Copepods or something eating my zoas?

[CodyRVA]

Alright so I just got over this same issue. Do amphipods eat zoas/palys, you bet your a** they do. Is it intentional vs accidental; I have no idea. My belief is my system became over populated with these critters and I feed my fish heavy and with no real predator to eat these pods, their numbers soared. I first introduced a mandarin. The issue here was some of these amphipods were quite large and the mandarin just couldn't swallow them. So, I added a leopard wrasse. The wrasse seemed more agile and got around the tank more quickly than the mandarin, but the pods are most active at night... While these two fish did knock back the population; I soon added a coral banded shrimp. This was a catch 22, the shrimp comes out at night and it's my belief this is was really did the pods in, but every coral banded I've had has been very aggressive. I would go wrasse/shrimp and leave the mandarin out of the equation. My pod population has since been decimated and I've been charged with the task of getting the mandarin to take frozen; while i have been successful... some call these fish the hummingbirds of the ocean, I call them the sloths of the ocean. They eat as slow as molasses, if I don't target feed the other fish will out compete it for food. Here's a link to my YouTube video on the pods tearing up my Sunny Ds.

 

[Elementalj]

Alright so I just got over this same issue. Do amphipods eat zoas/palys, you bet your a** they do. Is it intentional vs accidental; I have no idea. My belief is my system became over populated with these critters and I feed my fish heavy and with no real predator to eat these pods, their numbers soared. I first introduced a mandarin. The issue here was some of these amphipods were quite large and the mandarin just couldn't swallow them. So, I added a leopard wrasse. The wrasse seemed more agile and got around the tank more quickly than the mandarin, but the pods are most active at night... While these two fish did knock back the population; I soon added a coral banded shrimp. This was a catch 22, the shrimp comes out at night and it's my belief this is was really did the pods in, but every coral banded I've had has been very aggressive. I would go wrasse/shrimp and leave the mandarin out of the equation. My pod population has since been decimated and I've been charged with the task of getting the mandarin to take frozen; while i have been successful... some call these fish the hummingbirds of the ocean, I call them the sloths of the ocean. They eat as slow as molasses, if I don't target feed the other fish will out compete it for food. Here's a link to my YouTube video on the pods tearing up my Sunny Ds.

Banded shrimp

 

[Elementalj]

I had a sixline in my last tank and loved him. Ive been hesitant this go around cause everyone says they get aggressive, but i never had any issues last go around. Now with my zoas slowly thinning the six line is back on the fish to get list.

Mine fights himself in reflections on the glass. He's the only fish I want, so I'm not hurtin'. [emoji854]

 

[Elementalj]

I introduced a 6line 2 do just that. Did he? No as he slept when they came out. Then adding fish u have 2 remove him as he'll kill anything. He killed a male clown I introduced and turned sideways and nailed him. Have a vid but can't upload it. But I removed him and never will get a 6 line again. He litterally beat the clown 2 death. Y? I was so ****** as was a Darwin clown$$. So now I use mandarin for cop and amp control and haven't seen em like they were these days. So unless u wanna catch that fish every time u introduce anything don't buy. He even attacked a Kenya tree I added for 3 hits then stopped then the male the next day. He was gorgeous but 6 lines r on my never get list

There was a flyby of an anphipod from the fuge the other day, it didn't end well for the little critter. This guy plays with his food. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen. [emoji6]

 

[nwayne567]

The only time I've seen them eat zoas is when the Zoa is unhealthy or dying, my cleaner shrimp also try's to destroy the dying Zoa head/heads. So your zoas might be doing bad and the pods take full advantage?

 

[ZenReefer]

Thanks for the input. My lfs has a melanurus wrasse in stock i think ill try along with some shrimp. How well do you think cleaner and fire shrimp will do? Or is banded the way to go? Will a banded clash with cleaner and fire shrimp?

 

[ZenReefer]

I dont think the zoas are necessarily unhealthy as they still continue to grow slowly, but the pods are definitely making life difficult for them

 

[CodyRVA]

Thanks for the input. My lfs has a melanurus wrasse in stock i think ill try along with some shrimp. How well do you think cleaner and fire shrimp will do? Or is banded the way to go? Will a banded clash with cleaner and fire shrimp?

I have no experience with cleaner/fire shrimp for this case and no idea how they would fair off with a banded. I had a banded before get so big and aggressive he would rip hermits out of their shells and eat them, also caught the same one munching on a small coris wrasse; pure evil. Now that my pods are under control, id love to get rid of the new one I have before he turns aggressive like the last.

 

[CodyRVA]

The only time I've seen them eat zoas is when the Zoa is unhealthy or dying, my cleaner shrimp also try's to destroy the dying Zoa head/heads. So your zoas might be doing bad and the pods take full advantage?

I've had others ask the same thing and the short answer is no. I mean, I had two colonies that got hit, both in great health until I saw several heads closed, torn, or half mangled. Maybe they were simply cleaning and continued to eat, if so its still a problem. Others also said as larger colonies become dense they need more flow to clear detritus and thus the pods could have been drawn here and again ended up just eating through the polyps; still not a good thing.

Side note; during this infestation, I could not frag any zoas/palys. If I made fresh cuts the pods were on those areas like white on rice. My guess is they smelled the fresh cuts? No idea, but now that the population is way down, I can once again cut fags with high survival rates.

 

[CodyRVA]

**** frags... My bad [emoji85]

 

[Luis Spinola]

I had two different zoas colonies which these nasty critters loved. I lost about 3-4 polyps per night until both colonies where gone My duncans started to recede and some fell off, at night I checked them and these f.....amphipods where living in their base, I dipped the last duncans I have in revive and then reef dip, and the critters died. Immediately our duncans began to get better! Definitely amphipods are a pest for some corals. When I see zoas dying or other coral, I dip them. Good luck!