Parasitic Tegastidae copepods "Black Bugs"

[Frogger]

Friday night update. I was getting hopeful. I have been looking closely at my corals, orange passion particularly. I have been checking day and night at least 3 to 4 times a day using a pair of 10x optivisors (true 10x power). These are about the most powerful magnifying glasses you can get. Way more powerful than any hand lens. I hadn't seen one black bug all week. I started thinking maybe I got them all.

Tonight I pulled out the dissecting microscope (true 40x power) pulled the orange passion out of the tank and into a glass of water making sure not to expose the coral to the air and carefully inspected the coral looking into the corallites and between the polyps and I found 1 very active black bug. Where there is 1 there is likely more. There is also a good chance when I put the bright lights on on the microscope that the black bugs either hide under the polyps or go to the underside of the coral. So I do not know how many remain on this frag.

The good news is there were 3 to 4 of these guys per corallite (polyp) last week before I did the last treatment where as this week I could only find 1 on the entire coral.

I know my dosage is getting close. I will treat again tomorrow with a rate 10-15% higher than last week. This should hopefully be the killing dose. Unfortunately my amphipods and bristleworms will take another hit. Hopefully some will survive and re-populate the tank.

On another note I have only been able to find 1 remaining tubeworm (had hundreds before I began treatment) and the population of bristleworms is way down. Unfortunately this drug has had no effect on vermetid snails, montipora nudibranch and hydroids. I was hoping for some collateral damage.

Looks like I will have to re-seed the tank with healthy microfauna from my other tanks after the treatment is complete.