Help me id these red bugs.

[braddo]

Today we shut off the powerheads in our tank to do some maintenance and noticed a swarm of tiny red bugs at the surface of the water. At first I assumed they were the "red bugs" I've been hearing about affecting peoples SPS coral. I did a little research and found that red bugs are actually yellow with little red heads. The bugs I see are tiny and all red. Here is a picture, they are very small and was unable to get a good focus on them.

To give an idea of size, the frame of this image is about 3\16" wide. I photographed these bugs stuck to the side of the tupperware container I collected them in. The bugs stuck to the side in this picture seemed to expand and flatten out and were larger than the ones still swimming around in the water.

Does anyone know what these might be? I wish I had a microscope to get a better look at them.

 

[mercedes]

bump! anybody?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Those are NOT red bugs which are flea shaped mostly clear with a little red spot. These look more like bacteria or some fungus

 

[mercedes]

thanks for the input herefishfishy! they didn't appear to be flea shaped, but hard to tell because they were so small. they were visibly swimming around in a little swarm near the surface so i'm still banking on them being bugs and not bacteria/fungus. just wish we could find out what their name was so we can research more about them.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I would need a more in focus picture then as these in this picture look more like a colonial growth than individual organisms

Here is an excellent set of "red bug" photos

http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

 

[luke33]

I've seen these in my tank before. They ran in swarms and were constantly moving around. The stayed in one spot on my lr and went in and out of a hole. I never saw them on any corals or never saw them do anything negative to the tank. I've never seen a post about them before until this one. They are much larger than actual "red bugs" No clue what they are though.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Perhaps red copepods?

http://www.treehugger.com/20090324-copepods.jpg

 

[braddo]

Red copepods were my guess, I tried googling them but them but the only thing I was able to find were red arctic copepods. I need to find a better magnifying glass. They are so small all I can see is a tiny red specs cruising around. They are the size of the tiniest little micro bubbles from the outflow of my skimmer.

 

[luke33]

Yep, mine are like the tip of a pen, very small, but not as small as red bugs as you can see these pretty easy. Could be copods as they are identical in shape to some of the white pods i have.