Halacaroidea ? aka mites. Could they wipe out a tank?

[RumMnky]

Long story short: My 2 year old tank died over the course of ~ 6 mo. First the SPS, then the LPS, then Zoa.. Mushrooms thinned out looked nearly transparent .. everything seemed to go one at a time......slow and painful.. only some softies survived..

I tested everything imaginable. triton tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary.. couldn't see any pests .. flatworms etc.. (60 year old eyes though )I was convinced they was some type of bacterial contamination.

Got a microscope recently and started looking at everything then found these. Nearly invisible to the naked eye..
Im fairly confident that it is in the Halacaroidea family, aka mites.. 1000 + different species w/some parasitic, from what I've read.

Apologies for the quality of my specimen and orientation.

Am I grasping at straws or do the experts believe that unchecked these little buggers could have wiped out my tank?

In retrospect, my issues started after my six line escaped to the carpet, but this could be a coincidence.

thoughts?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Do you have any pictures of your corals during their decline? When pest critters feed on corals, there usually are distinct markings that differ from something like STN or RTN.

If there are a ton of these critters in your tank, they definitely could be the cause, even if they didn't start out eating corals, once other food sources ran out they easily could have went to the next best thing for them.

 

[RumMnky]

Hi Nathaniel, I don't have pics unfortunately. I'll describe the best I can. The acropora seemed to RTN from the base up, mainly starting on the underside/ shadowed side. Euphyllia, Hammers and Duncan each expired in the same fashion. First they went from full extension to minimal extension in ~2-3 days. then by day 5 they completely detached from their skeleton. Again this happened progressively ie Euphyllia first, Hammers second, and Duncan last, with 2-3 days between each event.

A couple of side notes that are probably unrelated.. the first oddity was a colony of GSP that turned completely reddish/brown. and has stayed that way for several months. Other than the color change the colony acts normal. (still alive). Only within the last couple weeks have I started seeing slight tints of green returning to some of the tips. Let me know if pics of the GSP would help. Secondly, chaeto used to grow like crazy and the tank had "no" algae 'ever" other than minimal brown algae on the glass. I always considered myself lucky. The chaeto stopped growing ~ a month before the corals began declining.

Thanks for your help. Ill definitely be more diligent in the future with logs and pics.