Black Bugs: Possibly a new montipora threat?

[penguinsix]

I haven't seen much on these, so I figured I would start a thread. When I first got my Idaho Grape frag it wasn't doing well, lost colour and little polyp extension, and after closely watching it I saw little black bugs moving on it. This was back in late August, about the same time as my aefw scare (I didn't have them) so I was betadine dipping my acros and figured why not try this on the poor looking monti. Well it looked much better after the dip, polyps came out and and colour slowly returned. Fast forward 2 months. I was looking at my tank today and was wondering why my Idaho Grape, once again was looking poor. I thought it was because I had been messing with my skimmer earlier in the day until I looked closely at it. And yet again there were black bugs. So I'm waiting to take some pictures before I treat, but I plan on treating every 3 weeks with a 3ml per liter of tank water betadine dip.

Here is a picture from when I found them 2 months ago, I circled the bugs. More pics to come tomorrow hopefully.

 

[~Flighty~]

Have you tried looking at them under magnification?

 

[penguinsix]

Not yet, I think I am going to get a sample tomorrow and bring it to the bio labs and see if I can use one of the microscopes to look at it.

I forgot to add before that this is monti specific and doesn't seem to harm any other corals.

 

[Aquaman_68]

have many other montis in the tank or do you think they came on that one?

 

[penguinsix]

I only have this one.

 

[Aquaman_68]

who did you get it from?

 

[penguinsix]

I won't say who I got it from right now until I talk with them a little more. I never got a reply from my bio lab ta, so any microscopic images will have to wait until Monday at the earliest and Wednesday at the latest.

 

[stevenp]

I have the same thing on my caps... Let me know what you find out.

Steve

 

[penguinsix]

Anyone have any montipora frags that I can have or buy to do a study on if it is caps only or digitata or other species?

 

[Aquaman_68]

Anyone have any montipora frags that I can have or buy to do a study on if it is caps only or digitata or other species?

I think I got a peice I can give you. do you want to wait until the meeting?

 

[penguinsix]

I can wait until the meeting, it will be the easiest.

For anyone who has these bugs can you check your digitatas as well because I have none so I don't know if they are affected.