Common Reef Pests
Curious about potential threats to your tank? Have a pest and need help fighting it? Look no further. Click on any of the below pests to read up on how to identify them, what harm they can do to your tank, and how best to fight them.
f you would like to know more about a pest or see one that is not listed, please feel free to contact us.
Quarantine Tank
The best defense is a good offense. You can never be too careful when it comes to pest prevention. This is why we always recommend using a quarantine tank BEFORE introducing newly purchased corals into your display tank. A QT tank does not need to be anything fancy; it just needs to function for the small amount of time to identify if you have any pests and then possibly treat the outbreak. It's not a tank you will show off to your friends and family.
Aiptasia Anenome
Aiptasia are small brown anemones with an amazing resilience to bad water conditions, low light, and just about every other extreme an aquarist could subject their tank to.They reproduce like crazy, can overrun a tank in very little time, and can be difficult to kill.
Aiptasia pack a powerful sting which they will use to gain territory or to defend themselves against potential preditors.
Majano Anenome
The Majano Anenome is commonly misidentified as its cousin the aiptasia anenome. It is very similar in the fact that its an invasive and very aggressive pest. However, it is much easier to remove then aiptasia.
Majanos like aiptasia, have a powerful sting that they use to gain terriroty and to defend themselves against potential preditors.
Asterina Starfish
Asterina Starfish AKA Mini Stars are another hitchiker commonly picked up by hobbyists. They can reproduce quickly and become an unsightly addition to your tank. Because mini stars are opportunisitc feeders some argue that they will feed on your corals.
Limpets
The most commonly limpet found to be a problem for hobbyists are the keyhole limpet. At the same time, the keyhole limpet is a fine addition to reef aquariums except for those with SPS corals.
Keyhole Limpets can be purchased from your local reef store. So use caution when picking out your livestock!! You wouldn't want to buy one of these if you have SPS corals (unless you don't like your SPS)
Acropora Red Bugs
Red bugs (Tegastes acroporanus) are small yellow flea-like bugs with a red dot on its head.
Red bugs infect your acropora corals and can eventually kill your colonys if given the opportunity to reproduce to uncontrolable numbers.
Luckily, there are many options for hobbyists to irradicate these from your tank. The first and best option we recommend is quarantining your newly purchased corals before intoducing them to your display tank and using a dip like RPS All Out Solution.
Flatworms
There are many types of flatworms. The most commly found in our hobby are the Rust Brown Flatworm and the Acropora-Eating Flatworm.
As Rust Brown Flatworms reproduce they can overpopulate your tank and perch on corals, blocking the light, and eventually smothering them out.
Acropora-Eating Flatworms are a little more aggesive in the sense that they will actually feed on the skin of your acropora corals.
Montipora Eating Nudibranch
Montipora Eating Nudibranchs feed on the tissue of corals from the Montipora and Anacropora genus. These nudibranchs can destroy large amounts of coral in a very short time. They can inflect damage quickly because they multiply at an astounding rate, and they store the nematocysts (stingers) of its ingested prey. Montipora Eating Nudibranchs are hard to get under control because of the rate of which the multiply.
Zoanthid-Eating Spiders
Now if any of these pests were to make me itchy its these ones! Luckily, spiders are not a widely seen problem in the marine hobby. This is because they reproduce sexually, not asexually.
sea spiders are typically eight legged, but may have other appendages that resemble legs. The average size is approx 5mm. The Zoanthid spider almost impossible to see since it will crawl inside and hide inside a polyp as it closes
Box Snails / Pyramid Snails
The snails are rather pretty snails; appearing either black and white or tan and brown with orangish tints within the striations of the shell
Although they may appear pretty; they are guilty of consuming many different types of colony polyps within the Zoanthid, Palythoa and Protopalythoa genus. Many times the snail will be found within the colony itself, where they puncture the base of the polyp, and feed upon its tissue and fluids. The polyp is then basically left as an empty shell, which quickly falls off of the rock and decomposes.
Zoa Pox
My Corals can catch the chicken pox?
Zoa pox (Zoanthid Pox) can be described as small white/yellowish dots on the outside stalks of Zoanthids. Eventually the polyps begin to close up and get covered with 'Pox'. Finally, the infected polyps begin to recede and eventually die.