Black bugs

[Echidna09]

Hello I seem to be having a lot of problems with my tank lately. My Poccillipora seems to have black bugs on it. There are a lot of little black specks on the bottom of the coral and the skeleton is fully visible at the bottom. I think it might be affecting my orange montipora as well. My encrusting monti doesn't show any signs yet but I'm sure it will. I thought it was dead but it came back with a red rim. Please help me with what I am to do. Here's a picture of my poccillipora. Sorry it's not great and the camera I have can't do very close macro shots so you can't see the specks. The coral is brown from when I had a phosphate issue.

(You can see one little speck if you look close toward the middle of the dead part.)

 

[dukes707]

dont know why you are having some tissue recession, but if it helps my pocci looks like that somtimes when the polyps retract. HTH. you should try to find the root cause of the recession before you loose the whole thing.

-dukes

 

[chromafi]

looks like low current or high nutrients (RTN)

 

[glassbox-design]

looks to me like RTN with closed polyps...check your params.

 

[Echidna09]

Parameters are fine. Turned brown when phosphates were up but they are under control now. If it is tissue necrosis it is definitely the slow kind.

 

[Greg Hiller]

There is a form of black bugs that infect Montipora, but I don't think they mess with Pocillipora. There is also a form of a black critter....kind of an elongated worm almost, that I've seen on the white skeleton of corals before...but I really don't think that this form of black bug causes the damage, it just comes around after the damage is done. I'd agree with others, try to find the root of the cause.

 

[Sullyman]

I can't tell from the pic but it doesn't look like a real big piece, why not break it off and give it a dip, see what falls off the coral.

 

[Echidna09]

Freshwater dip? How long?

 

[flyyyguy]

no NOT freshwater dip. Freshwater dipping sps is a bad idea, especially on a already unhealthy coral, it would do it in for sure. Unless you just wanted to sacrifice it to see what comes off.



Tropic marine pro coral cure, or other iodine type treatment.

I would probably frag what i could off at this point, but like already said.......you need to find out the cause

 

[Echidna09]

Iodine dip same as what I was told for LPS? 1 qt of water with 15 drops of Lugol's? It's already a frag.