Predatory Copepods?

[outdrsyguy1]

Something seems to be eating at the base of my staghorn coral. It really looks to be like it's some sort of copepod or amphipod. I have two Emerald crabs but have been feeding them pieces of Nori nightly and have never seen them in this area of the tank. They generally take their Nori and go hold up for the rest of the night. There's a small cavity between the coral and the frag plug. At night with a flashlight I see tiny little critters running around constantly in there like ants or something. I have never seen anything actually on the coral eating it and I've been up till three and four in the morning watching at times. I'm open to suggestions but I was thinking of just trying to fill the cavity with superglue and also maybe superglue the edge of. The coral frag plug.
It's definitely not tissue recession as the calcium skeleton is also disappearing.
All other corals look pretty good. It's definitely not red bugs or flatworms.

>

class="gc-images" title="ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432314555.880152.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:400px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432314567.865190.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:400px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432314583.848098.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:400px" /></a>

 

[ringo®]

There are parasitic forms of copepods. Here's an AA article that may help with identification.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

interesting read, not sure i want to capture and microscope them though lol. i'm guessing a dip and maybe a mandarin should work if entombing them in super glue doesn't work... muahahaha!

 

[jennm]

I've seen parasitic isopods on fishes, but have not personally seen any on corals. It's certainly possible. It could also be that the pods are just cleaning up dead/dying tissue, sort of being caught with the smoking gun, so to speak.

Could there be anything else causing the tissue to stress or die? Such as stinging? Some of those look to be stacked up pretty close to one another.

Jenn

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Definitely not stinging. It looks close but it's a good 3" and I've never seen the digis near it put out anything. The real weird part is that the skeleton is being destroyed too. It almost looks like an emerald crab damage but I've never seen my 2 crabs in that area of the tank and I glance at the tank fairly regularly from 8 am to about 3 am. With stinging or stn there would be a skeleton but there's not here. This coral is a survivor from my ammonia dosing days so it never encrusted well as it was always a little stn going on. My alkalinity is good around 8 and all other acros are healthy. I've seen other emerald crabs I've had eat new growth tips on acros or scrape at polyps some.
I think I'll pull the plug off, Bayer dip and then remount after filling in the cavity under the middle.
I asked for a macro lens for Father's Day but I don't want to wait long enough to get it hehe!