Coral ID please!
 

Hey guys and gals. I've got my little 10G nano running and it's been going for a few months now. Everything seems to be going great except I'm seeing little black dots on my two clowns. I looked it up and it just looks like "skin irritation" from rubbing up against some coral. The only coral I see them hanging around are these ones and I have no idea what they are. Anybody know what they are and if they're harmful to my clowns? Thanks for your help!

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...k/DSC00230.jpg

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...k/DSC00229.jpg

They seem to like this one the most:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...k/DSC00228.jpg

That looks more like some kind of macroalgae to me and a very nice one too :biggrin:

I'd second that.

does this pose any threat to my clowns? the dots don't seem to be going away...will they get used to it or should i get rid of the coral?

Doesn't look like coral to me either, I also agree with macro algae.

The one on the top in the pictures, the one your clowns like, is Nemastoma a red Algae. I've had some of it before and have seen it at my LFS may times on their Live rock. I dont think either are anything to worry about or the cause of spots on your fish.

Black dots could be "black ich" (not really "ich" but a tiny flatworm). If you can give the fish a FW bath (match for temperature) for say 5 minutes and if it's black ich the flatworms will fall off.

I may have to try the FW bath...I"m alittle new to the concept, do ya think you could give me a quick walkthrough on the do's and don'ts?

People talk about matching temperature and pH, but all I've ever done is match the temperature. So in a bucket of freshwater, mix up hot and cold until you have the exact same temperature of the tank water.

Catch the fish, put them in the bucket, wait about 4 minutes, and then let them back into the tank. If it's black ich, the flatworms basically explode under the osmostic pressure of the FW and they fall off. You can actually seem them fall off, looks like little fine ground black pepper dustings.

the duration of a FW dip is not set in stone. If you want to be sure of effectiveness leave the fish in the fresh water for maximum ten minutes. just keep an eye on the fish (DO NOT leave it alone) and if it starts acting too badly (too freaked out, breathing too hard, laying on its side, etc) put it back in the tank.