Red Bugs. Rawr.

[joker577]

I found a couple red bugs on my stag in my tank so now I wanna get rid of them ASAP before they get out of hand...is interceptor the only way? I have muchos crabs and snails and a couple shrimp but no QT to put them in but i've heard of people doing this treatment without removing them? Please help!

 

[tike]

I lost all my small hermits with interceptor but the larger ones survived. I did a 24 hour treatment then added carbon and changed it 24 hours later. Never did a water change at that time.

 

[joker577]

How large are you talking? And what about snails/shrimp/pods etc.

 

[tike]

60 gallon tank. All pods and snails lived. i don't have any shrimp.

 

[joker577]

Large as in the crabs lol

 

[tike]

OH!!!.....large ones ~1" small ones less then 1/2 inch.

 

[Katchupoy]

some people remove the coral (if possible) from the main tank and do the dip...

 

[joker577]

But doesnt that run the risk of the bugs still being on the live rock?

 

[CarlaW]

Have you cruised thru this?

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5119&highlight=red+bugs

 

[kevinpo]

Some species of fish can also be killed by Interceptor. At least two treatments should be administered to be sure all the bugs are killed.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[krisfal]

But doesnt that run the risk of the bugs still being on the live rock?

Joker,
I removed my coral and the rock it was attached to and did a bath following the method in the first part of this link http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

I did not think this would solve the red bug problem. My plan was to do this occasionally to control the population until I was ready to do a tank swap (that is coming up soon ) at which time I felt I could catch my shrimp, snails etc. separate them out and treat the rest of the entire tank.

However, after the one hour bath I have not seen another red bug! I did the bath back in October.

I only removed the rock that had coral attached to it, leaving the rest in the tank, so my pod population did not take too big of a hit.

Hope this helps.

 

[Larry 23]

the bugs are able to live at least 5 to 7 day with out a host to my knowledge. good luck

 

[joker577]

At the club meeting around here yesterday I received 3 small pieces of interceptor...well at 6:00 I put one in, removed my chemipure/ carbon and at 12:00 realized that that was probably too small of dosage, so I grinded up the other small 2 pieces and put that in there as well and right now added carbon and doing a water change. I believe it worked because one of my peppermints died but my very large cleaner is still ok!