Black Bugs?

[Maddlesrain]

Let’s just begin with a massive UHHHG!! It’s always *something.*

I was shining my flashlight over my tank as I usually do when I’m home for the weekend and spotted these little critters on a digi coral I bought a few weeks ago.

The polyp extension on the coral has been good - the body color did bleach when I moved it up to a high point in the tank, but I’m 99% sure that was due to my lighting being too intense to start out at.

I went ahead and slurped as many as I could off the coral with a syringe and washed them down the drain tonight.

(You can see how tiny they are in the above photo). Should I do an isolated dip for this coral? With what? Continue manual removal? Purchase a natural predator??

Thank you!

 

[Brad Miller]

'black' Tegastid copepod
Red and black ones will irritate your stony coral and also start eating their flesh.
Only thing that really kills them for sure is a Bauer dip using 1 cup of water to 1/4 cup bayer

 

[Maddlesrain]

'black' Tegastid copepod
Red and black ones will irritate your stony coral and also start eating their flesh.
Only thing that really kills them for sure is a Bauer dip using 1 cup of water to 1/4 cup bayer

Should I only dip the afflicted coral? Or is there a good chance they’ve already spread?

 

[Brad Miller]

You can just dip the one you see them on, they tend to favor certain coral like I choose to eat Delmonico steak instead of hamburg ;Happy

 

[Maddlesrain]

You can just dip the one you see them on, they tend to favor certain coral like I choose to eat Delmonico steak instead of hamburg ;Happy

Haha good to know!

 

[Graffiti Spot]

No one has luck with interceptor on these guys, even in higher doses? I would think they would be so similar to red bugs that it would work.

 

[Maddlesrain]

No one has luck with interceptor on these guys, even in higher doses? I would think they would be so similar to red bugs that it would work.

Also what I’ve been finding in my reading. I can’t dose my whole tank either because I have several inverts.

 

[Ewilson]

Bayer dip has no affect on them even at a 1 cup to 1 gallon ratio. There have been several Theories that pipe fish and 3x-4x interceptor treatment kills them but nothin concrete yet

 

[VSVP bet]

I have killed these types of copepods with a ratio of hydrogen peroxide to salt water. Usually a 1:10 - 1:15 ratio. This was on red bugs, tegastes acroporanus, on an acro.

 

[Brad Miller]

'black' Tegastid copepod
Red and black ones will irritate your stony coral and also start eating their flesh.
Only thing that really kills them for sure is a Bauer dip using 1 cup of water to 1/4 cup bayer

1 cup water to 1/4 cup bayer will work