Potential Red Bug Treatment

PaulKreider · Apr 14, 2014

I've had red bugs for several months but I might of found a new way to kill them?

After using Phosphate Rx three times in the past two weeks I cannot find a single Red Bug anywhere.

Anyone else have similar results? I know Phosphate Rx isn't even ment for exterminating red bugs but It might have done the trick for me.

revhtree · Apr 14, 2014

Subscribed!

Adam Baggett · Apr 14, 2014

If not try using Pipe Fish. You only need 1 or 2 and they will wipe them out. I favor natural remedies.

PaulKreider · Apr 15, 2014

I didn't want to subject the pipe fish to too much flow ad bullys in my tank. I wasn't even trying to get rid of the bugs they just disappeared after the Phosphate Rx, I also have a mystery wrasse who could be fending off any survivors.

TarHeelReefer22 · Apr 15, 2014

I am also dealing with them right now and have removed them in the past using a combination of iodine dip coral rx pro and fresh water rinse but I lost some deep water acros in the process but the bugs were gone I am currently looking for a new method I am def subscribed to this thread keep us updated!

TarHeelReefer22 · Apr 15, 2014

Also were you just treating the tank with this to lower your PO4 or were you using this as a treatment for the bugs? I already run a reactor and wouldn't have any change in lowering my phosphates which in turn wouldn't effect the bug population. I am thinking that you rapidly reduced your phosphates which killed the red bugs but if this isn't the case I would like to know if you used it in a concentrated dose and dipped.

PaulKreider · Apr 15, 2014

I was just treating my tank to reduce the phosphates, I believe that such a rapid change may have stunned the redbugs/killed them. They have been nowhere in sight for three days now. I haven't treated the tank for phosphates in 4 days.

I just used the recommended dosage for a 55gal tank, 30drops once every 24 hours, three times.

Could potentially work as a dip? I would try it but I cant find any red bugs :lol:

TarHeelReefer22 · Apr 15, 2014

I don't know if this would work for me as I already have as few phosphates as possible haha

jservedio · Apr 15, 2014

I don't know about that - Phosphate RX is just Lanthanum Chloride which would leave 2 routes for killing red bugs - 1. a rapid change in conditions (dropping of phos) and 2. Lanthanum poisoning. I doubt it was the drop in phosphates since you would think Acro, particularly weakend acros, would be much more susceptible to changing nutrient levels than a bug that doesn't derive its nutrition out of the water column - which would leave lanthanum poisoning.

This is really troubling since lanthanum toxicity in invertibrates isn't something that is very well studied. The only study I found was lanthanum toxicity in daphnia flies and that was it. I would be very weary of that since changing nutrient levels can be really harsh on your corals especially if lighting levels remain constant.

If it were me, I would definitely stick with the tried and true Milbemycin Oxime. Novartis has done a TON of research on it's effectiveness at killing bugs so you know that it works and how it works. Though, if you wanted to experiment that would be awesome - but definitely isn't a gread idea to just start having people try.

Most of the lanthanum chloride mixes remove something like 1ppm of phosphate in 1g of water with 1/40th of a ml so they are incredibly potent. Dropping your water column by even 1/10th of a ppm of phosphate in 24 hours can be a very bad thing.

TJ's Reef · Apr 15, 2014

Great Thread Paul, thanks for sharing. It would be very interesting to have someone with a closed Grow out/Frag system to run some experiments in. There is so much in this hobby on the Science side that has yet to be found and studied. Often it is us the hobbyist that sparks the idea or brings attention to such break through's to where the Big Boy's then step in and do the 'Real Research'....... then receive most all the credit...........lol
jservedio, thank you also for your contribution here and will find some time to research 'Lanthanum Chloride' for myself.

Cheers, Todd

PaulKreider · Apr 15, 2014

jservedio said:
If it were me, I would definitely stick with the tried and true Milbemycin Oxime. Novartis has done a TON of research on it's effectiveness at killing bugs so you know that it works and how it works. Though, if you wanted to experiment that would be awesome - but definitely isn't a gread idea to just start having people try.

If nobody ever tried anything new than we'd all still be using compact bulbs or driving model T's.

Like I said I'm not sure exactly what killed them and all I did was follow the instructions on a bottle of Phosphate Rx which is also tried and true.

jservedio · Apr 15, 2014

PaulKreider said:
If nobody ever tried anything new than we'd all still be using compact bulbs or driving model T's.

Like I said I'm not sure exactly what killed them and all I did was follow the instructions on a bottle of Phosphate Rx which is also tried and true.

I'm not trying to discourage research, quite the opposite. I am just weary when experimenting with chemicals on my DT - especially dumping in as much as you did ;)

Your dosage wasn't anywhere near the right way to dose Phosphate RX, which is why you may have killed your red bugs (and likely more). Dosing 30 drops in a 55g tank would reduce your phosphate by just under 0.5ppm (10x what you should have in your tank) in the course of a single day - multiplied by 3 means you stripped the equivalent of 1.5ppm of phosphate from your tank. If your tank had 0.5ppm of phosphates to remove in a single day - your acro wasn't alive to begin with. Since you clearly couldn't have 1.5ppm of phosphates to remove from your water - it means there is probably free-floating lanthanum chloride in your system and absolutely no phosphates in your water column. I don't know about you - but extremely high lanthanum levels and absolutely no phosphate seems very troubling to me.

There is a way to experiment and a way to likely kill things. Of those options, what would you consider dumping a chemical into your tank you know little about at a dose 10-30x what it should have been?

Again, not trying to say don't research this - I am just saying be careful and for display tanks I would stick with the tried and true...

I can tell you with 100% confidence that using Lanthanum Chloride, specifically Phosphate RX, at the correct dose will not kill Red Bugs. I use this in my tank at work which I occasionally store shipped acros since there are none in the system (If I have to wait for my QT to be empty at home - I never mix new acros with acros that have been in QT for a long period of time) and have received several acros with Red Bugs that this had no effect on. Acros have been in this system for over a month without any signs of red bug death while using Phosphate RX. I use this every week or so to bring phosphates back down to 0.03ppm (According to the ULR checker) if my WCs don't bring it far enough down.

As for the correct dosage - directly from the Phosphate RX Bottle: Six drops of Phosphate Rx will lower your phosphate by .5 ppm for every 10 gallons (37.9L) of water.

PaulKreider · Apr 21, 2014

UPDATE

So one week later here is what I've concluded.

The Phosphate Rx, DID kill all my redbugs, and my acros have never looked better.

BUT the amount of lanthium Chloride used did kill 90% of my snails, but didn't harm my hermits or fish. So much the same result as using interceptor.

I would like to see if it could be used as a potential red bug dip though since It certainly did kill them all, Might even work for AEFW?

So I'm redbud and mostly Cuc free.