Acro pests?

[CastAway]

One of three treatments done. No red bugs visible! Lost my sexy shrimp, my gammarus and some scarlet hermits. Surprisingly, it seems all the tiny isopods in my refugium were uneffected. New GAC and a huge water change the next day, and will start my second treatment tomorrow night.

It's been a great excuse to clean, and the tank looks better in general, but I can't be sure I'm seeing any improvement in my SPS colors or PE, yet.

 

[Acro maniac]

No red bugs is good news castaway. Good luck moving foward.

 

[CoralWealth]

No red bugs is good news castaway. Good luck moving foward.

So I THINK I may have these little grey/black copepods you are talking about.

I only see them at the base of some of my corals and the base happens to be dying on those spots. I also do not have great PE like I used to.

How is everything going for you now? Still completely clear?

Also did you lose your snails and crabs during the treatment? I do not have another tank to transfer mine to. Would be a bummer to lose all my snails, etc

Was it 1 large pill per 100gallon for the 4x treatment and you did that the first time, then half a pill then next two times? Or exactly how did you do it?

For the activated carbon, did you just have it in a bag in the sump or what? Also, how much I have never used activated carbon

 

[Acro maniac]

I am pest free
All snails made it and a couple hermits i missed also made it shrimp amphapod, and copods not so much.
Carbon ran in a sock. I just went to pet smart and got the pre packed fluval carbon based on gallons.
The treatment i believe is pretty well documented in the beginning of this thread. I would have to reread it before answering how much i dosed.
If yoy have any other question ill try to help

 

[CoralWealth]

I am pest free
All snails made it and a couple hermits i missed also made it shrimp amphapod, and copods not so much.
Carbon ran in a sock. I just went to pet smart and got the pre packed fluval carbon based on gallons.
The treatment i believe is pretty well documented in the beginning of this thread. I would have to reread it before answering how much i dosed.
If yoy have any other question ill try to help

Yeah I went back and read it and understood it.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Acro maniac]

Good deal

 

[CoralWealth]

well I just dosed 2 large pills for my 180 gallon DT and 40 gallon sump last night around 10pm, this morning around 7am I took a look and all the snails seem to be fine, the emerald crab I got looks fine but I still saw a ton of pods running around the rocks. I thought for sure they would all be dead?

I planned to do a water change at lunch, around 12pm and add activated carbon. However if I see them still running around then, should I leave it in the water till tonight?

 

[Acro maniac]

If you still have pods, I would have to assume that the treatment was not succesful. All your pods will be killed with the right dosage.
I beleive Black bugs are a type of copod. Not 100% though and I haven't seen one under a microscope

 

[LOVEROCK]

i was thinking, why not leave the interceptor for longer , such as 24 to 48 hours since we are unsure of if they hatch eggs / or from 7 - 10 , big dog half a pill.
40 gallon dt with 15 gallon sump - 24 hours dosage no unknown effect upon coral , anemones, nass snails/ fish , this would have a bigger chance of killing them ?
just put in 3rd dose
corals showing WAY better pe !

 

[Acro maniac]

I beleive the affects brake down

 

[LOVEROCK]

even if efftects break down, the bugs will still continue to suffer under the medication ? , there should be no harm right ! looking for more interceptor for future dosing for new corals ! pm me

 

[Acro maniac]

even if efftects break down, the bugs will still continue to suffer under the medication ? , there should be no harm right ! looking for more interceptor for future dosing for new corals ! pm me

Idk all the ins and outs of the treatment. It worked for me based on what i document. Anything outside of that would be speculation from me.
I did read that the active ingredient breaks down in a couple days and has no effect after a few days

 

[kamikazereefer]

Just put the pill in second ago after reading this treads 100000 time

I did 4 time the recommended dose
I have the same bug you have the black copepods running and eating sps

Not all of my coral where affected I try to dip all my coral for 6 week i have see them die in the dip blow it with a pump I think the put egg in the rockscspe so my solution was to threat the entire tank

After battling with vet for interceptor prescription here in Canada I finally found some at a lfs he bought it for me

I will post update of the threatment

I have take out all shrimp hermit star and snail

Everything is out and will be back in the tank after the treatment

Thanks a lot for your tread it so helpful when you don’t know what to do

 

[Acro maniac]

Hope it works for you as it did for me

 

[LOVEROCK]

treatment seems to have worked, sps acros showing extensions never seen before, unless the water changes brought up alk :) beside that i might say i have won the battle fingers crossed.

 

[McMullen]

Great thread!!

 

[305Reefer]

I’ve read this thread about three times and have always forgotten to post. I’m doing this treatment right now to my system. Black bugs as well. Vile little creatures. I initially caught them a bit late. I lost a lot of acros. Once I knew what they were and what my tank was looking like I chopped out big chunky frags of all my colonies, chucked the bases and plugs, dipped them in 4x revive for 8 minutes (as mentioned in another black bug thread) and moved them to an in-line frag tank. I did this 4 times. Once a week for a month. Corals that were doing really bad or even very near death bounced back, corals started growing again.

Eventually the frags all colored up and got super happy with great PE and quickly encrusting based and new growth all over. I figured id leave the display fallow of acros for 3-4 months and then reintroduce. Wrong. 2 months later I catch the early signs of bug damage so i dip only to find a few tiny ones on my Jason Fox home wrecker. Crap.

Read this thread and decided to give the interceptor treatment a try. So far it’s not working. But here’s my treatment anyway.

I’m doing an even stronger dose with 2 large breed pills going into a 90g with a 30g sump and 30g frag tank. This works out to something like 6.5x more than a regular red bug dose. I did the first dose December 27th 2018. Waited 36 hours did a 20g water change and ran carbon. January 4th, 2019 I did another 2 large breed sized pill dose. Today (Jan 6) I did the water change and refreshed carbon. Decided to observe frags at night with a flash light. Thought I saw bugs (these things really play tricks on your eyes. I pulled a few frags and dipped in an extremely potent dose or revive with tank water. I dipped a homewrecker and a cb Versace acro and I’m immediately say black bugs once again running around the dip water after basting and on the bottom encrusting edges of my acros.. Despite the heavy dose of interceptor, the bugs are still around after the second round of three planned treatments. Not sure I’ll even bother with a third but if I do I’m considering a 100x dose and just pouring in an entire bottle of Dr G’s dip into the tank. Didn’t have any effect on my tank except nuking the pod population down to zero. My inverts and crabs are safe in my office nano tank. Might as well.

If that doesn’t work I’m going to cut and frag the corals off their bases once again which makes me very sad, and re do the dipping method I tried earlier but this time move them to a separate QT tank not incline. I’ll be extra careful to inspect each frag as it comes out of the dip and gets mounted to new plugs. And I’ll also probably up the dosage of the revive to about 6x for 8 minute (which I know is going to kill a few of the acros)..

Anyone with any advice or holding information about how to kill these monsters please speak up. I’m gonna go out swiggin. I’d rather kill my corals myself than let the bugs eat them. I’m willing to try extreme methods if any one has recommendations.

 

[NYC Penciler]

I’ve read this thread about three times and have always forgotten to post. I’m doing this treatment right now to my system. Black bugs as well. Vile little creatures. I initially caught them a bit late. I lost a lot of acros. Once I knew what they were and what my tank was looking like I chopped out big chunky frags of all my colonies, chucked the bases and plugs, dipped them in 4x revive for 8 minutes (as mentioned in another black bug thread) and moved them to an in-line frag tank. I did this 4 times. Once a week for a month. Corals that were doing really bad or even very near death bounced back, corals started growing again.

Eventually the frags all colored up and got super happy with great PE and quickly encrusting based and new growth all over. I figured id leave the display fallow of acros for 3-4 months and then reintroduce. Wrong. 2 months later I catch the early signs of bug damage so i dip only to find a few tiny ones on my Jason Fox home wrecker. Crap.

Read this thread and decided to give the interceptor treatment a try. So far it’s not working. But here’s my treatment anyway.

I’m doing an even stronger dose with 2 large breed pills going into a 90g with a 30g sump and 30g frag tank. This works out to something like 6.5x more than a regular red bug dose. I did the first dose December 27th 2018. Waited 36 hours did a 20g water change and ran carbon. January 4th, 2019 I did another 2 large breed sized pill dose. Today (Jan 6) I did the water change and refreshed carbon. Decided to observe frags at night with a flash light. Thought I saw bugs (these things really play tricks on your eyes. I pulled a few frags and dipped in an extremely potent dose or revive with tank water. I dipped a homewrecker and a cb Versace acro and I’m immediately say black bugs once again running around the dip water after basting and on the bottom encrusting edges of my acros.. Despite the heavy dose of interceptor, the bugs are still around after the second round of three planned treatments. Not sure I’ll even bother with a third but if I do I’m considering a 100x dose and just pouring in an entire bottle of Dr G’s dip into the tank. Didn’t have any effect on my tank except nuking the pod population down to zero. My inverts and crabs are safe in my office nano tank. Might as well.

If that doesn’t work I’m going to cut and frag the corals off their bases once again which makes me very sad, and re do the dipping method I tried earlier but this time move them to a separate QT tank not incline. I’ll be extra careful to inspect each frag as it comes out of the dip and gets mounted to new plugs. And I’ll also probably up the dosage of the revive to about 6x for 8 minute (which I know is going to kill a few of the acros)..

Anyone with any advice or holding information about how to kill these monsters please speak up. I’m gonna go out swiggin. I’d rather kill my corals myself than let the bugs eat them. I’m willing to try extreme methods if any one has recommendations.

Update?

 

[DarkReefer]

I noticed this morning what could potentially be little black bugs (tbc). Saw 2 little critters on my sand bed, very tiny and very black in colour. This was under a blue light torch.

I'll need to monitor again tomorrow morning and see if I notice more.
In the last couple of months I've lost a few corals mysteriously, particularly the fleshy types, like a green tentacle fungia, ultra green trachy and orange lobo. Had no idea why, they just all started to recede and die.
Initially I thought it flat worms were the culprit as I noticed a heap on my hammers that I dipped for (twice) and scrubbed eggs off of the skeleton with a toothbrush the 2nd time.
One of my hammers still looks very rough, used to be a beautiful thing but very blotchy/stressed looking now and has been a while.

Will continue to monitor and look for black bugs to see if it is in fact these, may have to consider this interceptor thing myself.

 

[305Reefer]

I noticed this morning what could potentially be little black bugs (tbc). Saw 2 little critters on my sand bed, very tiny and very black in colour. This was under a blue light torch.

I'll need to monitor again tomorrow morning and see if I notice more.
In the last couple of months I've lost a few corals mysteriously, particularly the fleshy types, like a green tentacle fungia, ultra green trachy and orange lobo. Had no idea why, they just all started to recede and die.
Initially I thought it flat worms were the culprit as I noticed a heap on my hammers that I dipped for (twice) and scrubbed eggs off of the skeleton with a toothbrush the 2nd time.
One of my hammers still looks very rough, used to be a beautiful thing but very blotchy/stressed looking now and has been a while.

Will continue to monitor and look for black bugs to see if it is in fact these, may have to consider this interceptor thing myself.

If you truly have the black bugs, they wont be in your sand bed. They only live on acropora, usually on the plug by the base or under the encrusting part if its just a frag.

That said flatworms can be a pain in the butt too. The small tiny ones are pretty harmless unless they reach plague proportions. A wrasse can help keep them in check. The bigger euphyllia eating flatworms are bad though, tough to get them all... Look into Flatworm Exit, it works quite well, just make sure you read a few threads about how to use it properly and make sure you do two more repeat treatments after so that you kill the babies that hatch from the eggs..