SAD SAD DAY in Nano's world..

[NanoReefWanabe]

today while admiring what is turning into a nice little nano reef primarily domintaed by SPS, i caught a shimmer of sorrow scampering about my tank...the culprit...RED BUGS.....last week i got an acro from a friend who was selling nice little tri coloured acro frags....a month before i got a blue tipped stag...that was doing really well...and i though why not try another acro then...his tank appeared clean as can be to the naked eye...

well after a week of no polyp extension i look a little closer at the frag...and those little yellow bastards are running around everywhere on it...in pure panic i uproot the frag from its epoxy home to inspect it closer in a bowl...using my 3X with my 2X and 1X macro lenses for my SLR i confirmed my fear...completely distraught i closely inspect my favorite floresent green acro(bought at a different source)...no bugs...woohoo....i then look at the blue tip stag that has been doing amazing the last few weeks...to my dismay it too is covered in them...well not covered but 5-10 per inch of frag (which is 4" long now)

i guess on the upside i finally get to rid my tank of the stupid mantis that has been decimating my blue leg hermit population...i was hoping in an effort to keep my pods alive i could put my cheato into a temporary quarantine that i will now have to setup with my remaining crabs and CBS....but the articles i have read all say that i should leave it be and just repopulate after the treatments...

the other option i have is leave it as is and not treat...enjoy my couple acro frags until they die (which may not happen) or i toss the 50$ worth of frags i have and let the tank sit for a month acro free and start again in February (which at this point sounds a whole lot easier then trying to convince a vet that my fish tank needs a 100lbs canine dose of interceptor..

my fear is that the frags of other stuff i have to sell like millies and birdsnest and monti's, that are already sold awaiting pickup, will act as host and infect other peoples tanks with these little buggers...i would sooner not bring that upon anyone...

so the question is:
SHOULD I KILL, OR SHOULD I THROW now?
if i kill there will be trouble, but if i dont it will be double..

will the red bugs use other corals as a means to get to other tanks?
[/end rant]

Grr and to top it all off my stupid long tentacle plate decided to breast stroke across my tank and kill two of my monti cap frags i had awaiting sale...

[nismo driver]

red bugs arent the end of the world.. although i think you already answered your question, if you want to get rid of the mantis then why not do the interceptor?

i got 1 frag with redbugs and decided a more natural control method and got a yellow coris wrasse, i havent seen any red bugs since and the wrasse is an excellent addition to the tank but you need a sand bed for them to sleep in so your BB its not an option.

[grallster]

Treat your tank, or take out the acros and treat outside the tank. It's not the end of the world. In fact, if you were planning on getting new acros--you might as well get them and then treat. At least you wouldn't have to worry about reintroduction.

[hatfielj]

I agree, just go ahead and treat your whole tank now and wipe them out for sure. Once you know your tank is clean, get yourself a small treatment tank (you need nothing more than a tank, pump, and heater) to treat all new frags in before putting them in your display.
You will likely lose all of your hermits, but thats about it. You only need to do one good treatment with interceptor to knock them out. Leave the interceptor in the tank for at least 24 hours before initiating carbon or water changes to make sure you get them all. I did this same exact thing in my tank a few months ago and everything went very smoothly and I'm now completely redbug free. Good Luck.

[grallster]

Hermits are easy enough to pick out and hold till the treatment is over.

[NanoReefWanabe]

My tank isnt BB but i am bioloaded to the max with 4 fish...so another wont do me any good...plus yellow coris wrasse would get far too big for my 20. and my 6line wont touch them...

fortunately the biggest of the frags is 4" with 3 braches the others are 3" and 2"...so they can easily be removed from the tank..allow the RB in the display to starve and treat the corals outside..

hermits are a dime a dosen...it is my very shy CBS that will have a hard time catching with out ripping the rock down...plus i will lose all my pods and other such fauna... i will have to figure out another way to get the Mantis out..

So i am going to work on setting up a 2.5 or a 5 gal Quarantine tank, to treat and house the acros while the display tank is starved of acros...

lighting is going to be the biggest PITA i think...will the acros survive under pc lights for a month? i have a 13" dual fixture (2X28W) i am using as actinics right now but i also have a 10000K bulb too. i would rather not buy another light fixture...i also have a 70 MH reflector and bulbs but no ballast..

and god only knows what wifey will say when i set up another tank...

but like said tracking down interceptor is going to be harder then i hoped too...hopefully my brothers dog is in need of it and i can get it through him...

i wasnt thinking about anymore acros though...just monti's

[tang daddy]

hey red bugs are petty compared to aefw!
if you set up a qt why not use the lights on current set up for qt and put a pc over the nano, I'm sure that it's not that hard to get med's just pick up the yellow pages and call up the vet's I called about 4 to compare pricing and told them exactly what it was for they all didn't mind.

[GSMguy]

interceptor is easy, go for it.

My Vet had no problem she was well aware and has sold me syringes as well in the past for my tank

[Opus123]

I caught my mantis the old fashion way, I went fishing. I got a small hook and put a small piece of shrimp on it and put it in the last place I saw him. Within a couple of minutes he was caught.

[NanoReefWanabe]

my tank is mostly SPS...so leaving the 48 W of PC over a 20g tank isnt going to cut it...

but if i put my 48W fixture over my 2.5 gallon tank i would be better off..i think...would be ~17W/gallon...although it is PC light and the W/G is not a good measure of light..but it would be better then what i would have with it over my 20...plus i can fit the fixture directly on top of the tank...should the tank be covered almost essentially sealed with a glass top? to help with evap??

i am going to pick up a MJ600 for flow through the 2.5...and a small heater...would there be anything else i would need for this? would a MJ400 do it?

i wont need sand or rock in the tank....i assume WC will do for getting the bad out...will i need to worry about a cycle or anything? i am just going to pull out the 2.5G out of my 20 and fill the QT with it...from there i will do water changes as needed in the 2.5...how frequent should the WC be on this tank when it will have no filtration? and how do i go about feeding the acros in QT? i have UltraMIN S will that work?

[IU2468]

I could be wrong but I thought that you had to treat the tank 3 times or every ten days, to remove all Red Bugs. Now like I said I have never encoutered these little critters but I have heard people talk about them at the LFS and I thought I heard two people say you had to treat three times that way u make sure you get the population, population eggs and then anything that might have been left over. Forgive me for interupting the flow of the thread but I was taging along and Just thought I would bring that up. Please correct me if I am wrong and if I am sorry for intruding.

[NanoReefWanabe]

yeah i believe everybody is doing three treatments 7 days apart...

since i will be doing mine in a treatment tank and want all the little bastards in my display to die slow excruiating death i will be leaving the tank acro free for a month...so i will likely do 4 treatments in the treatment tank..that way i stretch it out to a month...

i am worried about filtration etc...for the treatment tank though...

should i have LR in there?
should i have Cheato in there?

i have finished making the tank from spare glass i had liying around...only about 3 gallons...i plant to use it as a QT once this is done with...smaller makes it a little more conveinent for me right now...with very limited space in my house...

i havent been aroud for 5 days as my computer crashed and the repair idiot completely erased my whole harddrive...then spent 4 days doing Data recovery..

[five.five-six]

treat the whole tank if you use interceptor. if you treat with the dragon wrass or whatever, don't trade. you can keep them in check if the tank is healthy but it not fare to give them to others.

[NanoReefWanabe]

treatment tank is already built...and a dragon face pipe fish..is not an option in my tank anyway...

and like you said i will not trade until the bugs are gone...even though my sand is now littered with frags...( i really have to be more careful cleaning the tank....or i just have to get a bigger tank with more room to move...LOL)

[five.five-six]

the problem is that they can live anywhere in the water column, they can live in your chato, your skimmer, your GAC reactor, I am sure the Kalk reactor is safe you need to treat the whole system. do a search, there are instructions, it is not that big of a deal... well 1 WC a week for 3 weeks will do a nice number on your nitrates.. here is the best documented and researched and most recommendedRed Bug Treatment I would read the whole thing before you start

[NanoReefWanabe]

my understanding from all the reading i have done is though they can be found anywhere in the tank...they will starve out after a month of no acros...

but i will check the link you provided..

[NanoReefWanabe]

it seems they mention the bugs will starve out after 10 days or so...

i am still undecided how to go about this...i can easily pull all my acros out of the tank as they are all small frag type pieces...
2 birdsnests, 3 stags of some sort, 1 millie...quarantine and treat for a month..

or i pull my freshly molted CBS and treat the tank...and lose all pods etc....this sounds like a good idea...and i was hoping it would kill my Mantis...but it doesnt seem that it is killing mantis and pistol shrimp...

the shrimp will be easier to keep happy in QT for month then the acros will be...