found what was eating zoas

[puffin]

so I have a nice large colony of zoas, and lately they have been disappearing and closing up. well I knew I had bristleworms in my tank, and I know those are beneficial to everything except my finger. so I turned on the light this morning and there is a big fireworm munching on my zoas! He got away, so how do I get rid of him because there are probably more. and its weird because there were lots of sps he could have been eating but I guess he chose the zoas because they are close to the substrate.

[Chew_Magna]

Peroxide dip the rock it's hiding in.

[puffin]

It hid somewhere in the base rockwork of the tank

[Blubbernaut]

It hid somewhere in the base rockwork of the tank

Then hop on in with a harpoon gun and find him! Lol, wait till you see him again and literally stab him with some kind of hook.

[DAB]

Are you sure the bristle worm is the culprit? I have reef tanks for many years and have never seen a bristle worm eating zoanthids. More likely culprit in my opinion would be zoanthid eating nudibranch. They are very hard to see as they will change color to match your zoanthids.

[puffin]

Its a fireworm, and yes I literally saw it eating them.

[dtitus1]

Try to lure it out with food at night while looking in the tank with red light and either stab him or pluck it with tweezers. I got all my bristleworms this way with the lights on.

[Miriam]

My zoas has been shrinking and disappearing!! I do find a fire worm...probably this is the problem

 

[less than bread]

I came across this video a while ago. You might be looking to only remove the fireworm though and leave the bristles. But if you are looking to get rid of all of them, give this trap a whirl. Otherwise what other people are saying, go hunting lol. Grab a picture of it if you can

 

[mcarroll]

Curious what tank this is in and how the tank overall is doing?  

 

Having a fireworm is unlikely.  Having one target zoanthids is even less likely.  This is only to say that having a photo of this would be really interesting to see!!

 

But...

 

Having an oversized scavenger hitchhiker is very possible (ie regular old bristle worm).  And it's almost equally as likely to be present as to be starving to death if you're keeping your tank clean.  Starvation can generate some unusual behaviors....especially if the zoanthids are in marginal shape (ie smells like food!) for some reason.

 

How old is this tank?

Are you keeping a history of your water tests for this tank?  If so, how stable has this tank been over the last few weeks?

 

Can you post a pic of the tank?   also can you post a pic of the zoanthid colony that was being eaten?