SPS Keepers!!! We Need Your Help!!!

[MrSandman]

Take a look at some of your SPS in your tank. Look closely! Look especially at the ones which may be bleaching or not coloring up. Do you see any small red bugs/mites? Does it look like this:


If so, then help us all out by posting some of your experiences with them. I know that maybe i shouldn't be doing this, but we really need some help defeating these mysterious red bugs/mites that live in some of our acroporas and seem to slowly make our SPS corals bleach and eventually die. So, if any of you have some experience, whether negative or positive, please post them here:

http://www.reefcentral.net/vbulletin...threadid=39956

We are just trying to determine possible causes, solutions, trends, predators and just more information on these buggers. If you have had ANY experience with these things, please share it. So, please...for the sake of all SPS Keepers, give us your $.02
Thanks!

[MrSandman]

^

[naser]

ive got them on some acros but they seems not to do any harm. i bought some frags that were dull they had them all over now there purple and still have some on it just not the amount i obtained it with.

[MrSandman]

Naser,
Thats very interesting. Where do you keep these frags? In front of any powerheads with direct current? Do you notice anything eating them to keep the population down? How long have you noticed them on your acros? Do you have any pictures?

[reefhead]

http://www.reefcentral.net/vbulletin...light=Red+bugs

[naser]

just normal currents. never really see anything at all eat the little bugs. i do notice if maybe i get a coral that might have some branches that bleach do to insefishent lighting they will be there. they however are still on the coral i brought home just hanging out. the coral is almost bright purple now. i dont have a nice enough camera in order to get that type of close up.

[Firefish]

I have these same red "bugs" also. Don't seem to bother the corals though. I can find them if I pick up a rock or coral and they will be crawling under it. Sorry can't be any help...

[organicreefer]

ive got some of the bugs on a couple acro frags i got from another reefer..aperantly the mother colonies of these frags have went downhill-but in my tank there are very few of the bugs and they dont seem to be affecting the peices at all..they are growing fast with good polyp extension and color.

[zhenya]

ive got some of the bugs on a couple acro frags i got from another reefer..aperantly the mother colonies of these frags have went downhill-but in my tank there are very few of the bugs and they dont seem to be affecting the peices at all..they are growing fast with good polyp extension and color.

I have this red bugs on two on my colonies and they seem to just stay there and don't move anywhere. I have this colonies for about 10m to a year and they've been growing,albeit slowly compare to the others.
I just wonder if this bugs are species specific or just don't move much.
Anyway, the color had not changed either,still same green with the purple growing tips.
Here's the pic where you can see the little buggers...Also, as you can see it has grown onto the rock that is near it and I'm not sure it would spend the energy to do that if it was ailing,FWIW.

[hcp28]

Maybe the bugs are beneficial in small doses just so long as they don't grow into epidemic proportions. I'm not into SPS so I don't have any experience with them, but I would think that removing them, via dips and the such, may cause more damage to the coral than the bugs could do. Maybe someone should do an experiement where they rid a coral of these bugs and one where they infest a coral with the bugs and another control with just a regular coral with some bugs and see how they fair.
Just my $.02

Henry