Disturbed Reefers

Im sure most of you have been down this road but thought I would document my RB treatment anyway. It was very easy and pretty uneventful. I noticed RBs a couple years ago and treated individual frags from the tank since I wasn't sure it was safe at the time. Should have done the whole tank at the time but it did help keep them in check for a while.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that the hermits were in the corals for some reason and that a few acros were doing terrible. On closer inspection with a magnifying glass I could see I was infested, and I believe the hermits were actually eating them. That is the only reason I can think they would be doing this because they weren't doing it in heathy corals. Anyway, not all corals had RBs but the ones that did had lots. I used Interceptor de-wormer for dogs, 51-100lb dogs that have 23mg of Milbemycin Oxime per tablet as the active ingredient. Each tablet is supposed to treat 380gal so I used slightly more than 1/3rd of a tab for what I figure to be around 150gal total volume in my system. Frankly I just eyeballed the pill and wasnt exact at all, I figured I would just try to get it close since I plan on retreating again a couple times over the next month. I pulled the airline from the skimmer and left it running and also pulled my carbon/gfo reactor and also left the pump running on that. I also removed alot of algea from the sump, mainly because it was overgrown and I wanted good flow to cover the entire area. OK, ready to go now.

I added the meds at 1230 and by 115 some of the affected corals were starting to slime a little at the polyps, RBs were still very active.

At 200 I didn't see any adult RBs moving on the corals but many were visible and they were stationary. Some of the white bugs (Im guessing they are the immature red bugs) were hanging from the slime strings. Coral slime was minimal. Amphipods and Copepods in the sump appear to be acting normal.

At 400, all the stationary RBs were gone from the corals. There was no movement at all and it seems that they have disappeared. Adults and immature bugs both seen hanging from slime threads.

At 630 I started a 20-25 % waterchange and noticed there were more bristle worms out than Ive ever seen, not sure why, maybe they were irritated. The amphipods in the fuge were plenty active, copepods not so much but there were ones alive. I hope I treated enough, but read similar accounts of pods living through this. When I finally finished adding the new water and fired things off there was some pretty serious slimming from almost all the acros in the tank for about 30 minutes. I blew them off with a turkey baster, added fresh carbon, hooked the airline back on the skimmer and that was pretty much it. Really easy.

There was no issues with a very large serpent star, snails or my BTA. I should mention I did take out all the hermits I could find since the meds will kill them. I stuck them infront of a powerhead when I removed them as a precaution incase there were any RBs attached to them.

Here's a couple picts of some of the affected corals before tx and Ill update their growth shots later. My camera wouldn't take good enough picts to see the bugs but you can get the idea of how bad the corals were doing. I'm sure that the color and growth issues Ive had in the past are directly related to RBs and now 24hrs later the corals are showing polyp extention for the first time in months. Again, should have done this along time ago Rolling Eyes

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Sorry about the poor pict quality, I promise to get a new camera one of these days.
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k179/tecoral/125g%20reef%20aquarium/DSC00817-1.jpg

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k179/tecoral/125g%20reef%20aquarium/DSC00805.jpg

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 01:52:53 AM Post subject:

That's interesting that the treatment hasn't really hurt anything and good to know. As for the bristle worms, they probably thought they'd get a feed Laughing

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 07:08:46 AM Post subject:

good going...so what about the eggs?

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 05:14:53 PM Post subject:

3rd day after and no issues yet. All the corals that were infested still show no signs of movement from live RBs and they are showing or trying to show their polyps.

J, Im not sure about the life cycle thus far but I figure I will give it another week, maybe 2 and hit them again. I think I have enough meds for 3 more doses if needed, although I gotta wait til I get more carbon in. Im pretty happy with the results so far Very Happy

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 06:22:44 PM Post subject:

You really need to research the life cycle so you hit it right, otherwise you could be missing eggs and have a re-infestation.

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 07:25:49 PM Post subject:

""Suggested Treatment Protocol

Based on my observations and work described here, I suggest the following as a treatment protocol for Acropora colonies that have been colonized by the parasitic copepod, Tegastes acroporanus ("red bugs") as a modification of the novel protocol developed by Dorton. The process is more labor intensive, but should be more effective in preventing any future need to treat Tegastes-parasitized Acropora in the display tank (provided quarantine is utilized for any new coral acquisitions). It should also help to reduce the current epizootic within reef aquaria by limiting the potential for spread between tanks by trading or purchase of Tegastes-colonized fragments or colonies.
1. Assume that every Acropora in the tank is colonized, even if there are not visible copepods on the colony.
rationale: copepods are cryptic on normally colored colonies, can be cryptic on pale colonies, and are small enough to be easily missed by examination through tank glass or even by direct observation with the naked eye. Furthermore, the copepods are motile, and swim between colonies. Therefore, any colonies removed for treatment may leave unnoticed indivuiduals on other colonies or allow for copepods that abandon hosts being removed for treatment to locate uncolonized Acropora.
2. All Acropora colonies should be removed from the tank and placed into a container for examination. This can be perfored one colony at a time. A magnifying glass, magnifying lamp, dissecting scope or some other method should be used to slowly and carefully examine each colony from every possible angle. The corals will tolerate extended handling periods out of water to facilitate examination. The copepods will be covered with a smooth and somewhat shny carapace and with coral mucus and a thin film of water. Without examination from multiple light incidence angles, it is possible that individuals will go undetected. If a colony is too large or too densely branched to allow for a complete examination, consider it to be colonized. Any colonies that are determing to be free of copepods can be placed into a quarantine tank without treatment, but I would suggest reexamination prior to reintroduction to the main display tank.
rationale: Examination by the naked eye is insuficient to detect all copepods.
3. All Acropora colonies found to have copepods present should be treated in a treatment tank or container where dose levels and colonies can be carefully monitored. The treatment tank can be large or small, and can be used to treat many colonies at once or one at a time. The water should be circulating strongly across colonies to not only for drug exposure but to help dislodge dead copepods. Following treatment, each colony should be re-examined in water under magnification to ensure 100% kill rates. Copepods still attached to the coral can be probed with a needle, pin, pipette or syringe and removed from the colony. If copepods are found to still exhibit any motion, retreatment should occur immediately.
rationale: treatment in the tank should be avoided for several reasons: a) it will be impossible to assess whether or not a 100% kill rate has been achieved; b) in tank treatment will result in mass loss of other suscpetible species including amphipods, shrimps, lobsters, crabs, polychaetes, nematodes, copepods, and possibly other invertebrates which have not been tested for toxicity to the drug ; and c) repeated treatments can result in resistance making future treatments more difficult.
4. Treatment dosage appears to flexible, if not variable. Given the apparent low toxicity to corals even at elevated dosages, I would suggest a dose level equal or higher (up to 10x) than suggested by Dorton. Dorton suggestes three separate treatments of six hours. Upon examination of treated colonies, six hours appears to be insufficient for a 100% kill rate, while 12 hours seems to be more effective. In the one test where coral mortality was observed, the treatment time was only six hours, and in all other tests, no ill effects to the coral were seen with extended treatment times. It appears that time, and not dosage level, is the critical variable towards providing 100% kill rates for the copepods. Regardless of the dose or treatment duration, all colonies should be carefully examined before they are removed from treatment. For colonies being treated that are too large or densely branched to allow for examination, the treatment should be continued for 24 hours with careful monitoring to ensure that the colonies are enduring the treatment well and that the water does not become fouled from excessive mucus production, other fauna killed during treatment, or other stressors. If these conditions occur, treatment tank water should be dumped into buckets, sterilized by the addition of bleach to the water, and disposed down a sanitary sewage line. The treatment tank should then be refilled with tank water and new drug added to the water.
5. All treated corals and completely free of Tegastes acroporanus, as well as those examined and found to be uncolonized (#2 above), should be placed into a quarantine tank filled with tank water filtered through a coffee filter or other filtration apparatus. The quarantine tank should have filtration, water flow and light sufficient to keep treated colonies alive for five days.
6. No Acropora should remain in or be placed back into the main display tank for five days. This is the longest period of time it has taken for any Tegastes acroporanus to survive without a host from observations to date. This assumes that there are no other surrogate hosts for this species, and that the observations of death from 3-5 days without a host are realistic of what would occur in a display tank.
rationale: It is possible, even likely, that during the removal of colonized Acropora, some copepods swim off the colony into the tank. They will seek out other hosts. It is also possible that some are in the tank at any moment seeking new hosts, even without the process of colony removal. As far as can be ascertained, they are direct developers and thus do not have a free-swimming larval stage and they do not lay eggs on the host or substrates that can later hatch. However, they can live without a host for several days. Ensuring that any copepods left in the tank after removal of hosts die requires, at my best estimate, 3-5 days. I suggest five days to be conserative.
7. After five days, colonies in quarantine should be re-examined under magnification and if found to be free of copepods, can be returned to the display tank. If copepods are found on any colonies, repeat steps 3-7."

_____________________
Eric Borneman

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 08:22:25 PM Post subject:

The guy who did the first testing with the meds said in his thread that there were 3 tx options being tried.

1) first 2 doses 7 days apart and a 3rd 14 days after the second

2) 3 tx 7days apart [ this is the one I will do since it gives me time to mix things]

3) personally he is txing 2 times 24hrs apart every 7 days for a total of 8tx

Barry, thanks. It sounds good but I had to treat the whole tank and there is absolutly no way I can rid it of SPS to make it fallow. Im not sure when Eric wrote that but it appears maybe 1 tx is enough since some new info came out. Eric's link is not working but apparantly they are direct brooders from what I read here and it is hit and miss on the tx still. BTW I never knew Marc gave in and treated. Anyway, here are a couple links that were easy reading.

http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=27979

http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:06:58 PM Post subject:

Update, corals recovered alot however redbugs are back. Ill be running the 3 treatment protocol this time. 1 tx every 7 days.

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