Problem species causing LPS recession

[Samper]

My father called me last night with a problem. He said that one of my Favias is receeding and that it's due to these hundreds of very small Calcareous tube/anemone creatures that have formed a ring around the coral. The tissue on the Favia has drawn back out of contact with these creatures but apparently they are spreading and stinging everything they come in contact with. The tubes are brown and the tentacles are clear with a very large number of tiny tentacles per tube but they are tiny like the width of a pencil lead. Does anyone have an idea what these might be and how to get rid of them so I can send him some links?

[wozza]

i had the same thing in my tank not very many of them tho, my BTA would even get stung by them so i got a knife a cut the little sods out of the rock, havnt come back since and that was months ago!

[Samper]

Did you happen to figure out what exactly they are?

[CSeaSee]

It's tough w/o a pic... hydroids, by chance?

[wozza]

no ,i didnt actualy bother to find out i had only like 5 small colanys of about 5 tubes so once they were gone that was it.
sorry couldnt be of more help

[zhenya]

It's tough w/o a pic... hydroids, by chance?

I agree with Carl that description of behavior fits those of the hydroids. Not many can compete for space against those critters.

Chuck, tell your dad to remove affected coral into separate container where he can remove those buggers from the base. After that he can try to relocate it to a different spot if environment there are similar to the previous spot. The Favia should recover quickly if stressor is removed.

I had one pesky A.majano growing next to my Favia sp. coral, causing some burns where it came in contact with the coral. I plugged the bugger with some epoxy and coral had recovered within couple of weeks.

[Samper]

I think you're correct Gene although I can't find an exact pic of what I saw. In my absence they have spread everywhere in the tank and it is going to be a huge project to get rid of them. I can take the rocks out piece by piece and try tweezing them off or brushing them but I'm afraid of spreading them by missing pieces. I wonder if I could cover them in kalk paste a few colonies a day to kill them.

[zhenya]

Chuck,

I haven't dealt with this pests personally so I can;t offer sure shot advice, however, I had read plenty of threads about hydroids where people tried just about everything only to come up short.
Probably the most persistant and resistant pest if allowed to proliferate.
I think Mike( greenbean) had or still has some of those pests, maybe he can offer some of his experiences in dealing with them.

I think, personally, it may be a better solution to try and take pieces of rock out and scrub it thoroughly in some backets. Scrub-rinse- scrub some more-rinse and place back in the tank. Probably not the easiest solution but may be more successfull than the kalk paste. You can try kalk first, though, and then proceed with manual removal if you fail with the kalk.

[Samper]

Alright I managed to cover some of them with kalk paste and they appear to be dead. I'll keep an eye on them and if this works I'll slowly kill each and every one of them. If not I'll scrub em off.

[Samper]

The ones in my new system came from the old one and I don't have that many to deal with. I'm hoping that I can get them out of the new one atleast but the other at home is full and I mean full of them. I hate to kill that rock and start over but I may have to.

[wozza]

samper instead of scrubing the rocks you could take them out and take a blow torch to the litte gits, you would get some die off clearly but i think it would deff kill the, what ever they are!

cheers james

[CSeaSee]

Well that's a new one. Not so much cooking the rock as much as rock flambe!

[dragonladylea]

Hope this helps - Sounds like the hydroids in question?

[Samper]

That's not exactly what I'm dealing with but very similar.

[Samper]

I finally found a pic and ID of these. Colonial athecate hydroids. http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...nidarians.html
Fourth pic down. The kalk didn't work by the way and I still have them but they aren't multiplying....atleast not quickly.
The Favia that is surrounded by them can't grow outwards but right now isn't being affected.