My Red Bug Acropora Treatment
Here are the instructions for dosing with interceptor http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45859
I am not following it 100% because I found others have success doing it a different way and I wanted to go to the extreme
I will keep an update doing as to how it does.
Started November 4th 2005
Treatment 1
What I am doing
I dosed 4 pills, I crushed up 4 pills and added two to a cup full of aquarium water and the other two went into another cup full of aquarium water. I mixed the pills in the water really good in both cups. I then added one cup to the 180 and one to the 300.
So I made enough to treat 1520 gallons, my system is about 525 gallon total so I am almost 3 times the recommended dose
hour 1 - nothing seems any different.
hour 3 - Half way there, fish, corals, clams, snails, serpent stars all seem well and unaffected. The two cleaner shrimp have not moved and just hanging around (not sure if they will make it). The bug are no longer moving on the corals, not sure if they are dead or not
hour 5 - Notice the bugs are off most of the acropora, also notice some egg looking items on my on colony and will be looking at them after I turn the skimmer back on. I am going to clean the skimmer now and get it ready to turn on.
hour 6 - Noticed no bug, the Cleaner Shrimp are no where to be seen, so I will be looking for them
hour 7 - Skimmer is back on and I still see no sign of the bugs or the cleaner shrimp. The Fish, Corals, Starfish, and everything else seem ok. I will check at night for Pods and such.
hour 14 - saw my cleaner shrimp that was in my 300, did not know he was still alive as I have not seen him in months, still no sign of the 2 cleaner shrimp in the main tank. I has pods running around which is a good sign and still do not see any bugs another good sign. Everything else seems to be holding up well
hour 24 - Everything is looking good, but still no sign of the red bugs or the two cleaner shrimp
hour 48 - Everything is looking good, no red bugs or cleaner shrimp, so I lost 2 out of my 3 cleaners, Both were in the 180, the one in the 300 lived. I think this is because of the dosing, if I figure two pills went into the 300 that would only be a little over double the dose but 2 pills went in the 180 also so I figure that at 4.2X the recommended dose. I am sure that did it, I figure the 180 had an extra dose for a while because I do not have alot of current going into the overflow so it would take long for it to level out in the overall system. I am starting to notice a little more color on a few of the acropora corals.
hour 60 - I feel the 2 shrimp are gone, I see no remains of them and the serpent stars would have eaten them if they died. I am seeing lots of polyps out but no bug()
hour 98 - All seems back to normal other than no bugs
Treatment 2
Mix one cup saltwater with one pill for the 180, Mixed one cup saltwater with 2 pills for the 300. Both getting around 2x the recommended dose
Added the treatment to both tanks
hour 1 - see nothing different
hour 5 - nothing different, nothing happening at all
hour 6 - Started the skimmer back up and everything seems fine
day 4 after my second treatment and I tell you the color is coming back or changing for the better on alot of the acropora corals. If you have bad coloring or poor polyp extension than you may have bugs and I would suggest a look under a microscope or magnifying glass
Treament 3
Not sure it is need but I am going to do it anyway because it says to do it.
hour 1 - nothing different going on.
hour 3 - nothing new to report
hour 6 - Nothing different noticed, everything seems fine
Extra info
So for I have performed no water changes and no carbon has been added. I will be doing my normal monthly water change once I have completed all 3 treatments
Looks like the bugs are gone, two of the three cleaner shrimp and all but one hermit crab, A red Scarlet Hermit Crab is alive and well.
My history with the bugs are I had them over a year ago and did the treatment at the recommended dosage and it worked, then I did the water changes and added carbon. I am currently looking into how I got them again, (quarantine coral time I guess) So far everyone that I have gotten acros from say they do not have them, Nick got an acro from me a month or so ago and it does not have any (I personally looked) so I think anyone that has gotten an acro from me is ok, if not I am Sorry!!!!
One other treatment method is to remove any acropora corals from the main tank and add them to a separate tank and treat that tank and leave the corals there for 5 days after that the bug left in the main tank should be dead because they can not live more than 3-4 days without a host. I like this idea but what if you left a frag behind the rock that you do not know about.
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