Does anything eat red bugs?

[cybermeez]

I've been a little lax with my tank maintainance for the past month. I nearly cut my thumb off with a razor and had to get sewn back together by the doctor. I learned that it's virtually impossible to do tank maintainance with one hand and that we really need our thumbs.

So anyway, I was looking in my tank the other day and that saw my purple acro was covered in red bugs. I didn't see them on the other acros, but the have to be there somewhere. I haven't added anything new to my tank since October so the red bugs have to have been in there all along, but just not in plague proportions.

I have no plans to nuke the tank because it's been successfully supporting 3 fat little mandarins (2 girls and 1 boy) for over a year. They take priority. So, I was wondering, are there any natural preadators for red bugs? If not, is it safe to assume that their population will at least decrease once I get back into my proper maintainance routine?

Robin

 

[Josh]

Acro eating flatworms probably! :lol:

You will need to use interceptor at some point I guess. They will not go away.

 

[Treef]

Some sites like melevsreef and liveaquaria mention that pipefish and mandarins may eat red bugs, but I think it would be one of those cases where some will and others wont. But maybe with 3 mandarns they can keep the population in check. I keep up with my tank maintenance pretty well and the red bug population in my tank just kept on growing. Only way i got rid of them was with interceptor to the whole tank, been about 2 months now and i'm still keeping an eye out for them. Maybe you can treat each infected colony individually in a qt tank. On the bright side at least its not aefw

 

[Cibo]

will interceptor just kill red bugs? Is this somthing that can be done with water changes what else will it kill??

 

[NYreefNoob]

it will kill of the pod's, hermits and shrimps as well, pulling the pieces out and only dipping them wont work either, all you need is 1 bug to be re-infested

 

[cybermeez]

These guys are cute and if they will do OK with their roommates I'll give one a try. My 120g tank currently houses:

Three Green Mandarins
One small Six-Line Wrasse (no, he's not a terror like some of them are)
1 Hippo 6-7"
1 Single Spot Foxface 4-5"
1 Yellow Ornange Shoulder Tang 3-3.5"
1 Royal Gramma
2 Ocellaris Clowns and their RBTA
A few neon gobies (just try taking a head count of 'em in a 120 reef)
A couple of Fire Shrimp
A couple of Cleaner Shrimp
1 Acro Crab

Aside from the Acros the most agressive corals I have in the tank are a pocillipora and several fungi (one that 8" across). Will a Dragonface Pipefish be happy sharing my tank with tese critters?

 

[prattreef]

The Dragon Pipe should do fine, but I wouldn't put much faith in it eliminating the red bug problem even if it does eat them.

 

[reefman]

Dragon Pipe will help but not eliminate them since they eat all type of small pods. at least not in a short term.
however, i find they certainly help stopping the repopulating of the red bugs.

 

[mray]

If they are only on one coral, try dipping it into coral revive. Turn off all flow and then slowly remove the coral from the tank. Have two containers of tank water and coral revive mixed in (I recommend using a higher concentration of it than recommended on the label). Agitate the coral thoroughly and then repeating the process in the second container. In my experience, red bugs only live on corals and that coral revive does not kill them; it effectively knocks them off. That's why two containers are necessary. This method worked for me so it might also work for you. I haven't seen a red bug in my tank for about 4 months now.