Bugs killing F. Rics

greetin

Premium Member
I have tons of F. Ricordeas. I noticed some are melting away and dying. Upon closed examination I saw little grain sized bugs all around them. I took a sample and looked under a microscope. See pic attached. It might be hard to tell but the look like a jelly bean and move in a spiral motion. They look to have eggs in them, the little black dots. At first I thought they were maybe feeding off the dying rics but upon further study they seem to be embedding into the rics. If you look close at a ric that is dying there are thousands of them. Any info would be great!!

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no, they arn't flat worms. That pic is under a microscope. To the naked eye they are EXTREMELY small. They almost look like little bits of sand or dirt that is floating around. You have to look really close to see that they are moving. I have never seen or heard of these before. I have thousands of rics. I am going nuts because I don't want to loose them all. PLEASE HELP!!!
 
Maybe an iodine or freshwater dip? Maybe raise the PH. Try an infected ricordia and see if it does anything to the 'bugs'. At least you spotted the problem and have the means to determine if the 'bugs' are killed or not. Don't know if there are any medications for something like that so you might have to act quickly and try some different things on individual infected rics. Good luck. Keep us posted.
 
Thanks. I have tried Iodine and Interceptor dips. It doesn't kill them. All I know is the rics die within hours of being infected. I have thousands of dollars invested in these things and am just sick over it.
 
try raising your ph to 8.6 or more. Kalk or whatever to do it. If your loosing them might as well try. Have you tried freshwater dip?
 
protozoan infection. I've lost entire tanks of rics to this parasite.
my only recourse has been to vacuum out as much of the jelly/mucous/bugs as possible and spread out any survivors to clean tanks.
 
if the bug is a preadator maybe try a sixline wrasse..thats what i have to keep unwanted pest from my rics...keep us posted..
 
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