Need a Fish to eat Amphipods

Zydan777 · Nov 25, 2020

OK so I think this might have been asked before but I am having a Amphipod issue. I got some zoos from someone. They were very bright and colorful and the price was not bad. I did all the steps to get them in my tank. I started to see new growth and I was excited. A month later I realized that my spongebob zoas were all closed up. I monitored for a few days and they did not seem to open back up. The only thing I saw around them were some Amphipods. Next thing i saw that some of my zoa polyps were completely gone and I had Amphipods moving to the next polyp. I unfortunately lost that zoa. now it is attack my Super Sayan. M oved the Super Sayan and it has opened up again but I still lost 3 polyps from it. I did have a bullet goby and it might have been keeping the population in check but a month ago he decided he did not want to live in my tank anymore and was found on my floor. Since then I have put a cover over it but I am not wanting to get a bullet goby again because he liked to cover all my GSP in sand. What type of fish would be good to take care of the amphipods. I have a pair of clowns that will not touch them but like to munch on my copepods. I do not want anything that is a finicky eater because I have not had luck with any.

lion king · Nov 25, 2020

Pink streaked wrasse tackled that same issue for me, then became one of my favorite small fish.

Alchameth · Nov 25, 2020

Most wrasses, I'm fond of flasher / fairy ones myself. Also depending on the tank size you could look at a Mandarin Goby, that's their food of choice.

ThePurple12 · Nov 25, 2020

+1 on a wrasse.

nereefpat · Nov 26, 2020

Halichoeres chrysus, melanurus, or biocellatus.

Zydan777 · Nov 29, 2020

nereefpat said:
Halichoeres chrysus, melanurus, or biocellatus.

I really like the Halichoeres chrysus. Its very yellow. Is it easy to care for?

kichimark · Nov 29, 2020

Zydan777 said:
I really like the Halichoeres chrysus. Its very yellow. Is it easy to care for?

Mine has been very easy. Don't be alarmed if they dive into the sand and you don't see it for a day or two when introduced. Once acclimated he is always out and about foraging.

Zydan777 · Nov 30, 2020

Update. My LFS is out of stock of a lot of his uncommon fish. So I am going to have to wait. I have already lost my Super Sayan zoa which had a lot of Amphipods on it. All I have left is my hammer, GSP and my palys. I have not seen any issue with my hammer because my clowns like to protect it to the point of drawing blood from me when I am cleaning the algae of the display. My GSP seem to be fine and they seem to not even want to touch my Pandora Paly which has been growing like a weed since I got it. Hopefully nothing else gets affected until I can get a Wrasse in my tank.

sfin52 · Nov 30, 2020

Zydan777 said:
Update. My LFS is out of stock of a lot of his uncommon fish. So I am going to have to wait. I have already lost my Super Sayan zoa which had a lot of Amphipods on it. All I have left is my hammer, GSP and my palys. I have not seen any issue with my hammer because my clowns like to protect it to the point of drawing blood from me when I am cleaning the algae of the display. My GSP seem to be fine and they seem to not even want to touch my Pandora Paly which has been growing like a weed since I got it. Hopefully nothing else gets affected until I can get a Wrasse in my tank.

Are you sure they arnt nudis.

Zydan777 · Nov 30, 2020

kichimark said:
Mine has been very easy. Don't be alarmed if they dive into the sand and you don't see it for a day or two when introduced. Once acclimated he is always out and about foraging

sfin52 said:
Are you sure they arnt nudis.

No they are not nudis. They look like tiny shrimp and move around very quickly.

ramullins86 · Nov 30, 2020

+1 on a wrasse

jesspal · Dec 1, 2020

I recently bought a Halichoeres leucoxanthus, cool fish that similar to chrysus. They seem to be more common lately.

CindyKz · Dec 1, 2020

Halichoeres wrasses eat pods. Pink streaked wrasses also, and they are great for a small tank. Cirrhilabrus (fairy) and Paracheilinus (flasher) won't eat as many.

I doubt that amphipods - or copepods, or any kind of pods - are damaging your zoas. More likely that there is some other issue and the pods you see are eating tissue that is already dead.

Kal93 · Dec 3, 2020

Halichoeres and leopard wrasses will devour them

csamsock · Aug 12, 2021

I had the same problem, over abundance of amphipods. Started on Zoas, then moved to Blue Hammer which they seem to just love--They are definitely coral eaters. My problem started when my cleaner shrimp died. I have a mandarin which just can't keep up with them, so will problem add a second or a yellow wrasse.

I also did try the heart worm medicine that was previously recommended. Seemed to kill about 90% but then the population just comes back.

Trouble1375 · Aug 12, 2021

kichimark said:
Mine has been very easy. Don't be alarmed if they dive into the sand and you don't see it for a day or two when introduced. Once acclimated he is always out and about foraging.

or 47 days...we added a female Melanurus with our male and the male was a bit too excited to have a woman and scared her into the sand. We wrote her off after not seeing her for a week and randomly on day 47 we had a crash requiring a 90% water change so we reaquascaped while we had most of the fish and corals out of the system and by the time the tank cleared at the end of the night we had 2 Melanurus and they act like the've been in love the whole time and they spend all day every day picking pods every where in the tank along with the 6line.