acropora red ugs or mite's

this is a much debated subject on reef central and i was curious if any body here knew anything about these ultra tiny little fella's that supposedly only live on certian types of acropora

i recently got a frag of blue acro and someone said look out for red bugs and to do a search for them at RC well i did and after learning what to look for i noticed my frag had them. i looked thru allmost every post on the subject and people there have no idea or if they do they don't give a simple answer

this not a pic of my coral becouse my camera does not have that much macro power but this is what the bug looks like they are ultra small like the size of point of a sharpe pencil i would have never noticed except i saw one move and they are red on a blue background

here you can see they are small i have read some interesting ways to remove them just hoping someone else has gone thru this w/ postive results

after researching the subject to death many poeple have had good results using Seachem reef-dip at 4x the dose

i contacted seachem and this was there response

Dear Matthew,

I am aware of this situation and would recommend to try our Reef Dip,

although using it at a 4x dose would be at your own risk. The

recommended dose I also recommend some type of predatory fish like a

small 6 line wrasse (or other "reef" type wrasse), small

pseudochromis, or small hawkfish. I have heard reports of these fish

fish impacting the population of these organisms

--

Best Regards,

Seachem Technical Support,rb~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seachem Laboratories, Inc. www.seachem.com 888-SEACHEM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey Mattie,

I've got 'em too & have had success using the Reef-Dip at 2x dose. It doesn't get them all at once because they are able to hide in the closed polyps. But it gets LOTS of them. From my experience one dip won't do it. It's going to take several dips over the course of a couple weeks.

yea i did a dip yesterday and most seemed to fall off

but i noticed tonight there are still plenty but tonight the polyps opend up and maybe tomorrow or the next i will try again. i hope we can get these critters i don't think they will kill my coral but untill i have removed them i am not going to get any more acro and i am going to be more careful with what i put in the tank

the really dumb thing is i have QT running all the time but i didn't use it but w/o the knowledge of these things i probably would have passed em over w/o notice anyway

i did another dip today removing even more but there is still a few more of these buggas holding on the coral looks upset so i will probably wait another week before doing another dip

well I checked my acropora frag for Red Bugs today and there was one so i sucked him off with a syringe but there does not apear to be any others

and some of the polyps near the bottom have opened so i guess all will be okay

Awesome! Now lets see if it stays that way. I have an infestation of the bastages, and I'm setting the stage for an all-out assault on them. I only have a few acro frags right now, so I hope I won't have too much trouble.

When you dip in the seachem stuff, do you mix it in saltwater, or is it a freshwater dip thing?

I was thinking of using a freshwater dip with that Kent dip solution.

If nothing else works, I'll just sell my acros to someone else with red mites who can get rid of them or doesnt mind them. Then I can let my tank lie fallow for a few months to ultimately get rid of them.

Since I got the mites, my acros have not grown nearly as fast and have lost a LOT of color. My staghorn acro seems to have the most mites, so I might just sacrifice that frag. If I succeed in getting rid of them, I'll post some before and after pics to see how they color back up. Maybe that will shut up all those people that say red mites aren't bad.

The thing that really chaps my ass about it is that somebody sold me the frags with mites and said nothing to me. Really gets to me how other people in the hobby will just screw you over like that. Now I'm very dissappointed about the whole trading scene and I don't know if I ever will again after I nuke these MFs.

I'm rambling

Use tank water for the dip. I have to dip my acros again tonight. I have a Acro Nana frag that's lost almost all of it's color from them. I even have a green Milliepora with the bugs, even though I've read that Milli's shouldn't get them!!!

Death to all red bugs.

Originally posted by Ike

I even have a green Milliepora with the bugs, even though I've read that Milli's shouldn't get them!!!

Oh man that sucks. I'll have to check my milli. Thanks for the heads up.

what i did was i drained out 1 gallon of tank water and added 4 capfuls of seachem reef dip and put a the frag in for almost 10 min then droped it back in the tank

the second time i did the same thing but i made a small like 5ml solution 50/50 and rinsed it over the frag before i dipped it the second time and i only dipped it 4-5 min

i was bummed about getting the bugs the person i got it from was not aware and had never heard of them and was surprised and happy that i brought it to his attention

still today i do not see any bugs but in 2 weeks i feel i should know for sure the end result

good luck korbin i know this totaly sucks to deal with this but at least somepeople here have gone thru it already

today half of the polyps are back out and the piece has not yet come back to full color but its not white its just very lightly purple/blue but it still has tissue unrecded i don't thinkit liked the last dip to much

cause the after the first one one the second day every polyp was open

well still no red bugs but the coral looks ####ed off its lost some color and the polyps used to open up

if it didn't still have some blueish color i would have thought it was dead

a few of the polyps near the base have opened up up but and there has been zero growth all the pther frags i bought on that same day have encruted onto the rocks already

how are the bugs mattie ? how's the acro doing ?

anyone considering using the dog pills yet ? I was thinking about it but I have no idea where to get it measured out in such a small quantity.

-skeletor-

Tagging along.

Hoping I don't have to deal with it but better to be prepared prior their arrival.

still no bugs !!!!

the coral doesn't look happy though becouse it used to open up at night.

BUT it has encrusted around the base so it is still growing and i feel confifdent that it will make a full recovery i am just waiting to see how long it takes. the color very slowly has been getting more blue. so it will be okay , but boy did i shock the hell out of this coral.

after doing more research there is no proof that these little red bugs do any harm

Does anyone with a red bug problem have a pseudochromis in their tank? My pseudochromis are death to 'pods and small worms, maybe they would help.

Opinions?

nice thought

but these things are small most people don't see em my mandarin did not even bother to eat em and my friend that i got the coral from has a six line and it did not eat em either

I'll try to find some info on a cure I heard about...had a speaker touch on it at our last Boston Reefers meeting. Don't give up! The cure has been tried and has worked at a LFS, and is dosed in the tank with no ill effects.

here are the links I promised...local LFS and club members had great results!

Reef.org Post

Reef Cental SPS Forum Thread

Good Luck!

wow that sounds good

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45859

WTF !!!!!!!!!!

i was going to make an update becouse my blue acro that i dipped to remove the red bugs has finally come back in color and getting some of the old polyps to come out and it has been encrusting faster around the base.

but i saw a few on another piece of acro (tri-color) AGGHHHHH!!!

well i am going to wait a month or so read more results about the cure using interceptor to cure red bugs in the nano. becouse 1 pill treats something near 75 gallon so i need to get a mg scale and crush one pill and weigh it out to 25mg per 10gallon of water not tank size so i am guessing in my tank w/ sump and skimmer minus the rocks and sand about 17gallons so about 42.5mg would be a good guess but i am scareed since my tank relies heavily on pods which all of them may be whipped out during this red bug treatment

I feel your pain mattie. After the last frag swap I picked up something with the lil sh*ts on it and now a few of my favorite pieces have it. Going to check with my parents to see if they have any for our dog. Going to be fun calculating the total water voume minus rock.

Will a Blue/Green Chromis eat any bugs in your tank...cause I'm having a bug out break in my tank, they look just like your bugs only much bigger and seem to scury about the rock work....they look gross and I want to get rid of them they mostly come out at night, but have been gettign braver lately....Anyways, I'd just like a fish to eat them I cant do dips all my coral is cemented down....and not spoted like yours.

Those are PODS. They are good for your tank.

yea if your seeing em and they are big and like to scurry at night the are a type of good copepod that eat detritus very good

so do not worry at this time for this reason