Another red-bug thread

[NateHanson]

Hi folks, a friend who gave me an acro frag recently told me today he found bugs in his tank. That frag was about the size of a pencil eraser, and I don't see any on it now, but with more inspection, I found that another frag seems to be crawling with them. I've notified that person as well in case he unknowingly has bugs.

I certainly wish I hadn't delayed getting interceptor for dipping new frags, but it's too late for that.

So here are my treatment options, as I see them.

My acropora are all pretty small, and could fit in a 10g tank without much trouble. I'm considering removing all acros to a hospital tank, and treating that tank with interceptor. Meanwhile the main system will be acro-free, and the bugs should die within 3-4 weeks, right? The acro hospital tank would have a powerhead, heater, and 2x65w 6500K PC LOA lights. What do you think about that?

The other option, of course, is to try to remove all crabs, shrimp etc, and put them in a separate tank for 3 weeks, while I treat the main tank.

My reasons for leaning towards the first method are to reduce stress on other corals in the tank, avoid killing pods and any other chitinous creatures I can't catch, and avoid the large water changes needed by the whole-tank treatments.

I guess my only reservation with the acro-quarantine option is whether the hospital tank would stress the acros to the point of creating a lasting problem with the health of the frags.

Thanks for your input. (and if you've managed to avoid the bugs so far, I'd recommend you arrange immediately to give all incoming frags an interceptor bath, regardless of where they came from. It was a little silly of me to procrastinate on this simple safeguard.)

Nate

 

[Greg Hiller]

The bugs will die easily within 3-4 weeks if all Acropora, and all traces of Acropora tissue are removed from the tank. I only waited 2 weeks and they were all gone, that was about 4 years ago. Just make CERTAIN that any Acros you later add are 100% clean.

 

[Armando]

Greg,

What are the possiblities of introducing red mites by adding Non-SPS's into the tank?

A.

 

[nunofs]

Nate, sorry to hear about that

I don't have any suggestions on treating, as I haven't done it before, but I'd like to take your advice and get Interceptor to do preventive dips to any new corals I get... I know people get it from vets, but I don't have other pets so I don't know any vet... when you buy it for you, would you be willing to split it with me (ideally pre-measured amounts, as I don't have a scale either)? Let me know...

Anyway, good luck with the treatment.

Nuno

 

[NateHanson]

Yeah, I plan to interceptor dip (6 hours at 2x dose) all incoming acros. I wish I'd gotten off my butt a couple weeks ago while my tank was still empty!

But Greg, the quarantine plan sounds like it will work to you? Would you worry about 2 weeks under weaker 6500K lights hurting the acros, or will they just color down a bit, and then recover when back in the main tank? I'll do 10% water changes from the main tank before each interceptor treatment, to keep water quality up in the quarantine tank (unless you think the risk of reintroducing bugs from the tank water is too high).

Nate

 

[NateHanson]

Nate, sorry to hear about that

I don't have any suggestions on treating, as I haven't done it before, but I'd like to take your advice and get Interceptor to do preventive dips to any new corals I get... I know people get it from vets, but I don't have other pets so I don't know any vet... when you buy it for you, would you be willing to split it with me (ideally pre-measured amounts, as I don't have a scale either)? Let me know...

Anyway, good luck with the treatment.

Nuno

Nuno, the friend who thinks he gave me the bugs has offered to get interceptor from his vet, and measure it out for me on a balance at work. I'll give you a dose or more (depends on how many I can get). I started a pooled order thread for Interceptor, but I'm not sure we can do that legally. I'll look into it some more after I get this problem under control.

Nate

 

[Greg Hiller]

>What are the possiblities of introducing red mites by adding Non-SPS's into the tank<

I know others will tell you differently, but IMO/IME the chance is near zero unless you were to import a LOT of water or rock from a tank that had a high level of them. My experience was that these guys hung out on the Acros and not much else.

 

[jango]

I agree with greg, but I wouldn't want to take a chance with a tank full of Acro's...

 

[Armando]

so Jango, you're going to interceptor dip all your incoming livestock? zoos, softies, clams, even fish?

 

[Chuck Spyropulos]

Bugs

Nate,

I asked Dustin Dorton (ORA) the same question, concerning your first choice. He told me that the bugs die within 3-4 weeks without acropora present. However, you must be sure that there is no acropora whatsoever present in the vessel that you will not be treating.

FWIW, I treated my whole system 3 times in the past 3 weeks. I did not lose any shrimp at all, and I know that I overdosed slightly, since I did not subtract rock and sand volume from the water volume. However, I did lose a lot of pods, but there are survivors and it is just a matter of time before they multiply back up to past levels. The only thing that I lost that are not easily replaced were 3 acro crabs.

 

[NateHanson]

Thanks Chuck, it's useful to hear your experience.

In my case it's pretty easy to remove all acros and be sure there's no acro flesh at all left in the main tank. I'm currently restocking after a crash (no SPS survivors), so all my acros are confined to plugs or small rocks right now.

It sounds a little more manageable to me to do the treatments in a separate tank. I'm still recovering from all the death and water changes from my top-off issue, so I'd love to confine this ordeal to a 10g tank.

Nate

 

[Greg Hiller]

>But Greg, the quarantine plan sounds like it will work to you? Would you worry about 2 weeks under weaker 6500K lights hurting the acros, or will they just color down a bit, and then recover when back in the main tank?<

Well, that's not a lot of light. To some extent it depends upon the Acros, I've had some Acros that could grow or at least survive under low light, others that die quickly.

> I'll do 10% water changes from the main tank before each interceptor treatment, to keep water quality up in the quarantine tank (unless you think the risk of reintroducing bugs from the tank water is too high).<

I think the risk of bringing the bugs in from the water in your other tank is quite low, particularly if you are treating immediately after each water addition. I think that part of the reason for 3 treatments in the first place was the assumption that the bugs have an egg, or some stage in which they are not suseptible to the treatment.

 

[reefnroll]

I don't know whether there's anyone who can definitively say whether red mites can be transferred via a non acro coral or rock... but the real question is, who's willing to risk it? At this point, it's one person's experienced guess versus another. As someone who as experienced a mite infestation, and subsequent irradication, I wouldn't take another chance on putting my system at risk when prevention is so very simple. Dip or treat by QT... everything.

"near zero" chance is not good enough.
If someone told you, Greg, that a soft coral you were about to place into your system had come from a tank where the resident Acropora were infested with red mites... would you place that soft coral, untreated, into your system? I would not... and by saying that... I'm not telling anyone that I know for certain that red mites DO, in fact, travel on non-acro coral/rocks... but I wouldn't bet my system on that 'fact' either. I also wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so without firm proof that such a transfer is 100% safe.

I also wouldn't use water from a tank where red bugs have been identified. Call me paranoid, but Nate... if you're doing the treatment in the first place, go all the way and remove any chance of reinfestation by being overly cautious at every stage. Water changes are a pain in the butt... but if you remove the Inteceptor-sensitive organisms from your tank and treat the whole thing... you'll be sure to have done it in a way that has proven to be effective for those of us who have actually done the same with good, long term results. That would be my advice.

b

 

[NateHanson]

I looked around last night, because people told me they're much easier to see at night with a flashlight, and I really couldn't see anything. In daylight, I can see these absolutely tiny flecks on one frag, but they seem smaller than what people are describing to me. They're probably about 1/10-1/4 of a mm. Really at the limit of visibility.

I think I'm going to visit my "infected" friend to get a first hand view of what I'm looking for.

Nate

 

[reefnroll]

Hey Nate -

Yeah.. once you really know what you're looking for, you'll be able to recognize them in your own tank better. I have NEVER had luck seeing them at night with a flashlight. I don't know if it's my eyes or what... but that method never worked for me.. not at all. I had certain corals that seemed to be mite magnets, so I learned to keep my eyes on those for first signs. When I was treating, I moved one of those corals right up to the front of the glass so that if the mites returned, I'd catch a sighting right away. I still habitually stare at those certain corals when I'm feeling particularly paranoid.

b

 

[Greg Hiller]

>If someone told you, Greg, that a soft coral you were about to place into your system had come from a tank where the resident Acropora were infested with red mites... would you place that soft coral, untreated, into your system? <

I'm not quite as paranoid as I once was about the 'bugs'. Yes, I would place the rock into one of my frag systems, with a decent swish of the rock in some clean tank water. Now that the treatment exists, and it is not that drastic, I'm a lot less paranoid than I was. I personally think that a tank that only has a hand full of 1" frags is not likely to have a lot of these guys buzzing around....hold it....well I looked back at the post, and I could not tell exactly how much Acro tissue we are talking about...is it a few 1" frags, or some big, highly infected colonies?

I still maintain that you are MUCH more likely to get these buggers from a strongly (or weakly infected so you cannot see it) infected Acropora frag. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can say with certaintanty that their tank was infected by anything other than a traded Acro frag.

As far as paranoid, I'm actually a lot MORE paranoid about the red flatworms. Although some treatments exist, I've spoken to a few people who claim that often times the treatments are not 100% effective, and from what I've read the treatments sound a bit more drastic that the Interceptor treatment. I had these buggers once in a tank that had almost no coral, and I used Oomed for a 100% kill, but this stuff is pretty hard to find since it was withdrawn from the market. The flatworms are indescriminate about what they hang out on, and many times might have crawled deep inside a rock for protection.

 

[Greg Hiller]

Actually, FWIW, I once housed a bunch of stuff for someone who had the bugs and was treating. I housed a BTA on a large rock directly in the lighted sump of my main SPS system (the sump had some Acropora in it). I gave the rock/anemone a quick rinse in a bucket of water from the tank before placing it in the sump. In retrospect it was a risky move since I had SO much to loose. I think the risk should be weighed carefully for each person, and it will depend a lot upon how much they have to loose.

 

[Lam]

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can say with certaintanty that their tank was infected by anything other than a traded Acro frag.

(Raises his hand)

The culprit was/were LR from someone heavily infected and/or possibly non-acro frags specifically zoanthids frags on rubble rock from another person lightly infected. One of those 2 possibilities. I'm more inclined to say it was from the LR since this person had acros very infested. The acros were treated, but back then you hear the red mites only came in on specific acros, so the LR (and zoanthids) were not treated.


I treat everything now even on my new clam I just got.

 

[Greg Hiller]

Lam,

I stand corrected. Did you ship a large quantity of water into your tank with the live rock? Did you rinse the live rock in 'clean' water before introduction. Are you certain that no infected (even lightly) Acros were added? Let's put it this way...I'm not saying I don't believe it, but it would make me more likely to accept it if:

1. The person whom it happened to knew exactly what the bugs looked like, and was certain his/her tank was clean.

2. The person had not added ANY Acropora to their tank for at least 3 months prior.

3. There were no traces of any Acropora tissue on anything added to the tank from the infected tank.

Lam, I'm not saying in the above that you do or do not know (or knew) what the bugs look(ed) like (I have no idea on that aspect), I'm only stating what I would consider the most viable proof that something other than an infected Acro infected a clean tank.

 

[NateHanson]

So I got a magnifying glass, and that makes it pretty clear. I have bugs. They're REALLY SMALL! Smaller than I had thought. Even with a 5x hand lens, they're a little hard to see.

Anyways, I'm getting interceptor tonight, and I'm going to put my acro frags in a quarantine tank tonight and start treatment. I want to run the procedure past you folks to make sure I've got it straight.

I'm putting all Acroporas in the 10g tank. Leaving behind Pavona, Seriatopora, Pocillipora, various Montiporas, zoas and softies. None of those will nourish the little beasts, right?

I'm going to vigorously dunk the acros in another tub of tank water and baster-blast them to remove some bugs, then put them in 7 gallons of water and treat the tank with 25mg of interceptor (150% dose, because nothing else is in this tank). The only equipment I'm planning for the tank is a heater, a powerhead, and a small aquaclear filter to run carbon between treatments.

After 8 hours, I'll do a couple gallon water change with unused water, and run carbon, changing it every couple days.

7 days later I plan to repeat the treatment, and reacclimate the corals to the main tank a few days after that. So the main tank will be acro-free for about 10 days. Dustin said he has found that the bugs starve after about 5 days.

Aside from the 25% water change after each treatment, do you think I need to change water on this tank to keep water quality high? (no filtration will be used other than carbon, but the tank will have virtually no bioload)

Anything I'm forgetting? Any other tips people have?

Thanks for your help and input. I've found all of it very helpful.

Nate