I did NOT move my serpent or brittle star from my system when I treated. There was NO WAY IN H-E-Double Hockey Sticks that I was going to find them, never mind pry them out of the 80 some odd pounds of LR in my system.
They made it through with flying colors. As a matter of fact, while I noted a "snowstorm" of mysid, amphipod, and other corpses floating around, I didn't note one of the bazillion micro brittles that I have on my live rock.
Finally, and I may have mentioned this. Although I did lose one cleaner shrimp that I couldn't catch (didn't try too hard either..it was a "clam nipper") I did not lose my huge coral banded shrimp during the process. Yeah... he looked real bad during treatment number two... half dead, stoned looking, but he came out of it and lived a long and happy life thereafter.
when i did my treatment, i found it to be less harmfull than it really seems. all my shrimp and crabs including acro crabs survived. although i saw no real damage caused by the bugs after 4 months, i decided to nuke them neways. it feels good to be bug free.
my doses were less than the recomended amount. 100g total water volume.
i used the 25-50lb interceptor heartworm meds. 1-2 a pill each treatment, 3 treatments total 4 days apart with skimmer carbon and uv off. the bugs will hang on till the 6th hour and they start dropping. worked well for me.
watch out when reintroducing your shrimp and crabs, they might bring back the little red bugs. i would keep them quarentined at least a week before adding them back to your display.
I was not aware of the fact that they could "hitch hike" back in on other crabs and shrimp. I thought that these ugly pods only took to acropora hosts.
If I am going through this much trouble, I am not going to take any chances. I really don't think they would get on shrimp anyway as the shrimp clean them self alot. But in this hobbie any thing is possible!!!!!!!!!
Tegastes acroporanus does NOT host on anything other than acropora. As a matter of fact, they don't even host on all acropora. I had a nice millipora in my system that never had the bugs even when the Larry Jackson Acro, and Teal Acro on either side of it were INFESTED.
I've read or heard nothing that proves that they will piggyback on crabs, shrimp etc.
I was not aware of the fact that they could "hitch hike" back in on other crabs and shrimp. I thought that these ugly pods only took to acropora hosts.
Dave
this is very possible, bugs and eggs. they dont only live on the sps, they free float in the water colum
Sorry to hear about your red bug problems. I've never had them, so I can't help out except for this:
When i was researching this article:
Cirolanid Isopod Capture Techniques, Feeding Habits and Mortality Testing I searched many reef forums to learn all I could about Interceptor and its effects if used in display tanks, because my mortality testing in the article was interceptor on Cirolanid Isopods. I was considering using it in my display tank, but decided against it once I did the tests.
It was a mixed bag of reports, only around 10-15 that I could find, some just lost a few mysis and that was it, but others reported complete tank crashes including the loss of most corals followed by months of hair algae. The really bad reports (which I no longer have bookmarked, sorry!) seemed to have 3 things in common:
1. They put "a little" extra medicine in to be sure to "get da bugs". One guy dosed at like 10x the recommended amount. Please be sure to measure the medicine carefully, it is VERY easy to overdose this stuff.
2. Left the medicine in too long and it ended up killing more things in the tank than anticipated, which resulted in other things dying off. So I would recommend not doing the treatment longer than the recommended 6 hours.
3. Did not do water changes, or didn't do enough. Please be sure to do large water changes after the treatment and make sure the water change water is the same salinity, pH and temperature to minimize coral stress.
Also, I came across zero reports of the bugs or eggs being on anything other than acropora. Eric Borneman's article on the red bugs pointed out that the red bugs laid their eggs on the coral itself and that the bugs did not leave the coral for other non acropora corals.
Now it is still a very good idea to QT anything for 5-7 days in case there are eggs on it, but I would say it is not very likely that a crab or shrimp would be carrying eggs.
Ok I'm back from vacation and I'm ready to start the process to treat in tank my red bugs. I will be posting alot of pictures so you all can see the before and afters. I will also document all that I see happeing in my tank. Will start in a few days.
