Good or bad please?

[Mark Bradley]

Small - less than a cm. Found it when trimming my Xenia. Any ideas?

 

[brmreefer]

Amphipod. Good.

 

[stanleo]

Amphipods are a good food source for your fish.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Gammarid amphipod. Good guys. Eat algae and detritus. Makes excellent food for fish when they find them.

 

[Mark Bradley]

Great thanks

 

[Tired]

Gammarus amphipod, yes. Normally considered harmless, and they do make good scavengers and fish food, but an overpopulation of them can hassle your corals and very large ones may eat zoanthids. Check the tank at night, see if you see a ton of them.

 

[Mark Bradley]

Are they likely to attack my Zoas?

 

[Mark Bradley]

Gammarus amphipod, yes. Normally considered harmless, and they do make good scavengers and fish food, but an overpopulation of them can hassle your corals and very large ones may eat zoanthids. Check the tank at night, see if you see a ton of them.

Just seen your comment after I wrote my last question

 

[Tired]

Assuming you have fish, they should stay in hiding enough, avoiding the predators, to not be a serious threat to healthy coral. They will go after stressed coral, though, even if it's not dying. I lost a nice armor of god paly frag because a rock flower anemone stung it, then my amphipods devoured it while it was closed. Little buggers are opportunists, they'll go after anything that's not doing well- even if it would recover on its own.

Fish love 'em. You may have some luck flipping hiding places on the sand to reveal them for your fish to eat, if you can get the fish interested in what you're doing.

 

[Mark Bradley]

I’ll keep an eye out but don’t see many things I don’t know about at night fortunately. However, I’m sure it’s not the only one - out of interest if you get big numbers what is the answer?
Maybe I haven’t seen any others because the fish are taking care of it?

 

[Tired]

More fish to eat them, and a lot of swearing while you try to catch them out with turkey basters, because nocturnal fish are the best bet and there aren't as many nocturnal fish in the hobby as you'd want. I'm trying a couple of different amphipod traps now.

Your fish are probably keeping the numbers down, yep, and making them more cautious about coming out of hiding. I had absolute tons visible all the time, including during the day, until I added a fish. Two days later, couldn't see any during the day. He didn't eat them all, he just scared them.