Red bugs w/o SPS corals?

J

JumboAg99

Membership Expired
I have no SPS corals in my tank, just a few LPS and some softies. Noticed these in two spots in the tank last night when the lights went out.

http://youtu.be/49BKxYyhD0o

Hard to tell if they're "red" "brown" or "black". They're really really tiny, but there's a ton of them. Far back corner right along the sand under some rock and a second spot I found in the front of the tank below a rock.

1) What are they
2) Should I be concerned since I have no SPS corals (tank seems fine.)

If they are red bugs, I dont really see interceptor as an option. I dont want to try to get all the inverts out of the tank and I'd be devastated if either my arrow crab or huge Coral banded shrimp were to die.
 
Highly doubtful that you would have redbug's survive in your tank without sps, these look more like mysid shrimp to me. Checkout the links below, the last one is a cool critter id page that covers a lot of the stuff that can be found in our tank's.

http://melevsreef.com/id/mysis.html
http://melevsreef.com/id/redbugs.html
http://melevsreef.com/id/index.html


Cheers,
 
I'm afraid I can't help you with the ID, but based on the video and no SPS I am pretty sure those are not redbugs. I have never seen redbugs move around that fast unless you supplement with Redbull.
 
Yea, I can't I'd either but I guarantee they are not red bugs. Red bugs are about the size of the tip on a fine tip pen. You would not be able to video them except with an incredibly expensive camera, and as fish said, they do not move/swim like that.
 
Marc's ID page was the first place I went :)

I dont think they're mysis - too "solid" Whatever they are, they seem one dark brown/black/red color. There's zero translucency to them. They're about the size of the tiny tiny red mites you might find around your house. Maybe 1/2mm or less in size. FAST little suckers. That video isn't sped up.

The tanks actually in the best shape its been in for years, so I'm not overly worried. Just curious more than anything.

As for the video - its only smart phone grade so factor that into any analysis. (iphone 4S) w/ the flash on around 11PM with the rest of the room completely dark except for the "moonlight" function on my SOLs.
 
I just looked at them after killing the lights for the night. You know what they might be (and this could be a stretch) - some sort of copepod brood/nursery. There are a few hovering right in that area and I dont generally have a large enough population visible to see hovering all over the place, so a few in one spot is of note (of course, they could be EATING whatever that is too..)

Also, my new mandarin (#1 sadly passed away after about 5 years last fall. He "hopped out onto some eggrate I had covering the overflow one night.) I only got around to replacing him about a week ago - he's spending most of his night hours glued to that area of the tank. His predecessor was a grazer. He'd be constantly moving around the reef, but this guy stays put... right where those tiny critters are.
 
I would say they are a type of copepod after watching the video as they swim very fast. I was pulling my fry out one night and thought what I was gathering was fry only to turn out to be some type of copepod.
 
I put a couple of other vids off the same youtube page. The "Mandarin" one is the only one that shows those critter. It also shows the mandarin hovering over the area (hence the name.) The rest are just random critter shots.
 
some sort of pods is probably a good guess, and they will group up and hover like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top