Red bugs and treating them

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Hello there! A few weeks ago I purchased 3 frags of high-end acros from a local reefer. They looked happy and healthy at first glance, his tank was incredibly impressive with full polyp extension on his 50+ acro colonies, and I had never even heard of red bugs so they weren’t even a thought of mine. Luckily, another local reefer pointed them out in this photo on our forums, which alerted me to do some more digging.

You can clearly see their yellow bodies and red back ends. It was very lucky that not only did I have a camera capable of taking a picture capable of capturing these little critters, but also that someone caught it so fast. I pulled the 3 frags and put them into my freshly set up Eshopps Deskmate 4.8g that I set up exactly for this reason. I’ve been checking all of the other SPS in my 40b like crazy since, and it seems the 3 infected frags were pulled before they were able to spread anywhere else.

All the frags have been in there for a few weeks now, waiting on an interceptor treatment. The person I bought them from has been super cool, ordered a pack and gave me a pill that I picked up a few days ago. Tomorrow I’ll be doing an isolated treatment, pulling the 3 infected frags and doing a dip with the crushed up interceptor. He’s doing his entire tank and did the first dose on Monday.

I’ll be sure to document my progress, doing a dip once a week for 3 weeks. That will hopefully kill off any newly hatched ones. I will say, I’m quite impressed at how happy these 3 frags have remained so far. It’s been ~3 weeks of being in a 4.8g aquarium with a stock white light, with red bugs all over them, and they still have crazy polyp extension on them. This video was taken earlier this evening, and you can see them waltzing all over this CB Unicorn Poop acro like they own it.

These photos are of the set up and all 3 frags (along with much easier SPS) with full polyp extension, taken last week.

 

[KGscv]

Interceptor is a safe in tank treatment. You might as well treat your main tank with it.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Interceptor is a safe in tank treatment. You might as well treat your main tank with it.

I’d rather not remove or lose any inverts. Every SPS in my 40b has been inspected every few days, for weeks now. Not a single one on them. Only the 3 frags in the Deskmate have any. I’d rather just pull the 3 infected frags and treat only them, and not lose any inverts along the way.

If I notice them in my 40b, I absolutely will treat the entire tank. I just don’t think that’s necessary at this time.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

These are my other SPS in my 40b, taken last week ~2 weeks after noticing the red bugs on the 3 purchased frags.

Everything is happy and healthy. The orange setosa and WWC yellowtip still show a bit of the damage they took from a pectinia I sold a few months ago. Its sweepers were stinging both of them, so I got rid of it. Once they stopped being stung overnight their color came back and their growth really took off.

The one on my rock that is starting to shoot up is the remnants of a mini colony I had to pull due to AEFW. It had started to encrust when I pulled it, and I didn’t have much hope for it to survive. Sure enough it did, and is starting to take off again. I’d imagine if red bugs got onto it just 2-3 months after AEFW, it would be in much worse condition.

Crushed up the pill. Making fresh saltwater to mix it into along with some to rinse the frags off in after their bath. Will update later today with how it goes!