WEEKLY DISCUSSION : Red Acro Bugs

[jman785]

Anyone have any Red Bugs effecting their tank?

Where do you think you got them from?

What have you done, to prevent them from breaking out?

What have you done to erase them all together?

Did you quarantine?




This is a weekly discussion, and will be added to a weekly discussion archive

[Sugar Magnolia]

Jared, do you mean red acro bugs or the red planaria flatworms?

Red bugs suck!

Sorry but its that flustrating! Got them in my display tank courtsey of e-tropicals. I QTed them for two weeks and all seemed well and dropped them in the display without dipping them too. A couple of weeks later one by one the Acros started looking crappy. Upon close inspection...red bugs. Dang stupidity really hurts!

I pulled them all and dipped them and tossed them in a QT tank again and will see what happens. If that doesnt work I do have a vet on standby for prescribing interceptor or sentenial, but as me and mike discovered on a chat one night this is a nuero-toxin and at the very least will wipe out all crags, shrimp and pods in your tank and possibley more. So thats a last result for me here. Its odd and others have experienced this too and that is that it doesnt seem to effect Bali Green Slimmers and my two ORA Blue Torts seem totally un affected. Jury is still out on the dip being effective.

I guess I should drop down on my knees and count my stars tonight that its just in my 135 display and not in the other 7 or so tanks I got.

ANYONE out there with Acroporas, dip your corals in SeaChems dip and QT those babies for a good couple of weeks after the dip.

I will be updateing another thread I started on this as things progress per chance I can save someone else some heartache...

[jman785]

Jared, do you mean red acro bugs or the red planaria flatworms?

Red Acro Bugs.

Sorry I should have specified.

[Frick-n-Frags]

My buddy(Shawn) was over one day and pointed out the red bugs on a couple of my Acros. Now that I know what they are, they stick out like a sore thumb.

Here is what I have noticed:

1) They don't go on every Acro. Some are very close together and one has the bugs and the other doesn't.

2) Their populations change. My most populated Acro seemed to have slimed and sloughed off almost all the red bugs that were covering it. From hundreds a month ago to a couple today.

Shawn also mentioned that there is some kind of heartworm medicine(I think) that is supposed to kill red bugs because, and I've only heard this, they are related to the heartworm critters.


I'm not dipping my corals for any reason. I believe in minimizing stress on the Acros so I'll just let the red bugs run their course. IMO stress kills more than pests. The corals with the bugs actually seem just fine (so far... knock on wood!!)

The Heart Worm medicine in question is Interceptor or Sentenial, both have the same active ingredient, which by the way is a mild Neuro-Toxin, so dosing on a tank with critters aint no joke for those of you who have the mentality that is a little is good...more must be better! Suposedly it doesnt affect your live stock except crabs, shimp and pods.

Mike from MDMAquatics found that SeaChems Reef dip has been more effective than I had previously seen. He reprted that a 5 ml dose with 1 liter of water I believe to have a good success rate.

I had to dip mine in this mix twice, once on two seperate occasions. It appears to have worked. The down side is three of the affected 5 corals seem to possibly be too far gone to bounce back.

Just the latest info I got to add

[Condiman]

Very interesting reading. I hope that I will never have the experience of having red bugs.

[mdmaquatic]

Actually the dose is with Lugol's solution. 5ml of lugols to 1 liter of water. Water is real dark and you can only dip for 30 sec. to 2 min. anything longer than 2 min damages the corals.

DOH! :shock: , What a bone head I was I misunderstood you then....Well dummy used SeaChems Reef Dip instead.....

[Frick-n-Frags]

Just an update on my one buggy Acro, there are probably 50ish bugs on it now.

Does anyone have bugs on an Acro that has a resident Acro crab???
Still trying to establish what benefit an Acro crab is to the Acro :D
My one Acro with the Acro crab doesn't have any bugs, but it is far away from the buggy Acro, so I personally can't make any correlations.