Mido Posted April 11, 2018 Share Posted April 11, 2018 hey Guys was wonder if anyone has any thoughts of what is eating my zoas water parameters are perfect and my SPS, Duncans, hammer, plays, mushrooms are doing great but......weird things started to happen three weeks ago after i added a few zoo frags and a skunk cleaner shrimp there is something bothering my zoas, and they are not always fully open as they used to be in one colony noticed one skirt was eaten from one side (regenerating now) my favourite and healthiest colony was all closed up for two days then slowly recovering i had a japanese leather frag attached with a toothpick/glue to a frag completely eaten up from the plug and floated away and today came from work after a 24 hrs shift a two weeks old frag of zoa is gone!!!!!! like nothing on it except glue! it had three small heads but was very securely glued and was starting to heal and doing great but there is no sign of it at all...I noticed most this happen when i don't feed for a day ( away for work) my livestock are 2 clowns tailspot blenny 2 nassarius snails countless torchus snails as they are having a party all the time may 4 big ones and hundred small ones i also noticed some big pods like 3-4 mm and they everywhere including these colonies... i do have an algae problem but not too too bad, hair algae and sea lettuce red sea max 34 gl AIO rebuilt i feed Mysis/ LS pellets/ reefroids... thoughts on skunk shrimp and or pods eating softies? looked for nudis and zoa pox, zoo eating spider and couldn't see anything,,, just pods some are tiny and dark in color some are big almost like a small ant should i get a wrasse to eat the pods? if so which wrasse is suitable for a 34 gl with crushed corals? Quote Link to comment
jamescstein Posted April 11, 2018 Share Posted April 11, 2018 14 minutes ago, Mido said: weird things started to happen three weeks ago after i added a few zoo frags and a skunk cleaner shrimp My first guess, especially since you haven't found any pests that came in on the new zoo's.. is the shrimp. They are scavangers and will eat corals if they are not well fed. Quote Link to comment
Clown79 Posted April 11, 2018 Share Posted April 11, 2018 I've never seen a cleaner shrimp eat coral but peppermint shrimp do. Have you checked for nudi's or zoa pox? Quote Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted April 11, 2018 Share Posted April 11, 2018 Cleaner shrimp won’t bother zoas... probably a different sort of pest. You can look at night usually. Quote Link to comment
Mido Posted April 11, 2018 Author Share Posted April 11, 2018 5 hours ago, Clown79 said: I've never seen a cleaner shrimp eat coral but peppermint shrimp do. Have you checked for nudi's or zoa pox? haven't seen either, pods eating zoas? i have a lot of them some of them are very big and they r the only thing i can see all over the zoas at night ( and morning BTW) Quote Link to comment
mndfreeze Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 I would spend a few nights with the lights out and a flash light hunting. You will most likely catch the culprit then. There are some snails that eat coral as well, but nudi's and flat worms are notoriously good at hiding in plain sight. Quote Link to comment
MainelyReefer Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 I'm suspect of the pods! I have some in my pico jar that when left unfed will eat either zoas, acans, or even blastos. They are larger pods that look similar to little shrimp. During night the pods in question are very visible on the reef and can be seen eating the corals. Beyond adding a predator via pistol/goby to reduce their numbers I haven't figured out a way to finish them off. I now have a moonlight on for 4 hours after 1 hour of full darkness to try and coax the pods out for the night then offer enough light for predators to see them but not enough light to scare pods away. Seems to be working. The corals never just disappeared though, a half eaten Coral was always left, the blasto and Zoa healed back up but the acans that have been eaten have all died. Good luck Quote Link to comment
mndfreeze Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Are you 100% certain you are not just seeing amphipods scuttling around? They don't eat coral, they get eaten by coral. Quote Link to comment
CarolinaShoreReef Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Check for nudis. They look like this but take on the color of your zoa. Look for spiraled egg masses at the bases of colonies too. Quote Link to comment
xthunt Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 I had a cleaner shrimp that ate the skirts off zoas, and I’m sure the zoa itself. Caught it one night picking apart a healthy one. They were disappearing one by one. And they weren’t dying or dead, and the shrimp wasn’t just ‘cleaning up’, it was putting its back into it. Quote Link to comment
OPtasia Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 The shrimp is a suspect. The flashlight trick will work better with red plastic or red cellophane over the light. Many fish and inverts can't see red spectrum light. Quote Link to comment
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