Little Bugs On plating monti

Well, recently I have started watching my montipora digitia closely trying to see if there is anything bothering them thinking that this may be the reason for them no longer comming out. Well last night I happened to look under my green plating montipora and I noticed that on one base of the coral connected to the rock there was about a quarter inch spot that didn't look good. It looked eaten and green. Upon closer inpection I noticed a few little tiny bugs. They were difficult to get to and I ended up trying to blow them all off. After that I still noticed a couple and was able to pull 2 of them out and look at themm on my microprojector.

They are white with shell about the size of a pinhead (1-2mm diamater) look like they have a shell similar to a cowery. In the shell is a little invertabrate that under microscope looks similar to a mite or a hermit crab or something of that nature.

Sorry, I dont have a digitial camera to take a picture but maybe Ill try and get one.

Anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this eating coral?

Thanks.

Kevin,  you might want to talk to Shawn at Aquatica about this.  He lost almost all the montiporas (branching and plating) in his display tank due to what he called a small white nudibrach (about the size of a grain of rice).  They only killed/ate the montiporas.  I'm not sure how successful he was at eradicating them.  I think the only success he had was fresh water dips and fresh water turkey baster blasts for pieces that couldn't be removed from the tank.  Although from your description of the little bugger it doesn't sound like you have a nudi... Good luck.

(maybe it is just as Jared says... just scavengers looking for already dead food?)