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by **DustinDorton** » February 4th, 2004, 2:31 am

Is there anyone familiar with copepod culture who can chime in here? If these guys are harpacticoid copepods we might be able to get some idea of their lifecycle. I have been able to find some info on culture harpacticoid copepods. The best I can come up with now is a 40 to 50 day lifespan and a 7 to 12 day larval stage.

by **Paul A. Ifkovits** » February 4th, 2004, 11:20 am

The best I can come up with now is a 40 to 50 day lifespan and a 7 to 12 day larval stage.

Is this saying somwhere between 7 and 12 days they reach maturity and capable of reproducing? If this is true, then it seems like we may need to close the gap on the treatments to less then 7 days or increase the exposure time of the medicine.

Paul

by **ScavDog** » February 4th, 2004, 11:57 am

here is my late report:

The second treatment was completed 2 days ago. Excellent polyp extension as noted before.

Ironically a pocillopora I have showed the best polyp extension I have ever seen, however possibly unrelated.

No ill effects noted in refugium or main system.

by **houstonreef** » February 4th, 2004, 1:17 pm

Hi Dustin,
Can you tell us exactly the day that you'll tell us the medication?
My tank is heavily infested with red bugs. I have to dip most of my sps colonies with Seachem reef dip every other days to control the red bug population but some small colonies that encrusted on some big pieces of rock that I can not dip them and they have no poly extention and start showing sigh of bleaching.
Thanks for your time of researching this medication and I hope that you will tell us the medication sooner.
Thanks

by **DustinDorton** » February 4th, 2004, 11:34 pm

It should be by the end of the month. The second set of treatments took place this week. The third and final treatments will be taking place in 2 weeks.

by **DustinDorton** » February 6th, 2004, 8:14 pm

It looks like the medication will not work as a quick dip.
Our first test was at 10x the "normal" strength. After one hour the bugs were hurt, but not dead. After being placed in a quarantine tank, they were bug free 24hours later.
Our second test was 100x strength ($15 worth per gallon). Most of the bugs were dead within 30 minutes. The corals were placed in a clean quarantine tank, we will see the final results tomorrow.

Its scary to dip a coral and put it in your tank and hope that all of the bugs were damaged badly enough to die later. I don't think this medication will be 100 % effective as a quick, one time dip. However it seems to be working fine as a long term (6 hour) treatment.

Be patient people, the final rounds of testing will take place in the next couple of weeks.

by **tld** » February 8th, 2004, 11:04 am

It's been a few years, but I used to culture harpacticoids in a previous job. The life cycle of the bugs I cultured depended on the species - 1 or 2 months was typical. One particular species that we worked with had a 14 day naupliar stage, and I don't remember how long the copepodite was.

(For those unfamiliar, copepods are hatched from eggs. the first stage is a nauplius which looks nothing like the adult. They go through a few molts as a nauplius and then molt/morph into a juvenile adult stage called copepodite (it looks just like the adult but smaller). Then after a few more molts, they become adults.)

I think the name of this "red bug" is Tegastes acroporanus, but there's very little scientific information about this critter, other than the original description (which includes no life cycle info).

I'd be curious as to whether the eggs and nauplii are planktonic. A lot of harpacticoids have a clutch of eggs that stay with the adult until they hatch. I'm curious if this bug releases eggs into the water column or if the eggs stay with the adult until they hatch. Then when the nauplii hatch, are they planktonic or do they live on the corals as the adults do? Sounds like a great project for a masters student...

HTH,
Teresa

by **DustinDorton** » February 8th, 2004, 11:52 am

Thanks for that info Teresa. I don't know much about copepods, but I think these guys must have a planktonic stage in their life. In my experience, they easily spread on their own through a system consisting of multiple connected tanks.

I wish I had the time to get the details on these guys. If someone wants to learn more about culturing them they better speak up quick. If things go as planned, a whole lot of people will be killing them in March!!!

by **Paul A. Ifkovits** » February 8th, 2004, 7:20 pm

I completed my third and final treatment today. All is well! I decided to not do any water changes this time and left all carbon out and skimmer off for almost 12 hours. I plan to wait until the 24 hr mark before I restart the skimmer and add carbon.

Paul

by **ReefRelated** » February 8th, 2004, 10:14 pm

Paul,
Why did you do 3 treatments? Did you find bugs after the first treatment or did you do it just to be sure to kill there complete life cycle? You must be very confident that this medication is safe if you decided to treat 3 times.
Those of us that keep acros normally have the most expensive setups and corals in the hobby. We normally question everything that goes into the tank. Sounds like everyone that is involved in this testing is very confident that there will be no permanent damage and the end result of having no bugs out weighs everything else. I love reading all the excitement involved. I'm sure I'll be singing the same praises after I do this. It makes me smile when I read things like "No problems at all. Everything looks great! REDBUG FREE! Damn that feels good!"

by **DustinDorton** » February 8th, 2004, 10:28 pm

The three treatments were just to be certain that the bugs were gone. Just because you dont see them doesn't mean that they aren't in there. We still dont know if the medication kills unhatched eggs and larvae.

Paul, I have never done any tests that lasted longer than 6 hours. Keep an eye on your tank. The medication is not 100% soluble, it could very well increase in strength as time passes. Its probably good that your testing this out, Im sure a lot of people will be too lazy to do the necessary water changes.

by **Paul A. Ifkovits** » February 9th, 2004, 9:57 am

Why did you do 3 treatments? Did you find bugs after the first treatment or did you do it just to be sure to kill there complete life cycle? You must be very confident that this medication is safe if you decided to treat 3 times

Tony - As Dustin said, three is to be sure all the bugs are killed. It was what I agreed to when I volunteered. But I am confident it is not something that will cause a tank to crash or have drastic negative affects.

I have not seen any signs of re-infestation and corals continue to improve.

Paul

by **ReefRelated** » February 9th, 2004, 12:46 pm

Do you think one treatment could do the job completely? I have no problem doing 3 treatments if that's what it takes, I was just curious if 1 treatment had worked for anyone. I guess time will tell us that right? Dustin, have you tried one treatment on a system without re-infestation?

by **Paul A. Ifkovits** » February 9th, 2004, 1:14 pm

Do you think one treatment could do the job completely?

One treatment definitly did a number on the bugs and I have seen no signs of them since. I do not want to speak for Dustin, but one of my concerns is the treatment does not kill the eggs or sub-adult bugs. If this were true, then re-infestation would be likely in a one-treatment scenario.

by **DustinDorton** » February 9th, 2004, 7:46 pm

The minium number of treatments is 3. When I get around to treating all of my systems, I will most likely do more than three. We have already shown that the medication is quite safe in 5 established aquariums and numerous hospital tanks. Its not worth half-assing the job. Pretend its an anti-biotic, you cant get away with taking just one pill.

by **ReefRelated** » February 9th, 2004, 8:33 pm

Gotcha...thanks.

by **wade2185** » February 9th, 2004, 9:07 pm

Well I just figured out that I have the red bugs! :evil:

I thought to myself first I get the red flat worms and now I have the red bugs. Then I thought maybe there is something that will kill both. Has anyone used flatworm exit for flatworms and in turn killed the red bugs too? Just a thought...

by **Brad_A** » February 10th, 2004, 12:36 pm

Hi Wade,

Welcome to the red bug club. At least you get the bugs at a time when a cure is about to be released. Several of my acros are about dead (covered with red bugs).

by **reefnut** » February 10th, 2004, 7:10 pm

I also have a couple acros that have faded so much. They are looking worse everyday. Hopefully Dustin will be able to tell us all soon.

by **DustinDorton** » February 13th, 2004, 12:38 am

I completed my first real system test today and, as it stands right now, it was not successful.

The system was dosed at the same rate as the volunteer tanks. Water volume was actual, sand beds were not included.
After 6 hours there were not many visible bugs, and it seemed that at least 90% had died and were sloughing off the corals. I was only able to find one live bug in the entire system at 5pm.
I returned at 11pm to check and found some small isolated populations of red bugs. There were still large numbers of active "pods" and mysis shrimp. The shrimp and crabs in the system seemed just fine.

Obviously its not a complete failure, the 5 volunteers have had excellent results. If the remaining bugs that I found this evening are not dead, I might treat again tomorrow, this time including the sand bed volume.

Jeremy, Paul, Chris, Joe, Janine, have you seen any bugs back in your tanks.

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