Marine Mite?

CoralManz · Oct 18, 2019

To the right there's a copepod for size comparison.Is it going to be problematic?Lost it before I could siphon it out. #reefsquad @ReefSquad

Lovemyreef2015 · Oct 18, 2019

halacarid mites are the only family of mites completely adapted to marine life. That's what it looks like to me.

taricha · Oct 18, 2019

Halacarid - it is indeed a marine mite.

CoralManz · Oct 18, 2019

Lovemyreef2015 said:
halacarid mites are the only family of mites completely adapted to marine life. That's what it looks like to me.

taricha said:
Halacarid - it is indeed a marine mite.

Are they harmless?

Lovemyreef2015 · Oct 18, 2019

Narzyzz_12 said:
Are they harmless?

All mites are fluid feeders. Being it would be extremely difficult to ID which species you have I can't tell you which one you have. But both are not good.

CoralManz · Oct 18, 2019

oh snap

Ross Petersen · Apr 20, 2021

Bump on this old thread here... I suspect mites are rather ubiquitous in the hobby... I've had a recent explosion of them on my glass... seem to be eating algae in the video here and based on abdomen colors... but really I have no idea.

Any arthropod experts out there? Seems to be very little information on the forums about these.

Fishy888 · Jan 27, 2023

This is the first time I’ve ever brought up an old thread but this really is something I don’t see much info on. Hopefully this will help someone and if someone knows for sure what they are please let us all know. If I figure out what type of mite these are first I’ll post about it.

I honestly think these are mites that feed on algae. I have exactly two zoa polyps and zero sps; so I doubt they’d be on the opposite side of the tank from the zoas inside the overflow if they were zoa munchers.