Any zoo predators other than the commonly known ones?

[Steve973]

After two years of reefing, I have a dilemma that I cannot figure out. There is an unknown zoanthid predator in my tank. This thing, whatever it is, can clean every trace of zoanthid off of a rock at a pretty fast rate. The rock, then, is devoid of any trace of zoanthid or its mat. I never had a huge amount of zoanthids in my tank, so this predator must not be 100% specific to zoanthids. I'm quite sure that it's not zoanthid eating slugs, and i'm also fairly sure that it's not a sundial snail. I spend quite a bit of time each day looking at my tank. At this point, I suspect that I have some type of undesirable worm, but I haven't spotted anything yet.

 

Any other ideas about what it could be or how I could figure it out?

 

Thanks,

Steve

[c est ma]

Try observing at night with a red light?

 

--Diane

[tinyreef]

what are your other tank inhabitants? sometimes it's the guy right in front of you. crabs aren't to be trusted, whether it's a paly crab or a "regular" crab imo.

 

it's not a "rotting away" issue, right? bacteria can clean off a coral in days too but leave bio-evidence usually.

 

i've heard of worms feeding on corals and some microcrustaceans (i.e. 'pods) feeding on corals too, e.g. acro red bugs.

 

i'd bet on a rogue crab that you don't know about or a shrimp (if you have one).

[Caesar777]

Crab or eunicid worm. Red flashlight, or baited trap.

[Formerly MikeR.]

Well I have found a black spiral snail onmine with the cone like the sundial, im sure he was munching....but once when i purchased a large rock with a good size colony on it quite a few of the zoos refused to open, and some had a fungus i was getting ready to take the rock out and remove the stuff that was questionable, but the next day the rock was bare....well bare of the questionable stuff, all the living healthy zoos were scraped around...dont know what could have eaten that amount of zoos in one night, but i suspect stomatella...they are amazing grazers...but they did not touch the healty ones