ID White bugs/pods on Frogspawn polyps - microscopic pictures included - good or bad?

[zedxplorer]

I started noticing these white bugs that are the size of a reef roid crawling super fast in the polyps of my frogspawn, irritating it and not making it happy. It is only semi-opening and hasn't been fully opened since. I dipped it in both Revive and Iodine and it didn't seem to kill them, they just retracted back into the mouth of the frogspawn and hid while it was retracted. Once it opened back up it started to crawl all over the polyps again. Any idea what they are, are they eating the frogspawn? If they are foes, will a wrasse or something similar take care of it? I prefer not to go the chemical route.

Similar to what these fellow reefers are noticing on theirs, but they took a much nicer picture of how small they are: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/white-bugs-eggs-at-base-of-frogspawn.1016548/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/white-euphyllia-bugs.931994/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bugs-on-frogspawn-coral.950119/

I captured a few specimens and put them under the microscope; this is what they look like. They look like some sort of copepod, but much smaller and rounder. Under the microscope, it actually looks like a similar species as this reefer posted here on their Acropora https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/pods-on-acros-with-microscope-pictures.729680/, maybe Cyclopoids? But I am not really sure, are they good or bad?

 

[zedxplorer]

Also a bonus funsie of what frogspawn mucus look like under the microscope, made of of all these long particles with tails

 

[zedxplorer]

Bump

 

[AlyciaMarie]

It looks like some kind of pod to me. The commenters in the last link you shared seems to have that consensus as well. Pods are not a bad thing for your reef.

 

[zedxplorer]

Corallovexiidae - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Did a few days of googling on this, and it seems to be that it's a type of parasitic copepod (Corallovexidae, a family of Cyclopoidae) that is more prevalent on Acropora (people have mentioned Acropora white bugs on the forum), and seems like a heartworm preventative that contains milbemycin oxime can get rid of these guys based on the other reefers on the SPS forum. I think it'll mostly stunt coral growth but will not necessarily kill the coral since they tend to host on one coral and are dependent on its livelihood.

I did recently added a mandarin goby hoping that it'll pick them off, but it seems like they are too small for it to see and peck on it.

Found this article about it: https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium...measures-and-a-review-of-treatment-protocols/

 

[Vested]

Corallovexiidae - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Did a few days of googling on this, and it seems to be that it's a type of parasitic copepod (Corallovexidae, a family of Cyclopoidae) that is more prevalent on Acropora (people have mentioned Acropora white bugs on the forum), and seems like a heartworm preventative that contains milbemycin oxime can get rid of these guys based on the other reefers on the SPS forum. I think it'll mostly stunt coral growth but will not necessarily kill the coral since they tend to host on one coral and are dependent on its livelihood.

I did recently added a mandarin goby hoping that it'll pick them off, but it seems like they are too small for it to see and peck on it.

Found this article about it: https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium...measures-and-a-review-of-treatment-protocols/

You need to treat your tank, have been calling these grey bugs you are correct they suck. They will kill your coral, treat with interceptor you can find the instructions on the forum here assuming you’ve seen it already. Heres the ID, they are everywhere right now.

Dip with KCl otherwise

 

[moosevandyke]

Vested knows his **** and he is correct.

 

[zedxplorer]

Appreciate the feedback! Glad to see this post gained some traction for discussion. I ordered interceptor a while back and also have the polyps lab primer which I think it's KCl based dip. Starting treatment soon and will report back. But so far my frogspawn been doing ok since I posted, it opened back up recently and seems to be unbothered by these critters. It can also be my mandarin picked off some big ones off it.

 

[moosevandyke]

How is the frogspawn

 

[zedxplorer]

Dipped it in KCl but I don't think it did anything to the parasitic pods, the frogspawn looks happier after dipping. So far nothing has changed much on the frogspawn in terms of health compared to when I posted. I am holding off on nuking my whole tank with interceptor unless it's absolutely last resort.

 

[moosevandyke]

Dipped it in KCl but I don't think it did anything to the parasitic pods, the frogspawn looks happier after dipping. So far nothing has changed much on the frogspawn in terms of health compared to when I posted. I am holding off on nuking my whole tank with interceptor unless it's absolutely last resort.

watch your Millis if you have em…

 

[zedxplorer]

Yeah fortunately I don't have SPS and most of my tank are euphyllia. I do hear people with acros had really bad experience from the SPS forum.