Pods on acros, with microscope pictures

[john90009]

Hello all! I have had this tank up for a few years now and have had sps for awhile in it however after a 7 year span the system crashed so I restarted. I noticed that there were not any types of pods in the tank at all, no amphipods or Copepods or anything so I assumed a lot of bacteria had also died back. So I reseeded the tank with some cheato from a fellow reefer who did not have sps. A few months later I noticed a crazy critter population swimming around at night in numbers I have never seen. Back before the crash I had a six line that most likely kept pods low. However there are critters that are crawling on my sps, some corals don’t mind them and have great PE while others have slowly reduced to just the leading acro tip. I took the bugs to my work and looked at them under the scope and the picture with the red dot was a wet and one and the the next picture was after it was desiccated. By the giant red dot I’m assuming it’s some sort of cyclops copepod. Here are a few pictures hopefully some of the invertebrate masters can see this and pin point which ones they are. Holding off on a dr gs treatment in case anyone knows if its just normal guys in giant populations. Thanks all!!

 

[BAUCE]

Are you sure those aren’t red bugs? Looks like it to me but others will chime in. They are usually pretty easy to get rid of with interceptor. I had them over 10 years ago and remember it not being too big a deal to remove.

 

[joseserrano]

Pods can nest in/on acros. Try getting more fish that eat pods

 

[john90009]

I delt with red bugs in the past and in a daylight picture these guys are tan like a browned out coral, deff not the yellow with giant red head.

 

[john90009]

I have been trolling the forums for months and people have had white bugs( deff not them) and there are two different recent versions of black bugs, one which appears to be a slug and another which is a pod however the black bugs are huge compared to them and appear to congregate around the bases of coral skeletons. I have been meaning to get a melenarus wrasse again but this whole quarantine thing has made it quiet difficult to get into the small stores that were more reliable for fish.

 

[john90009]

Bump.

 

[john90009]

@Reef Nutrition do you guys have any clue?

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition do you guys have any clue?

Most definitely a copepod. Hard to say which order they are from. They could be Cyclopoid or Harpacticoid. Shouldn't be a problem. Another wrasse would certainly beat them back.

 

[Asmolupers]

Most definitely a copepod. Hard to say which order they are from. They could be Cyclopoid or Harpacticoid. Shouldn't be a problem. Another wrasse would certainly beat them back.

I just found a pair of these pods on an STNed piece of red planet under the microscope. Was getting panicked until I found this post. You cant see in this pic but, they looked exactly like the ones in the op pic from above.

 

[john90009]

Try to look at other corals and you may see them scurrying on them. I have some corals that are okay with them on it, while other randomly rtn. I have a small biocube so I am hesitant with a interceptor treatment since the tank does not have a skimmer at all.

 

[schuby]

I'd recommend looking at the evidence. If you have a ton of them and they haven't stripped all your coral bare (and no bite marks), then they are likely not coral eaters.

Maybe you could successfully keep a Mandarin goby! They need large amounts of pods to survive.