Hello everyone,
I have a 150 gallons mixed reef majorly acropora dominated which is up and running for close to 1.5 years now. Everything was going fine with beautifully growing Acro colonies until a month back i saw a few STN happening on 2 of my acropora corals primary strawberry shortcake & the firework acropora corals. At the beginning I panicked and thought of some parameter issue as my trident controlled dosing had an issue (rectified in 2 days) and the alk had a swing for 2-3 days. But when the STN started increasing with stable parameters i started taking a deeper & closer look at nights and thats when I got a shock of my life in the form of tiny black stuff on the the base of the acros under STN. Took a closer look and realised the inevitable - Black Bugs (M sure it is). I swung into action and removed all the colonies for dip in red sea x with 3x the normal dosing post which saw quite a lot of bugs falling off. But I guess that wasn't enough as the bugs returned in greater numbers which would be due to eggs or the bugs already established well enough in the tank. In a span of 3 weeks I've lost quite a lot of acropora colonies and racing to save the remaining. After reading for a while, took the step to dose the tank with Interceptor Plus with a goal to have the dosage over a period of 4 weeks i.e. once every 7 days. I did the first treatment with 1 tab of interceptor plus for large dogs (50.1 - 100lbs) after removing carbon, phosphate and switching off the skimmer airline. The tablet was crushed and added to 1 litre of tank water, mixed nicely and poured in the tank followed by a large water 24 hours later. Was disappointed as barring the copepods there was no affect on the black bugs. I did another treatment similar to the first one but this time added 2 crushed tablets instead of one. I was fearful there will an impact on the corals however no impact on the corals but again no impact to the black bugs. Infact i now see quite a lot of blacks bugs as if they are now multiplying with vengeance.
Need help on how do i tackle or what next do i do to get these pests out & save my acropora. FYI - I have also seen an impact on LPS especially hammer corals that i lost since this started though not sure if that too was due to the bugs or something else
My current tank parameters
PH - 8.3 to 8.35
Alk - 8.40
Calcium - 420-440
Magnesium - 1380
Nitrate - 12-20ppm
Phosphate - 0.06ppm
I have attached pics of the Interceptor Plus medicine as well as one of the affected coral
I have a 150 gallons mixed reef majorly acropora dominated which is up and running for close to 1.5 years now. Everything was going fine with beautifully growing Acro colonies until a month back i saw a few STN happening on 2 of my acropora corals primary strawberry shortcake & the firework acropora corals. At the beginning I panicked and thought of some parameter issue as my trident controlled dosing had an issue (rectified in 2 days) and the alk had a swing for 2-3 days. But when the STN started increasing with stable parameters i started taking a deeper & closer look at nights and thats when I got a shock of my life in the form of tiny black stuff on the the base of the acros under STN. Took a closer look and realised the inevitable - Black Bugs (M sure it is). I swung into action and removed all the colonies for dip in red sea x with 3x the normal dosing post which saw quite a lot of bugs falling off. But I guess that wasn't enough as the bugs returned in greater numbers which would be due to eggs or the bugs already established well enough in the tank. In a span of 3 weeks I've lost quite a lot of acropora colonies and racing to save the remaining. After reading for a while, took the step to dose the tank with Interceptor Plus with a goal to have the dosage over a period of 4 weeks i.e. once every 7 days. I did the first treatment with 1 tab of interceptor plus for large dogs (50.1 - 100lbs) after removing carbon, phosphate and switching off the skimmer airline. The tablet was crushed and added to 1 litre of tank water, mixed nicely and poured in the tank followed by a large water 24 hours later. Was disappointed as barring the copepods there was no affect on the black bugs. I did another treatment similar to the first one but this time added 2 crushed tablets instead of one. I was fearful there will an impact on the corals however no impact on the corals but again no impact to the black bugs. Infact i now see quite a lot of blacks bugs as if they are now multiplying with vengeance.
Need help on how do i tackle or what next do i do to get these pests out & save my acropora. FYI - I have also seen an impact on LPS especially hammer corals that i lost since this started though not sure if that too was due to the bugs or something else
My current tank parameters
PH - 8.3 to 8.35
Alk - 8.40
Calcium - 420-440
Magnesium - 1380
Nitrate - 12-20ppm
Phosphate - 0.06ppm
I have attached pics of the Interceptor Plus medicine as well as one of the affected coral
