Red bugs

[kari]

Ed,

How did other stuff like shrimp and crabs handle it? Some have people noted that their shrimp made it thru the treatment.

[Chin_Lee]

Originally Posted by kari

Ed,

How did other stuff like shrimp and crabs handle it? Some have people noted that their shrimp made it thru the treatment.

Kari
after removing all but one of the shirmps, the one shrimp made it through one treatment, then died on the second.

Crabs - acro crabs were all dead after first treatment, other ornamental crabs carcasses were seen several days after the second treatment.

If you want to keep them and if you can remove them, its highly recommended.

[BMW Rider]

Originally Posted by kari

Ed,

How did other stuff like shrimp and crabs handle it? Some have people noted that their shrimp made it thru the treatment.

I had the coral in a QT tank with just one other new frag. No other critters to wory about losing. There were no acro crabs in them, and had there been, I would have rescued them before treating as they would have certainly perished.

[kari]

Thanks for the notes guys. Wonder if EmilyB noticed me stealing the thread

What a toss up. Save the acros and wipe out the shrimps/crabs/misc 10million benificial little guys or let it ride and replace the acros. Again I'm starting to lean toward acro replacement. Maybe simple joe QT tank for acro is the answer.

[EmilyB]

I'm not seeing any acro problems that would indicate treatment at this point so I'll just hold off for now. Ed, did you have any other frags in the QT with mine? Just curious since I don't seem to see any problems at this end.

[sumpfinfishe]

Sorry to hear the news Deb, tho it seems we all have to battle them at one time or another. I don't know how well stocked your tank is now with sps but I would suggest treatment sooner than later.

I had a bout with them last year and it was a simple thing to treat-hydroids were way more of a pain in the a$$. If you leave them too long, before you know it they will be everywhere and your acro's polyps will not be able to open. I ran a hospital tank with all my sps and a smaller dose of interceptor for about 3 days and I haven't seen any since-tho I'm sure they will be back one day

[EmilyB]

Removing the sps would mean removing all the rock....I have sps encrusted everywhere. And I'm not killing my 11 shrimp. Guess I'll wait it out. Thanks guys.

Never had any polyps open anyway with the bflies....

[BMW Rider]

Originally Posted by EmilyB

I'm not seeing any acro problems that would indicate treatment at this point so I'll just hold off for now. Ed, did you have any other frags in the QT with mine? Just curious since I don't seem to see any problems at this end.

I did have another frag in the QT, but there were never any bugs on it. I left it in until I treated since I couldn't be sure they hadn't moved over to it. I never did see any on it though. The frag from you did extend its polyps finally after the bugs were gone, the other frag always had its polyps well expanded. I'm just moving both into my tank now as there is no sign of any more bugs. Just so you know, they are extremely tiny and difficult to see without magnification. My coral QT tank is only a 2.5 gallon, so I could get a pretty close up view - only a few inches away. I could just make them out moving around on the coral. From normal viewing distances in a tank, it might be very hard to see them. Under 10x magnification of the coral, I could make out the distinct red spot that is characteristic of these bugs, but they still appeared small. There were actually quite a few of them once you got the close up view.

Here is a picture I got of a branch of the coral with the bugs to give you some idea as to how hard they are to see. The little amber specks are the bugs. They actually were moving around quite a bit, which is really the thing that helped me to spot them. Had they been still, I might have totally missed them.