Kill Red Bugs Not Acro Crabs?
- Thread starter mattj206
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Sorry, but the Interceptor will most likely kill your crabs too. Would you rather have crabs or nice and healty SPS? 
reedman
Well-known member
Everything I have read says that the acro crabs are especially suceptable to the intercepter treatment. If you can remove them and then treat that would be best (easier said than done). The jury is still out on what the acro bugs actually do and many many factors contribute to perceived coral health. Do your homework and make an educated decision.
NaH2O
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Here is a thread I did recently on red bugs: Red Bugs - Inevitable?
If you can remove your acro crabs to another tank, then they won't get exposed to the milbemycin oxime, which is the active ingredient. As far as the pods go, I don't think there is anything you can do to avoid their exposure. You can always introduce a new piece of live rock to reseed the tank.
Hope this helps!
If you can remove your acro crabs to another tank, then they won't get exposed to the milbemycin oxime, which is the active ingredient. As far as the pods go, I don't think there is anything you can do to avoid their exposure. You can always introduce a new piece of live rock to reseed the tank.
Hope this helps!
nanocat
Member
Lift the colonies if you can, and use a shishkabob skewer to chase the little crabs into a bucket. As far as pods, a few reefers reported their pod population came back fairly quickly.
I lost all 8 acro crabs and I only thought I had 6 of them.
This is the one thing that bothered me the most in treating.
Most of my blue leg hermits came back. My scarlets and others were fine.
The shrimp were doped up but made it through OK and the emerald crabs did fine.
I dosed last week and will dose again for good measure this Sunday.
That's a good idea Nano has. I should have done that to the couple of pieces in my system that are not attached.
Just be sure to do the correct dose and repeat the 3 doses. I tried it last month with one dose and one frag was re-infected a few weeks later. Hopefully this treatment will take for me.
Good luck and let us know how it goes when/if you dose.
This is the one thing that bothered me the most in treating.
Most of my blue leg hermits came back. My scarlets and others were fine.
The shrimp were doped up but made it through OK and the emerald crabs did fine.
I dosed last week and will dose again for good measure this Sunday.
That's a good idea Nano has. I should have done that to the couple of pieces in my system that are not attached.
Just be sure to do the correct dose and repeat the 3 doses. I tried it last month with one dose and one frag was re-infected a few weeks later. Hopefully this treatment will take for me.
Good luck and let us know how it goes when/if you dose.
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boobookitty
Member
I treated Sunday - eradicated the red bugs, but I'll be treating twice more over the next two weeks. It killed a bunch of pods, but did NOT wipe them out - I still have a thriving population. I did remove the acro crabs, having read that they are particularly susceptible. I removed one cleaner shrimp but not the other (couldn't catch it), and the peppermint shrimp - but the cleaner shrimp, coral banded shrimp and pistol shrimp all survived, so the peppermint and other cleaner are back in the tank and will go through treatments #2 and #3. The acro crabs will stay isolated for the 2-3 weeks of treatment, which should be enough to kill any red bugs that may have been on them (if any).
One last note: I totally forgot about my sexy shrimp, and they croaked. My theory is that smaller shrimp are going to die, but larger shrimp (cleaners and pistol shrimp are both fairly large) can survive - they weren't happy (went into hiding), but the only fatalities were the sexy shrimp.
Snails, anemones and star fish were unaffected. I don't believe in crabs in a reef (other than acro crabs, I've always had bad experiences with crabs, even the "good" kind), so I don't know how hermits will fare.
Arthur
One last note: I totally forgot about my sexy shrimp, and they croaked.
My theory is that smaller shrimp are going to die, but larger shrimp (cleaners and pistol shrimp are both fairly large) can survive - they weren't happy (went into hiding), but the only fatalities were the sexy shrimp.Snails, anemones and star fish were unaffected. I don't believe in crabs in a reef (other than acro crabs, I've always had bad experiences with crabs, even the "good" kind), so I don't know how hermits will fare.
Arthur
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