red bugs.. pictures.. size... questions

sfsuphysics · #1 09/08/2007, 08:13 PM

Ok, so the past week I've been in quite the funk thinking I had AEFW due to tissue damage done ONLY on my acroporas... specifically on one rock.

So today I spent the better part pulling that rock out and using a magnifying glass to examine, and perhaps cry a little later.. however I found zero evidence of them, no bite marks, no egg sacks, in fact all the tissue loss looks quite smooth.

So right as I was going to give up I noticed something on a teal/green colored acro.. little orange dots.. and I mean LITTLE, I could not see them without a magnifying glass, now I might need glasses, but they didn't jump out at me at all. They were not however part of the coral, upon looking at a light brown acro I saw them there as well, in much greater numbers, and this acro also is the one who has show the most damage

So here's the question(s)
How small are they, are they uber hard to see? Every picture I've seen of them is taken with a macrolens, and they look really small in that shot, so I'm wondering if I might be seeing them.

Could they be causing tissue to "disappear" I'm not seeing RTN like schloffing (sp?) but the tissue is going away

I do have a tablet of interceptor, my tank's total volume is pushing 100-150 gallons (hard to estimate with rocks and such) so I figure half a tablet should do.. currently mixing up a garbage can full of SW so I can have a water change ready to go. I may try to find and rescue a couple peppermint shrimp I (might) have in there, but I don't know if I want to go through that effort.

This is a pretty painless treatment type thing?

raddogz · #2 09/08/2007, 11:15 PM

Mike why don't you take a picture for all of us to see

leveldrummer · #3 09/08/2007, 11:32 PM

sounds like you have the red bugs, they are
"uber" small, and very hard to see, but once you see one, you notice them all, they are pin point sized.

sfsuphysics · #4 09/08/2007, 11:35 PM

I honestly don't know if I could get a picture, only way I noticed them is the coral out of the tank, the magnifying glass an inch or two away.

jan_dman · #5 09/09/2007, 12:23 AM

do they move, without a pic will be hard to tell ....good luck

sfsuphysics · #6 09/09/2007, 01:00 AM

Well the coral that was out of the water for an hour didn't have anything moving that I could see.

slojmn · #7 09/09/2007, 10:35 AM

Mike, I can really only see the little buggers with my mesoscope, once i knew I had them a couple of years back I was able to then see the dots on some of the corals with a naked eye, but just barely. They defiantely move though. I would say they are definately "uber" hard to see. A magnifying glass would make it just about as you described. Why don't you do a couple of interceptor treatments...these are so easy...and see how the corals do afterwards. i can understand you not wanting to do a treatment if you don't need to but it sounds like it a pretty classic case of red bugs. The only time I had them I only found small numbers on two corals an one coral seemed to have the most. Once the treatment was done they were gone

. I now do an interceptor dip on larger pieces. Thanks to my mesoscope I can examine frags very thoroughly and cut off the bases and plugs so no AEFW, red bugs, or nudis can get by me. But on larger pieces from others I just automatically dip for red bugs and I am going to start doing a fluke tab dip as well when I get nw stuff in for those darn AEFW.

Marko9 · #8 09/09/2007, 10:39 AM

Red bugs really like the smooth skinned acros, Check them first. If I remember correctly, you picked up the yellow tipped gem at the BACFM. The contrast on that piece should show them. Look between the coralites.

wentreefgirl · #9 09/09/2007, 10:46 AM

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showt...&highlight=pest

Here you go, happy reading. The first pic gives you an idea of how small they are. Ok, so seems you do have red bugs. What you plan to do. Interceptor the whole tank. Do you have crabs and acro crabs. Youll have to plan to keep them somewhere unless youll nuke them too.

sfsuphysics · #10 09/09/2007, 11:51 AM

Ok, really small, at least I'm happy about that, it possibly could be.

Marko: I did get that yellow tipped gem, unfortunately that one didn't make it, in fact most of the corals from that particular vendor didn't do so well.. but that aside.

wentreef: I do plan on treating the whole tank, I don't just have plugs I can remove, quite a few (most) of my acros are encrusted onto the rockwork so I'm stuck in that regards. As to the crabs that are in there... I know there's a very large "emerald" in there and maybe a couple peppermint shrimp, but quite honestly... I think some losses are inevitable, if i can see them between now and treatment time (which probably I'll probably save until tomorrow) then I'll toss them into my softie tank and they can become residents there.

flyyyguy · #11 09/09/2007, 01:21 PM

here is the best pics I can get of them with my marginal camera skills..... And this is a light colored coral(or bleached if you will haha), and pretty well loaded with them. A flashlight at night makes them easier to see, however, once you train your eyes to see them, you can spot them from across the tank almost. Its really a great tick to irritate friends......walk up to their tank and within 4 seconds say....."youve got redbugs". LOL

Shawnts106 · #12 09/09/2007, 02:57 PM

WOW! Youve got mail! ... I mean! WOW! Youve got bugs!

wentreefgirl · #13 09/09/2007, 03:15 PM

Itchin, as we speak, man, yuck. You dont have to remove them from plugs. That would be acro flatworms. Red bugs are live bearers. No eggs. And if you dont mind losing crabs then your good to go.

raddogz · #14 09/09/2007, 03:23 PM

Mike - If you ever need help let me know I can come over whenever to help. I have interceptor tabs if you need them, along with a plethora of everything else.

Radiography14 · #15 09/09/2007, 04:37 PM

uses 2ml of mixec interceptor per 2 gallons of tank water in a bucket. take the acropora corals out for 20 min in that bucket. a tiny powerhead to swirl the water helps and then take them out set on the counter and clean out bucket with new tank water for fresh swirl for 20 min then you are done....it worked for me. the corals with color up nice again and polyp extension will come out somemore..... you might have to do this again and again.... after like 2-3 treatments your golden....just get yourself a pill of interceptor heartworm stuff for dogs....treat your coral outside your tank . they can hurt inverts if you treat it in your tank...

flyyyguy · #16 09/09/2007, 04:41 PM

Treating specific corals outside a system already infested is worthless and a temporary bandaid at best. That is unless you can remove ALL of even the tiniest specs of acropora from the display and treat and QT for a couple of weeksits even been talked about recently that the same redbugs can reside in euphyllia

The system needs treated if you really want rid of them

sfsuphysics · #17 09/09/2007, 04:46 PM

wow Flyguy, yeah I might have seen orange dots, but NOTHING like that. From my reading they like to eat the "slime" on acros which might be why my green slimer isn't doing so hot either...

Eileen: I'll take you up on the offer if the interceptor doesn't work, at the very least maybe you can help me problem solve what is screwing with my sanity.. er I mean tank.

maxima k2 · #18 09/09/2007, 08:12 PM

How long do the RBs live with out a host? I lost all my acros to the SOBs but I have montis that are doing well.