LOL, amphipods are not Mules. :bigsmile: [the faces in this forum are SO FUNNY!!!]
There has been other reports in the past saying that some amphipods eat their very live polyps!
Some people said also that in their tanks only the " skirts" of the polyps were eaten by amphipods.
Others reported the amphipods in their tanks were eating only damaged or dead polyps.
It is hard to really know if those people were correct in their identification. They said the animals were amphipods.
There are many types of amphipods: herbivores, carnivores, omnivores...
Many times the carnivores are omnivores too.
Carnivores are most times bigger and normally white, cream or beige in color. Those are the ones that eat soft corals and zoanthids.
The herbivores eat strictly algae, so they are the good guys! They are most of the time greenish, brownish, clear, beige and reddish in color.
Those colors are not rules!!!
Sand hoppers are an example of amphipod also. The are most of the time carnivores/ scavenger animals and they come in many colors. Many times they look like the sand (substrata) of their habitats.
Yes, to eradicate them is basically impossible because they are most of the time nocturnal animals and they do hide very well.
The use of chemicals could affect other invertebrates as well. It is better to avoid any type of chemical control for invertebrates in marine closed systems because that could affect the chemical balance of the system for a while and even the fishes could have some side effects.
Many times we connect the problem to the water params or to a lack of an additive, when actually the problem is " the additive" we used to kill something in the past...
The only way to be free of the trouble (amphipods) would be to avoid introducing them in the system!!
But they do come with the live rocks, so...
To prevent the problem would be good to dip all new frags/colonies in Lugo's solution + water, avoiding the introduction of such organisms.
I still don't know any way to deal with the problem 100% successfully because normally when there is one amphipod there are many more throughout the whole system. Fishes are not going to eat all of them in a short period of time.
To have wrasses is for sure the best bet for us and eventually the wrasses will take care of them, but only bringing them down in numbers. I've heard Mandarins are good too. I don't know if the Mandarins would really eat the larger amphipods though. Small basslets do a great job!
They will be in the sump and where the fishes can't get them, so having a fish for a small period of time to take care of the problem is not not the way to go either. Keep those fishes in the system for good!
Isopods are also crustaceans, like amphipods, but they look different than amphipods.
They have flat bodies. The amphipods have their sides compressed.
Isopods are mostly parasitic, scavenger animals or combination of both.
When they are found in our tanks they normally are parasites of fishes.
I don't know if isopods could eat healthy zoanthids.
Good luck!
Grandis.
