopefully some will survive and re-populate the tank.

On another note I have only been able to find 1 remaining tubeworm (had hundreds before I began treatment) and the population of bristleworms is way down. Unfortunately this drug has had no effect on vermetid snails, montipora nudibranch and hydroids. I was hoping for some collateral damage.

Looks like I will have to re-seed the tank with healthy microfauna from my other tanks after the treatment is complete.

[Razor Ramon]

Hope your dose kills them all on the 4th week treatment. Too bad there is so little known on dose size and water volume. Cutting up pills int 4 peaces then guessing water and if that’s enough medicine. The medicine is time baced for potency after 8hrs the tank is consuming it trough biodiversity of the system.
These tough bug needed to be hit hard right from the first dose. But who knows
The impact on the tank or the inhabitants. Hopefully your next dose is like a rain of death to those little buggers an atom bomb you nuke them all !!! And your not breading a resistant strain of a alread tough bug. Keep us all in the loop I hope you the best !!!!

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon

Hope your dose kills them all on the 4th week treatment. Too bad there is so little known on dose size and water volume. Cutting up pills int 4 peaces then guessing water and if that’s enough medicine.

I have a very accurate scale. Each 23mg pill weighs .95mg so I have a record of exactly how much I have been adding.

Todays dose will be the 5th treatment. I have an exact breakdown of what was added and when I added based on the size of my tank. As soon as I am confident I have the right dose I will let you all know what that dose is. Even though I know I go go up to 4 times the recommended amount I do not want to go there unless I have to as I do not want to kill more microfauna then I have to.

My last dose was 43mg which is almost half a tablet. 1 tablet is supposed to treat 400 gallons per treatment. My tank is about 75-80 gallons of actual water so I should be using 19mg per treatment. At 43mg I was using 2.4 times the recommended dose.

I will be adding about 50-55mg (of a tablet) later today which would be 2.7 times the recommended dose. I have to take my skimmer offline and remove my carbon. I use no other form of filtration like GFO, carbon dosing ect. It is a good thing there are 8 tablets in a package I may end up needing them all.

What I do not know is:
How will the other treatments affect this treatment?
Does the drug build up in the system?
Does the black bug build up a resistance with the lower doses?
Does skimming and carbon remove residual drug from the water?

What I will be able to do is establish a baseline from which other reefers can treat their tanks.

[Frogger]

I just made the last dose (I hope) at .54mg of a pill. That works out to 2.8 times the recommended dose for red bug.

A couple things to note. This pill does not dissolve in water. I use a pestle and mortar to crush the pill up into a fine dust. I then mix that with a cup of RO water for about a half hour. After a half hour there is still fines that have accumulated on the side cup. I mush these with my finger (where gloves) until the fines have disappeared. I want to be sure to that all of the drug gets into the water and I do not waste any that hasn't fully dissolved.

Since I have been adding this drug to my tank film algae is growing at an exponential rate nearly 3 times faster then before on the glass.