not red bug help

da6d2003

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I've got a small colony of Atlantis pink polyp cap that has been having problems. It's been slowly from the base up and haven't been able to see anything on it. I decided to unmount it and take it to work to put it under the microscope. (At 30x there's some pretty cool stuff in our tanks.)

What I'm seeing are what look like red worms burrowing into the coral. They are round like earthworms not flatworms. I'm really only able to see their shape at 30x so they are really small. There is a definite demarcation between dead and live coral and the worms are only on the dead side of the coral.

Any ideas? I can't take a decent pic at this magnification.

Is it a predator or clean up?

Thanks in advance.
 
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jandlms

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Try a dip in fw with lugols and if that fails try some of the commercially available "bug" killers. If you dip they will die. Hopefully.
GoodLuck!
 

Patwa

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yeah lugols should work to kill them off....but i'd be worried about damaging the living coral tissue that is left b/c of the fw dip part....SPS and freshwater is a big no-no, so i hear.

have you ruled out monti-eating nudis?? alas, i've never seen one before, so I don't know exactly how small they are....all i know if that they are smaller than zoa eating nudis...

Zach
 
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da6d2003

da6d2003

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yeah lugols should work to kill them off....but i'd be worried about damaging the living coral tissue that is left b/c of the fw dip part....SPS and freshwater is a big no-no, so i hear.

have you ruled out monti-eating nudis?? alas, i've never seen one before, so I don't know exactly how small they are....all i know if that they are smaller than zoa eating nudis...

Zach

They are definately not Nudis. The form/shape is too simple. Like I said I'm not even sure they are predators. This coral has been having problems from day 1.
 
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da6d2003

da6d2003

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Well 20 seconds in fw makes em explode for sure. the gets the ones on the surface but the ones burrowing don't get touched.

I'm concerned about the sandbed using interceptor. I'm off to do some reading.
 

msman825

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I would not add interceptor too my main tank either. dip then qt
 
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da6d2003

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Well after reading some HEAVY threads on RC, it does sound like a type of AEFW. I've only got 2 montis that have been showing any problems so they are off to QT. I'm praying for the best.

I would never have seen these without the loupe and microscope.

Strange that they are both montis>
 
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surfn

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FWIW......back last winter, i saw my green slimer receding very quickly for no reason, not just from the bottom, but from under branches also. i immediately suspected AEFW, so i took the coral out, put it in a bag and took to my lab to get the macro and microscope out to see if i could find any indication of the flat worms or eggs.

i found neither, but i did find similiar microscopic round worms like you are describing. i think they just appear whenever there is tissue necrosis........but they aren't necessarily the reason for the receeding, they just start to appear when there is dead/dying tissue.

i suspect the recession had to do with a large emerald crab i had just put in the tank, b/c i saw him on the same rock picking at the base of the coral.
 
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da6d2003

da6d2003

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i found neither, but i did find similiar microscopic round worms like you are describing. i think they just appear whenever there is tissue necrosis........but they aren't necessarily the reason for the receeding, they just start to appear when there is dead/dying tissue.

i suspect the recession had to do with a large emerald crab i had just put in the tank, b/c i saw him on the same rock picking at the base of the coral.

I'm kinda leaning towards this situation. These montis were hit pretty hard during the mini crash. I'm still going to put them in qt and see if they turn around.
 

jocoxVT

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Well after reading some HEAVY threads on RC, it does sound like a type of AEFW. I've only got 2 montis that have been showing any problems so they are off to QT. I'm praying for the best.

I would never have seen these without the loupe and microscope.

Strange that they are both montis>

AEFW wouldnt effect your montis only acros, dont know if you meant to say AEFW or nudi's just wanted to clarify though.
 
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da6d2003

da6d2003

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AEFW wouldnt effect your montis only acros, dont know if you meant to say AEFW or nudi's just wanted to clarify though.

I really didn't know what to call them because of the shape. I just know that they don't look like nudis.
 

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