red acro bug cure DISCUSSION

[DustinDorton]

-JB thats a good question. I think the medication might be affected by the lights, but I dont know how much. My first treatment in a full system failed, I thought the sunlight may have had something to do with it, but there is no way of knowing for sure.

If you wanted to turn the lights off go for it, it wont hurt. It will be harder for you to see whats going on though. Not that you can see much anyways, they just sort of fall off.

There shouldnt be any coloration in the water, or beef smell. Everything should look 100% normal.

 

[capevet]

Everyone is worried about dosig to the .001 gm yet you are only guessing at the amount of water you are treating. It seems to me the range of treatment would allow for cutting tablets with a razor blade or just buying smaller tablets. Since I am a veterinarian I'm that honesty would work with your local vet. We as group are interested in learning about other species and are willing to help.

 

[DustinDorton]

As I have stated over and over and over again (and over and over a few more times). I realize that we are guessing the water volume. Coming close is not rocket science though. There is a mathematical formula for it.

Hopefully I can say this for the last time. Since a person has the ability to over estimate their water volume, there is already a risk with using this medication. Guessing the weight of the medication is adding an unnecessary risk. If you guessed your tank was 100gallons, but its only 80, and you guess your treatment at .25g but really put in .35g. You increased your oversdose significantly.

I like the idea of using smaller tablets, but you would need a scale accurate down to 0.001g again to figure out the concentration of the Milbemycin oxime in the pill. The amount per pill is published, but the weight of the pill is not. I also found that not every pill was the exact same weight. If using smaller pills, it may become more important to know what the rest of it is made out of.


People, please take the time to weigh the medication. Once you find a place to do it, its only a few minutes worth of work.

Capevet, I appreciate your input on this thread.

 

[JeremyR]

I think as a vet you might be used to estimating somewhat, as most dog pills of this nature have a weight range, and the medicaton has been extremely well tested on thousands of animals for years on end.. no? This is a new protocol on a reef tank which is not a dog.. I'm not sure we need people "eyeballing" as one reefer put it their dosage. It's not that hard to get a reasonable measure of the medication, why do we insist on bringing this up again and again?

 

[wade1]

Lets remember something here about dosing and active concentrations...

The difference between 0.0001 and 0.01 grams is 100 fold! Thats like estimating that your 1g nano is a 100g full tank!! If you guesstimate your tank water, even if its 220g in reality and you guess its 240g, the difference is less than 20% or .2x different. That is a very minor miscalculation.l

As to its disposal, all hospitals, universities, and such dump hundreds of thousands of gallons of pesticide laden water and antibiotics per day. A few gallons of a minor concentration (way more than is excreted by your pets in your yard) is meaningless as well. And, it likely has a very short half-life exposed to O2, light, and bacterial degredation.

Wade

 

[Roll2211]

Here is what I came up with. I tracked down a scale a want to make sure I have the correct dosage figured before I go out and have the tablet weighed. I have a standard 55 gal RR tank w/30 gal sump (1/2 full) and EUR Reef skimmer holding about a gal of water w/air intake removed, about 80lbs of Fiji rock with a 2 inch sand bed. Estimated water volume is 50 gals., sound about Right? So with that I am going to dose 125mg or (0.125grams)
Everyone has talked about guesstimating water volume and med dosage for larger tanks, but for those of us with smaller tanks our guesstimating must be much more accurate. As Dustin stated I will remove one of the guess factors by getting a real accurate weight on the meds but any advice on the water volume guess would be appreciated.

Ed

 

[DustinDorton]

Use the formula LxWxH (in inches) and divide that by 231. Use that for your actual water volume. You can subtract out your overflow box with the same formula, you can also subtract your sandbed with it. The formula for a cylinder is pi(r2)h/231. Double check that first. You can use that formula for your skimmer and your pipes.


All live rock is going to displace a different amount of water, I dont feel comfortable offering a suggestion for you there.

If your treatment winds up being too low, you will have bugs left. You can always treat again with an adjusted dosage. The 7 original testers have shown that its (most likely) not toxic in repeted small doses. No one knows what happens if you overdose.

 

[Roll2211]

Forgot to tell everyone were I was able to find the scale we all need to weigh this stuff. Anyway my wife and I went get our wedding rings cleaned and as the Jeweler was back getting the rings I noticed a digital scale sitting on the counter. So I asked as how accurate it was and he said down to the 1000th milligram!! After a brief explanation of what I needed he was more then happy to let me use it, he even offered me little ring bags to pack individual doses in. So check with you local jewelry store if you are looking for a scale to measure this stuff.

Ed

 

[ReefRelated]

Great tip Ed, I never thought of that. Thanks!

 

[Roll2211]

Dustin,

In my previous post you mention that if my dose was too low I can adjust and treat it again, was I wrong in my calculations? With the calculation I made tonight I have 63.5 gals total volume, I am calculating rock and sand displacement 13.5 gals and going with a total treated volume of 50 gal. So is my dosage of 0.125grams of Interceptor correct? After grinding a pill with a mortar and pestle it just seems like a minuet amount of the Interceptor that I will need to dose!!

 

[DustinDorton]

Your right, it is a very minute amount of the medication. It really goes a long way.

I was basically saying that I didnt feel comfortable trying to figure out your water volume, I think you should do that on your own.

I was trying to tell you that if you under estimate, you can always treat again. I under estimated the first time I treated a very large system, it wasnt a big deal. It is easy enough to tell, there will be bugs crawling around if you didnt use enough.

 

[JeremyR]

FWIW, it is a jewelry carat scale that we're using as well.

 

[fishcraze2002]

So, have anyone here (beside the original volunteers) tried this medication yet? and what's the result? Also, please list your own medication method since I know some may use slightly more or less than the recommended dosage, some may use high accuracy scale, some may just guess by half a pill, 3/4 a pill and so on.. Really interested in these different tests.

How much does this medicine cost if you buy it directly from the local vet in the U.S? thanx

 

[Roll2211]

Just finished my first treatment with great results!!! I started with a real accurate measurement of Interceptor with a jeweler scale from H.E.D Jewelry (.0125g.) for my guesstimate of 50 gal total water volume. With this dosage I did not see a noticeable change in the bugs after an hour. After two hours they were slimming off the corals and there was no noticeable movement of the bugs. The three Peppermint shrimp in the tank were fine. I did miss one key thing, which was to remove any hermit crabs from the system. After two hours all 11 of my blue legged hermits were incapacitated. I did have a Q tank set up for this but I guess the effect was just too much and they did not make it even after they were removed to the Q tank. Three hours into the treatment I used a Maxi jet 600 and blew off all the dead bugs I could and that almost totally cleared them off all the infected corals. Found one more DEAD Blue Legged Hermit in the grasp on one of the Peppermint shrimps claws!! I did see some unusual slimming of one of my Montipora Digitata but all was cleared up by the time lights went off tonight.
I did do the recommended 25% water change and loaded my sump and Fluval canister filter full of carbon and the tank seems fine minus the few Blue Legged Hermits. Again as I said this seems like a great discovery and so far seems to be working exactly as Dustin has stated, if used as he directed!!! I will post more tomorrow when my lights come on and can see my Acros with NO bugs on them for the first time in three months!!

 

[fishcraze2002]

Roll2211, great news. What kind of corals do you have in your tanks?

 

[ReefRelated]

I hope my medication arrives today so I can treat as well. I lost a formosa and I am putting most of the blame on the bugs. I have 2 different blue tip formosas. The one type had bugs for about a year now but seemed to grow fine. It wouldn't polyp out like it used to which I directly relate to having bugs on it. I ordered 4 new actinics recently and they were scheduled to arrive on a monday so I had my wife help my take the hood off on the sunday prior so I could move a couple rocks and clean the coraline around the edges of the tank. My hood is very big so I decided to leave it off until the new bulbs came the next day so I could replace them. Well one item I ordered came but the bulbs were in a separate box which didn't arrive. I waited until tuesday, no bulbs. I was tracking them so I knew they were on the way. Wednesday they finally come. It ended up my lights were off the tank for exactly 3 days. Needless to say when the hood finally went on the tank with the new actincs, a lot of the corals were very light in color especially that one formosa. That was a month ago and I just threw the piece in the trash yesterday. It never recovered because the bugs just wouldn't give it a chance. Everything else is fine. I will never leave my lights off the tank for any length of time, bad move with or without bugs.

These bugs are stressful to the corals and I know any coral will be much happier without them even if the corals appears perfectly healthy with bugs on it. These bugs irritate corals. The biggest thing I notice is lack of polyp extension. I can't wait to see some corals polyp out ofter treatment.

FWIW, I am living proof that red bugs will go on A. Millepora. I along with most people believed that bugs didn't go on milleporas. I got 2 frags from a friend 4 or 5 months ago that both came off very big colonies. The yellow millepora would get very bushy everyday and continued to grow looking great but the purple on would not. I thought it was getting too much light so I moved it with no luck. Everytime I moved it I would have to break off a little more. Now the piece is maybe 1/2" tall and does absolutely nothing. It really doesn't even look alive. I always looked for bugs but never saw any until the other night I was feeding golden pearls after my lights went out and got my flash light out to watch the corals eat and shined it on this little millepora and sure enough the stupid bugs were crawling around on it.

Anyway, thanks again for all you hard work Dustin, I am looking forward to treating my tank and getting rid of this nuisance once and for all. I can't wait to see if this purple milli will actually "come back to life".

 

[Roll2211]

fishcraze2002,

The tank is only 6 months old and when I started this new tank I did with the intention of doing only SPS and a few zoos. I added no colonies, just frags so I am not sure what batch of frags the bugs come in on. I have four Acros but six total pieces as I have accidentally fraged two of them myself: lol: I also have seen a bug on my Millipora but at I could tell if was just passing by on its way to an Acro. Check out my web site, I have a few ok picks there.

 

[fishcraze2002]

Any more updates

 

[Roll2211]

Yea, I can't believe this is all that have tried the treatment!!

 

[ReefRelated]

I'm still waiting on my meds from Canada. I'll post my results asap. I should have it by wednesday.