Life cycle of acro red bugs?

[RyanH]

Dr. Ron,

I have the acro red bugs on some of my corals. I am thinking about moving all my acropora to a single tank and treating that tank with the common heartworm chemical.

My question relates to how long I should keep acropora out of my other tanks to allow the red bugs to complete their life cycles with no host and eventually die out.

Would this strategy work for clearing my other tanks of the red bugs?

Would increasing the tank temperature speed up the process? if so, how warm would you recommend?

Do you suspect that I could keep other corals (montipora sp?, pocillipora sp?, zoantids?) in the tank, or are the red bugs not that host specific?

Thank you for your help.

Ryan

[rshimek]

Hi Ryan,

I have no real idea about how long you should keep the coral out the other tanks. Part of the problem is that there are at least two type of "red bugs," one is an amphipod, the other a copepod and the life cycles are quite different.

Similarly for the other questions. As for temperature, I suspect that standard reef temps of around 82F will move things along as fast as possible.

Without knowing what the animals really are, I can't make any guesses about host specificity.

Sorry. :(