Red bugs - Advice on treatment

S

smiller

[Since you have only two you can do it either way IMO. Treating the entire tank is better, but you can always go back and do that if you see them return. Personally I would treat the entire tank before you start adding colonies with crabs in them, but that is me. It only takes one loose one to repopulate. How is that for a politician style answer. :)

I have pre-treated a couple of times. I guess it was successful, but I never knew for sure if their were any bugs on those SPS to begin with. It is too easy not to do, even if you don't suspect there are any.]
 
[I do a water change, using 10 gallons of the old water with a power head and heater in a tank, and dose with about 5 times the recommended reef dosage for 6-8 hours.]
 
[My pleasure! I have been trying to pull up the Reefs.Org info in this, but they seem to be off-line this morning. Remind me later. It is all you need to know about the subject.]
 
[Matt,

I'm no expert on this by any means but most people who are that I've talked to say that spot treating the corals is a temporary bandaid at best. Eric B, Dustin, and Nathan all told me they are copepods and live in substrate and on rock so treating the coral will only kill the ones on the coral not the ones inthe substrate and on the rocks and soon those will be on your corals.

It really sucks as I agree it would be much easier just to treat the corals as I am the same way and only have them on 2 of my acros but I think I'm going to treat my whole tank! :(]
 
[It was a difficult decision but I felt fortunate that many reef keepers have done it without damage to corals. That was an encouragement to me. Special thanks to Jerone for getting the interceptor and answered my questions. When I treated my tank, only a few sps were affected. At the time my sps looked ok, some great with excellent color. I had to ask myself, imagine how great the corals would be if the pests were not there to impact their growth. So I treated my tank couple times - one week apart. On 2nd treatment all acro crabs were missing - presume dead. I did not see trace of red bugs after the 1st treatment. You can literally see the red bugs hang on to the corals 5 hours after treatment. By hour 6 - all were gone. 2nd treatment was just in case. I got lazy and did not think it was needed to do the 3rd treatment.]



Edited By peterlin on 1106063595
 
[Ya Matt I have heard 4 or 5 days.

My concern would be how to know you got the all the acros they will host on! I know you only see them on 2 but who's to say they aren't on more. Or that they won't move to another. Just my opinion! I am still way on the fence n this one but so many people have been successful treating their tanks I may have to go for it!

If you could get all your acros out I would think dipping would work great! I would do it at 5x strength as Steve says!]



Edited By kwl1763 on 1106066525
 
[When you have the time go to this forum link, read that forum and its attached links to other articles and other forums and you will know everything you want to about these pests.
Redbugs]
 
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