Black bugs on sps

Brad Vaughn · Apr 17, 2017

Littleb said:
Sorry. Pic is from a vid that won't up load. Those tiny black dots r only a couple of the bugs. There quite quick and u can c the state of the frag which has now been binned

yup - looks like what I had. I would recommend a pipefish for sure. Maybe a small wrasse, too.

Littleb · Apr 17, 2017

Got a 6 line. Have u rid your tank of them. What did/have u done. I'm on the verge of breaking down and starting again

Brad Vaughn · Apr 18, 2017

I haven't seen any in awhile. I removed all my Acros for several weeks. But even after that time I did see a few black bugs in the tank on other corals. I don't think my tank is rid of them but all the acros I have now are doing great. I have to pipefish in a mandarin as well as a yellow coris, melanurus & leopard
wrasse that constantly Patrol. I personally don't think there's any way to kill these bugs except for breaking everything down drying everything out and starting over

Littleb · Apr 19, 2017

Ok, I thought that might b the case and looks like I'm gonna b doin that. I dipped my acros in some freshwater as I normally do and there not looking to clever. Gonna try and get a small tank and use as a qt for remaining corals and restart again in a few weeks

hafer12 · Sep 24, 2017

I'm dealing with these right now

Littleb · Sep 25, 2017

hafer12 said:
I'm dealing with these right now

There a bloody nitemare. I lost most of my acros in the end. Get ya self a dragon faced pipe fish. Did wonders for me. Fingers crossed mine have gone

Brad Vaughn · Sep 26, 2017

Littleb said:
There a bloody nitemare. I lost most of my acros in the end. Get ya self a dragon faced pipe fish. Did wonders for me. Fingers crossed mine have gone

+10 on the pipefish. I keep a mandarin too.

js1620 · Sep 26, 2017

hafer12 said:
I'm dealing with these right now

I have the same thing hafer12. After a while the coral skeleton turns from white to a stony/cement looking grey.

thirst · Sep 29, 2017

The only way I was able to get rid of them is dipping them. I believe Bayer will work, I use mecoral 4x dip.

I dip every single piece of my sps, every 4 days for a month.

This involved removing 100+ pieces of sps and just dipping one by one was very frustrating

Frank's Tanks · Dec 11, 2017

Has anyone found a solution to killing these black bugs??? Please post if so. Me and my guys at my store may have discovered something!!!!

Frank's Tanks · Dec 11, 2017

Has anyone since discovered a way of killing these black bugs???? Are the black bugs actually bugs or are they worms? Please reply and let me know.....me and some of the guys at my store may have discovered something!!!

reef80 · Dec 11, 2017

If its what is being capture in these videos then I got them. Not sure what species or type of bug they are but they have shut down many people's tanks and such...Their movement is slug looking and adult kind of have a bent body curve. Black and Greyish is their color.

I wrote my experience on here on someones else page...but here is a quick recap. I got them about 2 or 3 years ago and could not figure out how to kill them at all. Tried a couple of other dips and nothing seemed to work and just kept coming back. I was doomed to quit and thrown in the towel... They are tough buggers for sure and remind me of super bed bugs but for sps except they decimate frags and colonies in days. I rather AEFW anyday... Anyways, I dip for no less then 8 min straight on 4x the strength they recommend with Revive and that did the trick for me. Nothing less in timing and nothing less in strength because I experiment with different dosage and they would always come back alive once they they were in the tank water again. I wanted to make sure these suckas died in my dipping cup and was just not disoriented where they can easily grab hold onto the sps and return back to the display or quarantine tank! I did that dosage 1x a week for 6weeks straight and have not seen a bug since then in over 2 years. A separate quarantine and dipping tank is the best bet. Better to put the frags and colonies on rack and remove them completely into dipping trays and alternate the racks ever time your dip to ensure nothing gets left behind. I don't want to use the same tray over and over incase they hold onto the racks or if I missed something. They are the most aggressive at eating about 1.5 to 2 hrs of lights out. They are like swarms of ants if you have reach a plague and are extremely focus and committed at eating acros around that time. They multiply very heavy and lay eggs that are not so cluster like AEFW but look just like their eggs.

Its harsh on the sps for sure and some will die with that dipping strength but it was the lessor of the two evils...do something and save something or everything else goes. I had a good grip of their behaviors and eating patterns and such and sure enough, my strategies worked out. Never again will a new sps see my display without this type of dipping and quarantine practice. I developed PTSD as a result...best of luck and don't give up!!!

Brad Vaughn · Dec 11, 2017

reef80 said:
If its what is being capture in these videos then I got them. Not sure what species or type of bug they are but they have shut down many people's tanks and such...Their movement is slug looking and adult kind of have a bent body curve. Black and Greyish is their color.

I wrote my experience on here on someones else page...but here is a quick recap. I got them about 2 or 3 years ago and could not figure out how to kill them at all. Tried a couple of other dips and nothing seemed to work and just kept coming back. I was doomed to quit and thrown in the towel... They are tough buggers for sure and remind me of super bed bugs but for sps except they decimate frags and colonies in days. I rather AEFW anyday... Anyways, I dip for no less then 8 min straight on 4x the strength they recommend with Revive and that did the trick for me. Nothing less in timing and nothing less in strength because I experiment with different dosage and they would always come back alive once they they were in the tank water again. I wanted to make sure these suckas died in my dipping cup and was just not disoriented where they can easily grab hold onto the sps and return back to the display or quarantine tank! I did that dosage 1x a week for 6weeks straight and have not seen a bug since then in over 2 years. A separate quarantine and dipping tank is the best bet. Better to put the frags and colonies on rack and remove them completely into dipping trays and alternate the racks ever time your dip to ensure nothing gets left behind. I don't want to use the same tray over and over incase they hold onto the racks or if I missed something. They are the most aggressive at eating about 1.5 to 2 hrs of lights out. They are like swarms of ants if you have reach a plague and are extremely focus and committed at eating acros around that time. They multiply very heavy and lay eggs that are not so cluster like AEFW but look just like their eggs.

Its harsh on the sps for sure and some will die with that dipping strength but it was the lessor of the two evils...do something and save something or everything else goes. I had a good grip of their behaviors and eating patterns and such and sure enough, my strategies worked out. Never again will a new sps see my display without this type of dipping and quarantine practice. I developed PTSD as a result...best of luck and don't give up!!!

I totally get the PTSD ... same here

Sabellafella · Dec 11, 2017

reef80 said:
If its what is being capture in these videos then I got them. Not sure what species or type of bug they are but they have shut down many people's tanks and such...Their movement is slug looking and adult kind of have a bent body curve. Black and Greyish is their color.

I wrote my experience on here on someones else page...but here is a quick recap. I got them about 2 or 3 years ago and could not figure out how to kill them at all. Tried a couple of other dips and nothing seemed to work and just kept coming back. I was doomed to quit and thrown in the towel... They are tough buggers for sure and remind me of super bed bugs but for sps except they decimate frags and colonies in days. I rather AEFW anyday... Anyways, I dip for no less then 8 min straight on 4x the strength they recommend with Revive and that did the trick for me. Nothing less in timing and nothing less in strength because I experiment with different dosage and they would always come back alive once they they were in the tank water again. I wanted to make sure these suckas died in my dipping cup and was just not disoriented where they can easily grab hold onto the sps and return back to the display or quarantine tank! I did that dosage 1x a week for 6weeks straight and have not seen a bug since then in over 2 years. A separate quarantine and dipping tank is the best bet. Better to put the frags and colonies on rack and remove them completely into dipping trays and alternate the racks ever time your dip to ensure nothing gets left behind. I don't want to use the same tray over and over incase they hold onto the racks or if I missed something. They are the most aggressive at eating about 1.5 to 2 hrs of lights out. They are like swarms of ants if you have reach a plague and are extremely focus and committed at eating acros around that time. They multiply very heavy and lay eggs that are not so cluster like AEFW but look just like their eggs.

Its harsh on the sps for sure and some will die with that dipping strength but it was the lessor of the two evils...do something and save something or everything else goes. I had a good grip of their behaviors and eating patterns and such and sure enough, my strategies worked out. Never again will a new sps see my display without this type of dipping and quarantine practice. I developed PTSD as a result...best of luck and don't give up!!!

I had a buddy of mine get these little guys. Theres 2 types of these black creatures, worms and copepods. They both took a dive in interceptor, so maybe give interceptor a try. Its litterally a harmless treatment, to where i dose interceptor every 4 5 months just to make sure i dont contract any parasitic animals

littleruttiger · Dec 12, 2017

thirst said:
Does it look like this?

I had these this summer. All my acros were still on frag racks, so every 3 or 4 days I would dip every single one.
I use API Melafix Marine, about a cap full for 1/3 gallon of water. I would only dip each frag for about 30 seconds - if you look with a flashlight, you can see the bug start to get sort of paralyzed, then I would shake the frag very vigorously in the water to dislodge it. I don't know how long it would take to straight out kill it, all I cared about was getting them off.
I don't know their life cycle, hence the frequent dips. I personally wouldn't use a harsh dip, or dip for very long, because doing that over and over will probably kill the acro just by itself. I rinsed the acros in a seperate container, again shaking very vigorously, before returning.
I don't like Bayer, because I want to see them to make sure they're dislodged.
I noticed they were somewhat mobile - I had two separate frag racks, about 2 feet apart, one rack had them, then eventually the next one did too.
I also noticed they had some sort of apparent group attack, maybe a chemical signal or something. A Tyree pink lemonade start to stn, I dipped it and about 30 of them came off - that dipping session, no other acro had more than a couple, and a week or so before the pink lemonade didn't have any. This happened a couple times with different acros.
You will also see bite marks when you dip, and eggs.
Keep dipping for a couple weeks after you see the last one, just to be entirely sure - I don't know how visible the little ones are.
But, the pink lemonade lives to this day, and has grown over the dead spot, so they're certainly beatable.
If you have encrusted acros, either dip the entire rock or break them off, and kill/remove the encrustment. I think it's key that you break their life cycle, you can't have any little bits leftover sustaining them, it'll just drag it out. Doing that, I don't think you need to go fallow, or completely restart.
If you dip frequently, and dip every single acro every single time, they aren't the end of the world, it's just very, very, very, very tedious to do.

Acro maniac · Dec 12, 2017

Idk if this helps but heres a link to a thread where i documented treatment of black bugs.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/acro-pests.301905/

Graffiti Spot · Dec 16, 2017

I was going to suggest melafix Marine too. It's the best dip for aefw too. Very easy on corals compared to other dips by far. I forget my dosage but I was dipping for about 6 to 10 min depending on the acro. Back when I used it.