Someone's transplanting my zoa's

[seaponygirl]

Has anyone ever had this problem? This morning when I checked my tank, two large cinnamon plays were gone. They were sitting in the sand and one was attached to a small piece of Sinularia. Not tiny polyps. After scouting around, I found the smaller play attached to the sinularia stuffed at the back of the tank tucked under some rock.
It took some work to move all the rock and retrieve the play, it is one of my favs. It was really back in there. I have not found the larger paly.
My suspects are a large emerald crab or a yellow tail damsel. Why would that happen? I would hate to have to relandscape every day to retrieve my zoas and such. Any ideas.
If I get this figured out, someone is going to get a face snow bath!
,

 

[CodyRVA]

How long were they in that place? It's possible something crawled over them and knocked them lose. I've lost freshly fragged zoas from poor attachments to frags from turbos rolling over them and knocking them lose. You finding the one might just be luck? Did you intentionally place them on the Sinularia?

 

[Seaponygirlrider]

They were not rolled over. The one I found was truly stuck into a whole in some live rock. It was the full width of the tank, 12 inches away behind other rock. No way it could have blown there. They had been sitting in the sand for over three months. The sinularia had only just entered the scene. The flow in this tank is medium to low. I have had other zoas get blown around or detach from the rock but not like this. Rather fragmented explanation, sorry. It was -40 wind chill last night so I haven't thawed out all the way yet. My emerald crabs have been pushing over rocks, but would they pick up and move a big paly, and hide it?

 

[CodyRVA]

Interesting, its hard to say. I had two emerald crabs that mowed throw a few frags of zoas, straight up ate them clean. Who knows what happened. I lost my trust in emeralds after that lol

 

[Steve Maxwell]

Don't have a tuxedo urchin, do you?

 

[Triggreef]

Yeah urchins will pick things up and carry things around.

 

[seaponygirl]

Well, it has been a very long time since I wrote. I took out the emerald crabs and no more shifting of corals. I will blame them. They are now off my list. Thanks for all the help.