Sleeping with the Fishes [a pe(s)t project]

[Mariaface]

It'll probably try to use mesenterial filaments to digest the snail's body, then slowly let go of (and push out) the shell itself. Watch out for that and be ready to (very very gently) assist if needed. You don't want the shell getting stuck or harming the coral's skeleton, but you don't want to tug it out and tear any flesh.

[littlephish]

Dude thats nuts that you got that picture!

[dropped]

Bhahaha i was going to call my clowns Bruce and Caitlyn, makes so much sense!

[righttirefire]

silly ceriths

[metrokat]

[holy carp]

silly ceriths

 

 

 

 

Ha ha ha. I get so excited when I think something unusual happened in my little nano. So you're saying ceriths are dumb and that Acans and RFA's keep John in business! I'm really curious how the snail got caught. Do those things just go up to the coral's mouth to say hello?

 

Well, I'm going to monitor this snack and see how long it takes to consume. That shell is still pretty deep in there, but the coral has been moving it around a bit.

[metrokat]

With an RFA they can latch on and curl their edges to bring food to their mouth, but I'm not sure how acans (now called Micromussas) do that. Maybe the cerith climbs on it looking for food and these guys go AHA!

[Mariaface]

Whenever I've seen it, it was because the snail fell in just the right spot..

[holy carp]

Well, that shell was in there for a while, but yesterday morning (2/14) the Acan/Micro Lord spat it out over night.

 

 

You can't see it here, but that snail shell is empty.

 

Elapsed time since first photo: 25 hours.

[holy carp]

So yesterday, I finally made the time to do a Bayer Dip for the red bugs. Here's how it went down:

 

First I did a 5 gallon water change. I split it into two buckets.

 

Then I took 500ml into a container and added 10ml of Bayer Complete. That's this bottle:

 

Anyway, so I first took the small frags I picked up that had redbugs and dipped them in the Bayer dip for 10 minutes. I swished them around every few minutes.

 

Then a quick dunk in RODI, and into the first bucket from the water change. After 10 minutes there, a bit of swishing, I moved them into the second bucket. 10 minutes and then back in the DT.

 

I did the same with the purple bonsai. It's attached to a sizeable rock, so I didn't want to dip the whole thing. Instead, I held it upside down in the dip solution with just the bonsai submerged. Again - 10 minutes and I used a pipette to circlulate the liquid.

 

After 10 minutes, I dunked the bonsai in some RODI and set it in the first bucket half full from the water change. The containers at this point are getting a bit colder than the DT, but I can't control everything. After 10 minutes in the bucket with a bit of swishing, I moved it to the second bucket for another bit of a soak. After 10 minutes it went back into the DT.

 

It is now about 18 hours later, and the shrimp in the DT do not seem affected, which was my biggest concern motivating the 2nd rinse.

 

The dip fluid was drained and filled with saltwater from the water change to see if anything was alive - all I found were dead isopods and red bugs. A couple of the harmless flatworms (not AEFW) were there, but they weren't killed.

 

Now here's a before and after of the bonsai:

 

You can see all the red bugs in the before (left). Most are gone on the right. I think I might see a couple left, but I think they're dead but were still attached to the coral tissue. They definitely aren't moving around like they used to. I'll keep checking on those. Otherwise the coral seems pretty unaffected. After image is about 20 minutes after reintroduction to the DT. No noticeable changes have occurred since.

 

 

 

Now here's the blue tort(?) that introduced the red bugs in the first place. This coral didn't seem very affected by the bugs at all, and PE was good in spite of the infection. Also, it didn't seem to attract nearly as many as the bonsai - you can only see a couple in the before (left) image below. However, this one definitely was affected by the dip. It browned out a lot!

 

left is 2 weeks before dipping. Middle is 20 minutes after dip. Right is 18 hours after dip.

 

I'll have to keep an eye out to see how this one recovers. I hope it does, because if time is money, that is one expensive frag.

 

(I know the white balance isn't identical, since the center photo had more blue spectrum... Camera phones can only do so much.)

 

Now I have a few other acropora as well - a green slimer, an optimus prime, and some other green unidentified acro. I inspected them with a loupe, but found no evidence of redbugs, so I didn't dip them. The slimer and optimus prime are on another sizeable rock, so I figured it might be more work than it's worth. Especially since the Blue CBS lives in that rock and is difficult to remove. This may be a risk of reintroduction, but I've got about 39.5oz of Bayer left... Based on the apparent distribution of these pests, I expect my bonsai will be the canary in the coalmine. (cue The Police)

[teenyreef]

Thanks for providing the detailed write up on how you did the dip! I've done the same process, although I didn't do the RODI dunk, as I didn't want to further stress the corals. But I also did a thorough rinse in saltwater afterwards to keep any of it from getting back into the display tank. I'm sure the blue tort will recover - brown is still alive and it should color back up in a week or two. Good luck!

[holy carp]

I read somewhere that doing a quick RODI rinse really removes a lot more of the chemicals than saltwater. Given that it's only for 10 or 20 seconds, I hoped it wouldn't be too stressful for the corals. I suppose that could have been a factor that led to the browning. The other corals didn't seem to mind at all. Looking forward to a (possibly) red bug free tank again.

 

I'm not too worried about the tort at this point. Brown or not, it still has some pretty good PE. I'll take that as a sign of health for the time being.

 

Chocolate Tort anyone?

[metrokat]

Good notes on your dipping process. RODI is generally harsh on SPS so I'm not surprised at the browning but it still looks healthy with the PE so hopefully it will recover.

[holy carp]

So far, all acros appear to be red bug free. No guarantees yet, but there is definitely no evidence of any of those critters around. Fortunately, the fact that they are live bearers really makes treatment options more effective, in my opinion. We're now approaching 48 hours since treatment, so definitely not long enough to draw conclusions. I figure if I make it 2-3 weeks, then that's a good indication they are probably gone. From what I've read, they have a relatively short life cycle and can only live 5 days off of acros. They are definitely hard to see, but can be spotted even in small populations.

 

 

And this morning we have deja vu all over again from the neighboring Micromussa polyp. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor unless thee be a lord...

 

It's Rivalry Week, of course!!!

Micro Lords 2 : Dwarf Ceriths... well, I don't actually know how to give them a score, but they are losing big time.

 

And tonight: Let's Go Duke!

[holy carp]

One hour later, the shell was ejected...

[Six]

I'm loving this tank build/dramatic diary! Keep doing those time lapses if you can; very cool!

[sangheili]

Bayer for the win. Just wish they made it in a clear solution.

 

CoralRX is fairly effective too but I've been using Bayer far too long to put faith in something I haven't tested a lot. I bet I'm on my 8th bottle by now. Just use caution if you dip any rockwork with it, it tends to stay in the rockwork and your tank will be invert-less for a long time (my QT has this issue).

[holy carp]

I'm loving this tank build/dramatic diary! Keep doing those time lapses if you can; very cool!

Thank you. I'm still taking the photos for the time lapses weekly, so I will probably generate new gifs every month or two, depending on how much they grow.

 

Bayer for the win. Just wish they made it in a clear solution.

 

CoralRX is fairly effective too but I've been using Bayer far too long to put faith in something I haven't tested a lot. I bet I'm on my 8th bottle by now. Just use caution if you dip any rockwork with it, it tends to stay in the rockwork and your tank will be invert-less for a long time (my QT has this issue).

I agree. At the concentration I used (20ml Bayer / liter), it looked like skim milk. I couldn't even see the frags at the bottom of one of those standard pint sized plastic soup containers. But given how well it seemed to work, I think this will be my new dip of choice. I used to use ReVive, but it doesn't seem to be that effective against many hitchhikers. I think it's good against bacteria, so if you frag something with freshly cut bone and flesh, it might be a good dip to prevent infection and speed healing. For hitchhikers, I'm sticking with Bayer, and for algae I'm sold on good old h2o2. Perhaps I'll use a combination of all 3 (not mixed) for new coral acquisitions.

 

I did have a small portion of the live rock get submerged in the Bayer dip. That was why I went for the RODI and double seawater dip after the Bayer. Also, and I don't think I mentioned this before, I put new GAC into the sump when I did the dip in hopes to adsorb any residual chemicals. My 2 shrimp seem as healthy as always, and it's been just about 4 days since the dip. The only thing I've noticed since dipping is that I have had more diatoms. My glass is brown after a day or two, and previously I'd only have to clean it once or twice a week. I even saw a brown layer on top of the coralline algae on my drain screen this morning, which I had never seen before. That surprised me, but perhaps there are some silicates in the Bayer that stuck to the live rock, or it may have affected some other bacterial balance. Maybe I'll throw in a capful of Stability for good measure. Of all problems to have, though, diatoms are a pretty trivial one. I just use my Tunze nano algae scraper, and my clowns eat up the 'diatom shavings' voraciously!

[Six]

Today I learned Acanthastrea lordhowensis is now Micromussa lordhowensis. I'm kinda sad bc I like the micro-size of the old Micromussa. :/

[holy carp]

I thought the same thing until I learned that micromussa is usually more expensive than acanthastrea... Looks like I got a free upgrade on my 3 Acans!

[holy carp]

This morning, Bruce Jenner had a curious injury right in front of her dorsal fin. I can't imagine what happened.

 

She's otherwise hungry and behaving normally. There are no crabs in the tank, and the 2 shrimp are way too wimpy to do anything and don't live near the clowns' nest. I've seen the dottyback dart at the clowns, but rarely ever makes actual contact, and always approaches from below where its little cave is.

 

(BTW, pretty impressed with how this photo came out using a smartphone)

[metrokat]

Nice capture! They can scrape themselves against rocks, or maybe Bruce is just healing from new plastic surgery.

[holy carp]

She's so vain, she probably thinks this song thread is about her

She's so vain, I bet she thinks this song thread is about her

'bout her

'bout her

[metrokat]

doo wop dee doo wop dee wop

<insert musical note here>

[holy carp]

So quick updates:

 

1 - 10 days since the dip - no sign of any red bugs, but corals still haven't colored back up

2 - diatoms are back to normal

3 - Finished my I/O Reef Crystals, and now using Brightwell Aquatics Neo Marine.

a - did a 5 gallon water change with it last Sunday

b - skimmer is running super wet even though I haven't adjusted it, though it could also be dip related

4 - some astrea and margarita snails seem really sluggish (new salt or dip residual?)

5 - Bruce Jenner's injury seems to be healing pretty quickly. Just seems to be a dark spot now - no longer open/white looking.

6 - last night my elegance looked peculiarly closed up. I haven't seen it closed for months... Today it looks like this:

 

 

For comparison, this is how it normally looks (this pic was taken 2/7)