Bubble coral parasites !??

[KahluaZzZ]

Hey guys my big bubble coral is having troubles. I fed him marine snow + vitamines , good lights, iodide when needed, calcium, bedtime stories etc..he was growing fast and doubled his skeleton since i bought him in april. 5 days ago i noticed that i could see the bone, like the flesh withdrawed for about 2 inches everywhere. Crap. The flashy yellow "glue" under the skeleton is now almost gone. During the day he looks ok, just a little smaller than usual. Anyways i checked under his skeleton and found tiny little red critters running inside the skeleton...raaaah. I can't take a pix, playing with a bubble isn't very fun. I can confirm that it's not a worm or nudibranch. Can that be the plague that normally destroy SPS and is called " red bugs " ?? If yes, i dunno what i can do..cause they are inside the coral. Dip ?
Founding info on bubble corals parasites is very tuff.
The deterioration is very fast so any comment is welcome.
TNX

 

[1979camaro]

hmm...I don't honestly know a lot about red bugs other than that they are notorious for destroying acropora. It does sound similar to the descriptions of red bugs and it doesn't seem like a good thing...i was just reading an article about parasites and it said that there are a large number of new little predacious crustaceans showing up in the hobby. Reef Dip by seachem is supposed to be effective treatment for red bugs (its an iodine solution)...beyond that I don't know, it seems possible that a wrasse might go for them or perhaps an arrow crab but I do not know those statements to be facts

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i might go for that or lugol . I checked on the acropora red bugs and found that it looks pretty much the same, altough it's tiny and there are many many creatures in the sea. I tried to grab some but too fast and they came back into the bubble's skeleton. They move like amphipods.

 

[wayne]

I wouldn't like to guess if the red bugs are the cause of the problem, or taking advantage of it. Feeding just marine snow and vits is going to have given all sorts of nutritional problems - it should be surprisingly large pieces of fish and shrimp. The thing may well have been expanding to try to get more feeding success, but doubling the skeleton is positive...
Start with this page here ....
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/caryophyllids.htm
Poke around and see what you can find here in FAQ, if you're still uncertian try posting on reefcentral. In all honesty I suspect you're getting ready for polyp bailout, and the little red bugs have been there all the time, but were never noticed.
Do you own a good corals book - Eric Bornemans is recommendable and about 40USD on amazon, and will soon save you that much money when it stops you buying something impossible or unsuitable

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I also feed mysid and brine during day..and big chunks since the problem begun, every day or so. The bubble engulf it quickly. The marine snow is like once a week, vits too.
Calcium is maintained at 420. I add strontium once a week.
I already read this wetwebmedia page. Yeah it's possible that the bugs were there all along.
The only coral book i have is the mergus atlas marine vol 2 ...but it doesn't help with diseases/bugs. Yeah Eric Borneman is an active wetwebmedia helper and i should look for that.
"when it stops you buying something impossible or unsuitable" : a bubble coral is supposed to be one of the most easy coral to keep..i don't think i make too much mistakes now..they only important thing i can't handle is the water temp fluctuations 'cause it's 34 celcius outside and my air conditioner can't keep up. From 79 to 85 in a day..ouch. Surprisingly, my scolymia, mushes, zoanthids, GSP and frogspawn(S) are fully expanded and growing. It's been a while since i added any coral into the tank, and i will not do this during hot summer days.
Right now i can only think of 3 possibilities : Temp prob, parasites, caulerpa going sexual but the sump output goes directly into a polyfilterpad , in my ac500 .
I'll post a pic soon.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

Brand new red stuff

 

[KahluaZzZ]

Within the yellow circle you can see the bone. Altough it looks almost ok, this coral is quickly going down. I'm gonna move my tank to my room where air conditioner can make a diff, so at least i'll empty 80 % of the tank...and redo the aquascaping.

 

[wayne]

Did you post the Q on wetwebmedia so either Eric or Calfo (whos on his hols I tihnk) can pick it up?
Anyway the thing is still expanding and feeding , but looks like it's being dislodged from it's base. I've never seen this, but it sounds like classical polyp bailout, typically a response to an unfavourable enviromental condition. In your case that could be temperature changes as these guys typically are form deeper water where temp will be a bit more stable. It could also be an alleopathic reaction as you have some pretty potent other corals in there. Also note that a lot of those other corals are typical of very tough shallow water ocnditions so temperature changes are much less likely to affect them.

Moving the tank as you suggest is one solution, I would also worry about alleopathy and start running carbon full time. However I odn't think you should give up on this coral at all

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i've posted on reefcentral , not wetwebmedia. Yeah looks like polyp bailout : http://www.reefs.org/library/article/e_borneman3.html
I've switched the GSP location, even tough there was 4-5 inches between the bubble and the GSP. I've noticed that on the right side of the bubble coral, the flesh is present and the current comes from the left. I'm trying to lower it, even tough it's not very powerful. Out of options, i decided to buy an air pump..that i've put next to the air conditioner's output ( have a 15 ft pipe ). The airstone is in my sump so it could slightly help the caulerpa while lowering the temp. The temp is now a steady 81.2 with fluo + MH on !
Maybe i have hallucinations, but the Plerogyra seems better.