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HUGE amphipods killing my zoas


phasezero

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killerpods2.JPG

 

Looks like I have the same problem...

 

:angry: Photographic proof! The picture is a little fuzzy but I can assure you there is an amphipod munching on the skirt of a formerly glorious polyp. I Just added this frag after rehabilitating my AP12 and it looked great for two weeks until yesterday. Look at it today and bam! caught in the act, in broad daylight. All of the pods in my tank (hundreds of them?) are about 1/8" to 1/4" max. I don't have anything else in the tank other than extremely well established live rock and CUC. The polyp in the picture was doing great like the other ones, and all of my params are perfect. It looks as though they are starting on the polyp on the right as well. Chalk it up to boredom/hunger I guess. I haven't decided if I want to take action just yet but I def will not be adding any more frags for the time being. At least its a cheap frag.

 

 

i love this picture evidence! I hate pods with a passion. If possible, FW dip some rocks for 30 seconds, kills em quick and you will feel so much better having diminished the population a bit (since you dont have anything in your take to keep the numbers at bay).

 

I found a pod on my king midas, that made me mad. So I dipped and they seem okay now. Then I saw a pod on the eagle eyes, that made me mad too. I need a drink, anyone with me?

 

im with you!

 

 

Found some enormous pods with a flashlight just now. The bastards look like a white/tan version of these

alien23.jpg

bloody hell

 

seriously, they are so nasty!!

 

 

A while back I had a small plug with ~5 polyps that got flipped in the night. It was top down in the sand for ~6 to 12 hours. The polyps were clearly irritated. I noticed they were contracting in size throughout the day after it happened. I took this video when there where only two polyps left on the frag. The polyps were completely gone after 48 hours or so....

 

The frag plug itself was very low so it didn't suffer a huge fall from the rock. It was more of a flip into the sand. There's always the chance they were injured, but I think the amphipods simply took advantage of a golden opportunity and attacked their weakened state.

 

Other strains of zoanthid have been untouched, same with another frag plug of the same zoanthid......

 

Here's video I took of a couple amphipods chowing down on the second night:

 

 

they seem to move from zoa colony in packs. Once they have finished off one colony, they find another and work on it for a while. After i dipped my rocks i actually found a small rock with two polyps on it (that had come from the larger rock with my colony in the picture, they must have ripped it off and carried it away) in their "den". They had this spot in my tank under a bunch of empty shells where they gathered . . . it was really creepy and irritating to find!

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Found some enormous pods with a flashlight just now. The bastards look like a white/tan version of these

alien23.jpg

bloody hell

 

That's funny. I just said to a guy the other day that the writer of Aliens must have been a reef keeper. This monster is the combination of an Amphipod and a Eunicid worm all in one....

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Meh. I got one of these recently. You wouldn't believe how much kalk paste it took to kill it.

 

Cloverfield-Monster1.jpg

 

 

 

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IT'S STILL ALIVE!!!!!

 

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  • 4 years later...

Ah nice you caught my post before I deleted it lmfao. :lol:

Nice frogfish btw! How wide can those frog fish stretch their mouth?

 

Yar... amphipods are the 'roaches of the sea. They do have a useful purpose but when there's nothing to keep the natural balance and keep them in line, they start acting like they own the 'reef!

 

Semi-random: Just a year or two ago scientist recently discovered a new and very aggressive (also poisonous) type of amphipod living in the depths of one of our ocean. I don't remember too much details except that it was really big, had a neon stripe down it's back. Some of them attacked the face of one of divers and started eating his face flesh. Don't worry though, they're definitely not wide spread nor typically found in reef environments. LOL.

 

*Just to finish the story - diver did get away but with obvious bleeding lesions on his face - I think it looked like he tried shaving with a dull razor blade.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rs/index.php

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This is very interesting as I have never read anything about pods munching on corals.

 

This could be a heads up for many who suddenly have zoas dying away for no apparent reason....like mine

 

There definitely could be a species that does eat coral. Unless we throw every pod under the microscope, how do we know what species is in our tanks?

 

 

Fw dips will definitely help but the question is, how to control the pod population you have because I doubt you'll want to fw dip your corals every week.

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Wow, this is a 5yr old thread. That said, hopefully, the OP got a fish that will eat them. I have heard of them going after healthy coral only in the most extreme of cases. When all other food sources are depleted. There are trap solutions available as well

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Hammerstone

yeah, you are probably right.. Good news tho! My goby and pistol finally paired today! :D Found them together in the goby's cave while I was doing the water change hehe so happy :happy: kinda still bummed about the crab but that sure makes up for it

thats really cool about your goby and pistol! Just wanted to say, you're not alone with the crabs death. For some reason I can't keep them alive for any length of time for the life of me. Sry about your crab.
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