Worms? Or Something else on my Ducan?

[Chrisss]

So recently my Ducan has been shredding flesh, today was the worst day out of all of them through. A few weeks ago my Ducan lost a head and it looked like the head just killed itself kinda because its flesh came completely off. I didn't worry too much I thought it might have been my flow so I turned it down. Other heads seemed perfectly fine.

However, today I go and look at my tank and it looks like 5 heads did the same thing. The flesh just came right off. I took a closer look at I saw bite marks at the bottom of the coral. Could this be a worm problem inside the coral or outside the coral? I usually do nightly inspections and don't see anything eating it. I'm dipping the coral right now, should I cut off the heads with the bite marks on them? It's about half the piece so I'm a little iffy right now about doing that.

 

[Chrisss]

Green bugs maybe?? I looked on the other side this is what I saw

 

[Chrisss]

Bump anyone? Might be red bugs that changed color?

 

[Zoey]

have you had a look with a red torch at night? you might find whats chewing on it.

 

[Chrisss]

Yeah I looked last night. There were some bristle worms by it but nothing huge they looked like Reef safe bristle worms. I'm 90% sure it's the green dots on the coral because when I dipped it I used a paper towel to remove the green dots and under them was misisng Skelton. I took a even closer look at the heads and it looks like they made there way up to the heads of the ducan and I cant remove them manually. I might toss the peice to protect the other LPS/SPS in my tank if I don't have a solution today or tomorrow.


It seems like red bugs that turned green from the fluresent green

 

[Tahoe61]

Red Bugs are parasitic to Acropora only. Looks to me like normal snail eating marks. A more likely suspect would be BJD (brown jelly disease). I would dip the coral in a iodine dilution dip. Myself I would not discard the coral based on the information thus provided but that is a personal choice.

 

[xaxiu]

Green bugs maybe?? I looked on the other side this is what I saw

Looks like it' wild piece. how long you have it. Anything else in tank impacted

 

[Chrisss]

Red Bugs are parasitic to Acropora only. Looks to me like normal snail eating marks. A more likely suspect would be BJD (brown jelly disease). I would dip the coral in a iodine dilution dip. Myself I would not discard the coral based on the information thus provided but that is a personal choice.

I dont think it is brown jelly disease. I have snails in my tank but whenever I look at night at the coral it doesnt seem that any are on it or near it. I do have these small limpets that don't seem to be keyhole but they could. But like I said they dont seem to be on the corals, I have around 30 peices in my tank and this is the only one that experienced this rapid tissue lose. I was thinking Iodine solution but I have never dip any coral in it or done any reasearch with it I usually just use Revive. I will try to iodine dip it tomorrow or monday and see if that helps.

That is also what my LFS told me, they said it might be a pest problem like a bug or something might be eating it at night.

 

[Chrisss]

Looks like it' wild piece. how long you have it. Anything else in tank impacted

I've had it for around 6 months maybe, what I think it might be is eggs that were on it and finally hatched because of summer weather. Nothing else has been impacted, it is kinda on its own rock the closest thing to it is a torch coral and thats about 6 inches away.

 

[Chrisss]

Looks like it' wild piece. how long you have it. Anything else in tank impacted

It was growing fine also, it started with around 6-7 heads and had around 14.

 

[Tahoe61]

Have you seen any Polyclad flatworms in the tank. You'll need to look at night after the lights have been out for a couple hours.

 

[Chrisss]

Have you seen any Polyclad flatworms in the tank. You'll need to look at night after the lights have been out for a couple hours.

Nope nothing, the only worms I see are bristle worms (the ones in the picture below) and they are pretty small. I dipped the coral in Iodine today hopefully that helped. It was looking good today so it seemed fine, which is why I dipped it.