# Bad News



## agent A

Well I have an epidemic of NPV with my luna moths. Every week I am finding myself sanitizing the containers they're in. The number of pillars has gone from 27 to 13, mostly from this virus. I need help.


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## PhilinYuma

agent A said:


> Well I have an epidemic of NPV with my luna moths. Every week I am finding myself sanitizing the containers they're in. The number of pillars has gone from 27 to 13, mostly from this virus. I need help.


I'm almost afraid to ask, Agent A, but how on earth did you come up with nuclear polyhedrosis virus to account of the death of your lunar moths, rather, say, than poor husbandry? How do the corpses of your caterpillars look? Are they just sacs of liquid nastiness? Although it is quite true that this and other viruses can infest an insect population at low levels, you appear to be describing an epizootic, wiping out much of the population that it effects (by definition, an "unusually high number" of deaths must occur in the population). To be frank, I have never seen it in an insect population, but it is not uncommon in large holding tanks of imported tropical fish where there is overcrowding and, I am told, in the fish farming industry.

Unless your caterpillars are as I described them, they are not infected with NPV, indeed, I have never heard of this virus attacking luna moths, though I suppose that that is possible. The most usual vectors for this and other viruses is parasitoids. Are you afflicted with them? The virus is susceptible to ultraviolet light; but I have no idea how much or for how long.

I suggest that you contact someone who is successfully raising these caterpillars, tell them how you are housing and raising yours, and eliminate any possible cause for this increased mortality, besides NPV.


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## agent A

well corpses are black, droopy and hanging from leaves, classical of NPV


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## Peter Clausen

How are you sanitizing the container?


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## agent A

rinsing with very hot water and bleach, then rinsing more and a good drying.


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## PhilinYuma

As you may know, you can't kill viruses, since they are not alive. The hot water will have no effect, but the bleach might ( that is what OSHA recomends for blood and body fluid contamination) as might 70% or stronger rubbing alcohol. Even so, it may not eliminate the virus, just make it inactive. I don't know what you are keeping your caterpillars in, but if possible, you would do well to get rid of your current enclosures and start again. I guess that I should also point out that NPV does not infect by contact. In larvae, its only means of ingress is by a caterpillar eating leaves that have the virus on them -- so you should change your food source -- or, as I suggested, being attacked by a parasitoid. If the cause is bacterial, the same treatment applies, though you are much more likely to kill bacteria. Good luck!


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## agent A

PhilinYuma said:


> As you may know, you can't kill viruses, since they are not alive. The hot water will have no effect, but the bleach might ( that is what OSHA recomends for blood and body fluid contamination) as might 70% or stronger rubbing alcohol. Even so, it may not eliminate the virus, just make it inactive. I don't know what you are keeping your caterpillars in, but if possible, you would do well to get rid of your current enclosures and start again. I guess that I should also point out that NPV does not infect by contact. In larvae, its only means of ingress is by a caterpillar eating leaves that have the virus on them -- so you should change your food source -- or, as I suggested, being attacked by a parasitoid. If the cause is bacterial, the same treatment applies, though you are much more likely to kill bacteria. Good luck!


yeah but the only other source of sweetgum is a highway ride away from my house. and if a virus isn't alive, what does it need to invade an animal's system for?


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## [email protected]

To reproduce.


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## PhilinYuma

Chase said:


> To reproduce.


Exactly. But although this is an important characteristic of living things, viruses lack many of the other criteria for life. They don't respire, they don't move (independently) they do not show irritability, and, perhaps most importantly, they don't grow. Agent A, if you manage to lose yourself, and just look at the phenomena at hand, you will see processes and learn concepts that are as beautiful as anything you will ever behold. Start by saying, "I don't know" (I still say that, and I am several years older than you) and then learn! The process should occupy you for the rest of your life.


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## 3.1415926

From Wikipedia

"Bleach and ultra-violet light have been found to prove effective in killing the virus."


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## PhilinYuma

10dor1fro32 said:


> From Wikipedia"Bleach and ultra-violet light have been found to prove effective in killing the virus."


Yeah, I always used bleach when I needed to be OSHA compliant, and tropical fish hobbyists, partiularly those working with reef tanks, use the U.V. I have doubts about the efficacy of the latter, though, and of course, you can't kill something that isn't alive!


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## Orin

agent A said:


> well corpses are black, droopy and hanging from leaves, classical of NPV


Actually those are classic symptoms of death caused by excessive humidity in captivity.


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## agent A

Orin said:


> Actually those are classic symptoms of death caused by excessive humidity in captivity.


yeah well read that too much humidity causes NPV, because it starts when some sort of dust particle combines with moisture in the air, something like that, maybe they all should be housed seperately.


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## idolomantis

Agent... i had those symptons with a few _heteropteryx dilatata_ and some other insects and i really think it has more to do with to much humidity and to less ventilation than with NPV.

In the UK they call that 'black death'.

Now i have better ventilation and mist them less often. no deaths yet.


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## agent A

idolomantis said:


> Agent... i had those symptons with a few _heteropteryx dilatata_ and some other insects and i really think it has more to do with to much humidity and to less ventilation than with NPV.In the UK they call that 'black death'.
> 
> Now i have better ventilation and mist them less often. no deaths yet.


I don't mist them at all, last brood I kept them in the same cage setup as I do now and misted last brood and there was only 1 death like the kind I'm seeing. And the cages don't fog up like last brood.


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## idolomantis

Can you please post a picture of your enclosure?

Besides, i also had just sticks 3 out of 45 in the enclosure having this.


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## agent A

I can't post a picture because I haven't yet joined a picture posting website yet that I can post pics from (photobucket, flickr, etc.) but I can describe the simple caging method I use.


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## idolomantis

Do it then..

But joining photobucket is 5 mins of work, if not less.


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## agent A

idolomantis said:


> Do it then.. But joining photobucket is 5 mins of work, if not less.


but I'm too young to join photobucket and you need an email which I don't have right now and my mom won't let me use hers unattended and I don't think she'd let me join it, but I could put a pic of my luna cages in the gallery somewhere.


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## idolomantis

Just make a gmail then. and how many times do think i gave a false age to enter a site i couldn't acces otherwise? alot.

I don't wait till my 18th to enter the gears of war or dead space site eh


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## sbugir

idolomantis said:


> Just make a gmail then. and how many times do think i gave a false age to enter a site i couldn't acces otherwise? alot.I don't wait till my 18th to enter the gears of war or dead space site eh


Hee hee, yeah seriously who couldn't live without rated m video games. The point is, make another e-mail like yahoo or google mail and just use photobucket from there


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## PhilinYuma

agent A said:


> I can't post a picture because I haven't yet joined a picture posting website yet that I can post pics from (photobucket, flickr, etc.) but I can describe the simple caging method I use.


You don't have to join any website to post pix here. I use Google's free Picasa site, mark the pic to be exported to the internet, do that, and then click on "image location" in the usual way.


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## Orin

All you have to do is hit browse and upload the photo from any file on your computer. It's right under Manage Current Attachements every time you make a post.


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## agent A

Orin said:


> All you have to do is hit browse and upload the photo from any file on your computer. It's right under Manage Current Attachements every time you make a post.


pictures from my camera are over 500k.


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## PhilinYuma

agent A said:


> pictures from my camera are over 500k.


It looks as though you haven't looked into the Picasa option that I mentioned, even though the program is free. So far, you have given a list of reasons why you can't post, but if you use the export function as I told you, you will be able to reduce the "size" of your pix to something usable. The program even tells you what is an apropriate size for posting on the web! You might also want to look at Katnapper's sticky in the photo section. Get to it Agent A! Your audience waits.


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## agent A

I'm working on it!


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## agent A

how can I export it to the internet? I am having a lot of trouble. And I upload it from my computer to here and I get an error message saying "You did not select a file to upload" when I did in fact select it from my folder.


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## Rick

http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13247


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## agent A

let me see if I can do this:

nope. I will reupload the pic to my computer. if not, I'll just describe the cage method I use.


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## agent A

here I try again:

nothing. I'll try the gallery.


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## agent A

okay well here's the cage method I use:

a water jug with the top cut off and the opening covered with saran rap which is secured with an elastic band. I also poked a few holes in the saran rap. If you really need a picture, tell me and I'll post it on my website.


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## Rick

Host the pics on photobucket. Posting pics is simple.


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## agent A

Rick said:


> Host the pics on photobucket. Posting pics is simple.


I don't have a photobucket, I'll put it on my website.


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## agent A

I can't seem to be able to upload it anywhere.  :angry: :angry:


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## superfreak

get a facebook and use that for image hosting. works perfectly for me.

and plastic container covered in saran wrap? i can tell you now, even without the pictures, that too much humidity is your problem. get some ventilation man. use mosquito netting or something.


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## Orin

Rick said:


> Host the pics on photobucket. Posting pics is simple.


 Posting a photo here is easier than photobucket, that's a lot of extra steps when mastering three seems to be an issue.Agent A: you hit the browse button, find the file and double click on it or hit open. At that point you'll see the file name and extension in the box to the left of the browse button and then you hit upload. If there's nothing in the box you didn't open the file.

If your photo is too big and you don't have a photo editing program you can resize it in paint which is in your accessories. Use stretch and skew and where it says 100% horizontal and 100% vertical change both to 10 to 50 percent and check the size. There's no need to post a photo larger than 300K.


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## agent A

I poked holes in the lid of my containers. Last brood I didn't have any problems like this.


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## PhilinYuma

Oops! We or I at least, had forgotten that you already have a website. Since someone must obviously have helped you set it up, I'm not sure why they couldn't help you with this simple process, but here goes.

Orin's sytem works fine, except that you can only download a limited number of pix this way.

I went to yr site and found this pic:







I right clicked on it and clicked on the third option, "copy image" and returned to the "add reply" window in which I wished to insert the image.

In the "add reply" window, hover over the 4th icon from the right above the window and it will say "Insert Image" Click on it. A window will open with "htp://" already inserted. Backspace to remove it.

Right click and select "paste", then "OK". You're done. The image URL will be entered in the window, wherever you placed the cursor.

I'm doing this because, some while back, my friend and honorary relative, Superfreak, spent a fair amount of time and trouble walking/dragging me through this process. I am one of the dumbest people I know at learning and performing simple computer operations. If I can do it, you certainly can.


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## agent A

PhilinYuma said:


> Oops! We or I at least, had forgotten that you already have a website. Since someone must obviously have helped you set it up, I'm not sure why they couldn't help you with this simple process, but here goes.Orin's sytem works fine, except that you can only download a limited number of pix this way.
> 
> I went to yr site and found this pic:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I right clicked on it and clicked on the third option, "copy image" and returned to the "add reply" window in which I wished to insert the image.
> 
> In the "add reply" window, hover over the 4th icon from the right above the window and it will say "Insert Image" Click on it. A window will open with "htp://" already inserted. Backspace to remove it.
> 
> Right click and select "paste", then "OK". You're done. The image URL will be entered in the window, wherever you placed the cursor.
> 
> I'm doing this because, some while back, my friend and honorary relative, Superfreak, spent a fair amount of time and trouble walking/dragging me through this process. I am one of the dumbest people I know at learning and performing simple computer operations. If I can do it, you certainly can.


thanks for the tip, and thanks for showing Micake (who is really fat now)!


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## agent A

have good news! I have a couple cocoons! Thank the Lord for not letting all of them die!


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## 3.1415926

Have you ever read the _Cobra Event_ by Richard Preston?


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