How often do you actually see the bugs causing damage?

[IPT]

How many of you have dosed interceptor and seen improvement even though you never actually identified the problem?

I have a well established SPS dominant, but mixed reef that is throwing me for a loop. I have a few SPS, mostly frags, though recently I noticed a loss of PE on an encrusting colony. My paraments are stable with the usual salinity of 1.026, Alk 7.8 - 8.1, No3 of about 8-12, P04 of about .08-.1, and Mg around 1400. I use a KH Keeper that test ALK either 2 or 4 times a day. I dose kalk, add 2 part, and recently stopped Tropic Marin A and K in Favor of using Captiv8 trace elements. I am still dialing that in and attribute some loss of purple and blues to that (particularly a fall in Flourine)..

That said I have several SPS with dwindling PE, and now some STN. Simultaneously I have others with awesome growth, color and PE. I can't imagine its a stability or parameter thing with so many pieces thriving, but maybe I am wrong. My tank is at work so I don't have the means to observe it at night. I have yet to actually see anything, except maybe one or two suspect thing, but nothing conclusive.

An example, great polyp extension in a new Frag in January, and now it's current state.

 

[fish_collector]

That's not uncommon. I treated my SPS tank with interceptor maybe a year ago and I dunno if it did any good or not. I can say that it wiped out 100% of my pod population. My acros had poor polyp extension which is what convinced me to use interceptor, maybe it helped maybe it didn't, they are doing decently well now. But some corals can have great polyp extension when you first get them, and then a few months later they don't. What I can say for sure is that polyp extension isn't required for them to grow and encrust, they almost have to encrust first before you'll see growth, and the new growth will be from buds popping up at the base. I wish I had a better answer to your question but I don't, there are probably a lot of things that can affect polyp extension.

This guy did nothing for an entire year and now it's growing like crazy. It was one that went through the treatment.

 

[maroun.c]

Try to observe them at night or after coral feeding to see if the polyps extend then.
there are some new bugs reported which are not visible to the naked eye, and it seems they hide into the polyps during dips which leads to reduced efficiency of the dip on them, hence a round of interceptor might help. taking out one of the affected frags and inspecting under a microscope might be of help i will start experimenting with that on newly purchased corals.

 

[IPT]

What I can say for sure is that polyp extension isn't required for them to grow and encrust, they almost have to encrust first before you'll see growth, and the new growth will be from buds popping up at the base. I wish I had a better answer to your question but I don't, there are probably a lot of things that can affect polyp extension.

Thanks for the input. So you didn't see any noticeable difference in your tank at all?

Yeah, if it was just lack of polyp extension I wouldn't worry. The lack of PE is how it starts, then I slowly see STN and then RTN (over 1-3 months). If you look at the pic in my first post that frag was actually starting to encrust, and now it's STN'ing even though it still has some polyp extension still (though only a shadow of what I had when it arrived).

Here is another starting to slowly STN and I think I might see some bugs.

 

[IPT]

Try to observe them at night or after coral feeding to see if the polyps extend then.
there are some new bugs reported which are not visible to the naked eye, and it seems they hide into the polyps during dips which leads to reduced efficiency of the dip on them, hence a round of interceptor might help. taking out one of the affected frags and inspecting under a microscope might be of help i will start experimenting with that on newly purchased corals.

Yeah, I am seeing some people doing that. Crazy! Once I get my hand on some interceptor I will get extra and be a lot more serious about quarentine and even treating before anything goes into the display!

I wish I could observe at night but the tank is at work and it isn't that easy there at night.