greenbean36191
Premium Member
My only two acros and a hydnophora recently started to show some slow recession near the bottoms, and little polyp extension. I checked the water. Things seemed good. I checked for asterina stars or anything else that might be eating them. Of course I also checked for red bugs. I found nothing. I was looking at them this morning as the lights were coming on and I noticed a small dark dot on one of the areas of bare skeleton. At first I thought it was just a closed up polyp that was left behind by the recession because it was near the edge, and it was about the same size and color of the polyps. After looking at the corals for a few minutes I noticed that the dot had moved. I took it out of the tank and looked at it with a magnifying glass and a flashlight and sure enough the coral was covered in the little bugs. They are extremely hard to see because the blend in very well, but to the naked eye they are a dark olive green to black color. They seem to come off of the coral pretty easily by just swirling it in water or using a toothpick to knock them off. I suspect these are the same thing as the red bugs or at least closely related so I guess I have a good idea of how to treat them. However, I don't know how they got in my tank. The hydnophora was the first of the affected (wasn't affected at the time) corals I added to the tank then the other two acros (both ORA corals that I bought while they were still in their original shipping bags)shortly after. All three had been doing well for the last 5 months, the first signs of recession started about a month ago with one of the acros and the hydnophora. Other than that my last coral addition was a monti about 3 months ago, and none of my montis seem affected. So it was at least 2 months between me adding any corals and and about 5 months since I added any acros, and they just started showing signs less than a month ago? Has anyone else seen a black version of the acro bugs?
Also I did look at one of them under a crappy microscope and I was wondering if anyone has pics of a red bug under a microscope that I could compare it to?
Also I did look at one of them under a crappy microscope and I was wondering if anyone has pics of a red bug under a microscope that I could compare it to?
