Acro eating bug identification, Sentinel didnt kill them (Pics and Vid inside)

TexasPyro

New member
I have what I think is a bug problem. The past few months I lost a couple of Milli's, two acro's, and now and seeing some more acro's dying from the bases up. The other day I noticed some very small black specs on the base of the very white dead coral skeleton, at first it looked like sand but the closer I looked it looked more and more like bugs. I thought to myself that this was impossible, I dip everything in either Bayer or CoralRx before it goes in the display tank. Long story short, I sucked some of the bugs off of the skeleton and observed the best I could at home, they looked like some sort of black bug. I logged on here and did a whole lot of google searching and decided that Sentinel was my best weapon again these things, fast forward to last night, I nuked the tank with Sentinel, I used a whole tab for about a 400g system. From what I can tell all 200+ hermit crabs, pods, etc.. died with a quickness, bugs didn't. So today I suck some more off of the rock and send my girlfriend (biologist) to her lab to observe under a microscope and send me the pics. This is what I've got, she says to her they look like some sort of Planarian, anyone have any ideas? Would Salifert Flatworm Exit be my next logical move?

worm1.jpg

worm2.jpg

worm3.jpg

Video
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HOP-N3h2_VU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Hard to prove that this worm is actually preying on your SPS without doing a controlled experiment . They might just be cleaning up dead tissue and not actually feeding on live tissue.
Do you see any bite marks on the underside of your acros? If so, it might be acro eating flat worms.
 
Thanks for the response, I apologize for the delay. I have not been able to see any bite marks, these things are so small that it'd take a microscope to see them. I wish I could figure it out, whatever it is it was resistant to the Sentinel. I ASSumed that Sentinel would have killed any of the good pods that were eating dead tissue, it killed everything else, except whatever these are. Over the past two days whatever is happening killed another acro and is reducing the size of my huge slimer colony. Whatever it is seems to bury itself in the polyps, the coral look polka dotted.

I did manage to harvest a bunch of the slimer, dipped the frags and moved over to my frag tank, they look healthy as ever.

Ive questioned my water quality, tested and re tested, everything is solid.

Ca-450
Alk- 9.8
Mag- 1400
Phosphates <.10
Nitrates- Measurable but small

The tank has run like this for nearly 2 years, I haven't changed a thing other than adding a Ca reactor about 6 months ago.

I'm at a loss at this point...
 
If you catch him on a dead skeleton, it is unlikely is the cause of your coral demise. If you catch him on a dying coral, then you have something that you can pin on him. Likely he was just at a wrong place at a wrong time.
 
So far Ive seen them on both, bugs on tissue, orange and purple looking eggs on skeleton.

I wonder if I dosed enough Sentinel, one tab is supposed to be good for 400ish gallons, I may have nearly 425-430g in the system, Ive never measured. Think I should go for round two with a tab and a half or two? Especially before I start to re-introduce pods back into the system.
 
If the offended pest is and arthropod then Bayer should do the job. Flat worm and other worms just get stung but not kill by Bayer.
 
I am curious to see pics of the pests digging inside of acro polyps. And better images of the pest from the lab.
 
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