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Please help me ID what I found on my coral.

EZreefin

NJRC Member
Hey guys and Gals!

I always check on my coral, especially at night when all those wonderful nocturnal creatures come out of the rocks! I noticed something crawling on my one acropora.

I have these glasses that magnify to 3.5 times the size of an object. I put them on and then noticed that there were a bunch of them on it. Of course soon as you see that you start to panic and think the worst of things. I knew they were not red bugs.. they were blackish gray. So I started thinking ... maybe black bugs. I looked them up but they don't look like that. I actually have a microscope and thought this was a perfect opportunity to get a better look at them.

I used a pipette and managed to suck 2 of them off of the Acropora. After observing then they seem to swim in a zig zag formation. And there appearance makes me think they are small copepods. Can anyone confirm this? I have put in Tigger and Tisbe pods in the tank

The coral doesn't seem to be in any stress. It has been growing fine the last 3 plus months and I don't see any dead tissue.

I would greatly appreciate any feed back to put mind to rest. Thanks in advance! You guys are the best!
 

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john90009

NJRC Member
Get a sixline, and a mandarin and they will be gone. If I recall right they are a type of copepod, but if numbers are left uncontrolled they scurry on the corals too. Eventually they will piss the coral off, sps will get agitated at some point.
 
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