Something eating corals

[WallyTime7]

Alright, not sure where to start. I left town twice (5 days with a feeder, two weeks apart) and upon arrival BOTH times, 3-4 LPS corals were completely gone or half gone.
Tank itself:
6-7 months, super consistent #'s and parameters, no real issues until this situation.
My clean up crew consists of 2x peppermint shrimp, blue/red hermits, snails.

Trip 1: I had 8 fish.
1 Yellow tang, 2 powder tangs (diff colors), reef beauty, lyretail anthias, and royal blue tang.
Came back, fish were fine - however 3 or 4 of my torches were completely bare to the skeleton. Shocked me bc most of those were my original corals.

In between trips, I removed the yellow tang and reef beauty (donated to local children hospital fish care company that takes them in). I thought they did this bc I had seen them nibbling around corals before.

2 weeks later, Trip 2 - now with two less fish.
Came back to 1.5 torches gone and the start of my hammer being white from being nipped on. SOMETHING is doing this or not getting enough food from my feeder.

I know technically "Any fish can potentially do this", but not sure where to start and find it weird that this has happened twice in 7 months while I happen to be gone for a few days. My clean up crew consists of 2x peppermint shrimp, blue/red hermits, snails.

 

[Lavey29]

We need pics in white light of damaged or dead corals. Obviously some fish or inverts can go rogue but that seems extensive as long as they were getting fed while out of town.

Need full tank parameters too because you could have a disease in your tank resulting in complete coral deterioration and or bail out.

 

[sfin52]

We also need invert list

 

[FourPawz]

I would watch those two shrimp very closely. No more peppermints for me.

 

[AKG]

It's not unheard of for tangs to neat euphyllia (or inverts like crabs or shrimp for that matter). Once they get a taste for those sorts of animals, there's no going back.

How often do you feed your fish?

 

[Dburr1014]

Coral beauty but now gone.
My money on the peppermint shrimp.

 

[mcdrichj]

+1 for the peppermint shrimp is the only critter you have left that would be most likely. Was it all euphyllia that was gone? Are there any signs of brown jelly?

 

[sfin52]

Yep watch the peppermint shrimp

 

[Wasabiroot]

It could be the coral beauty or the peppermints as already said. Unfortunately while peppermints are useful they also don't have a clue when their actions are irritating coral. I have a wall hammer that is showing irritation on one side and saw a peppermint sitting on the skeleton late last night. They're probably getting banished to the sump.
It could be that a shrimp started it and once there was sufficient damage to the tissue the angel and the shrimp tag teamed both. Even though you have an auto feeder, once something gets a taste as said above - it can often not matter. I'm sure if I had an oatmeal dispenser in my house and a cheeseburger platter appeared, I'd go for the cheeseburgers...haha

 

[mcdrichj]

When I was new I saw one in a LFS and thought this was cool and bought it without researching it. Then caught it eating my duncan. I also caught an emerald crab eating a duncan too.

 

[WallyTime7]

thanks for the responses - I haven't seen the pShrimp eating or really agitating all of the corals (some of the gone ones) bc they were in higher flow (doing great in it) and they never liked to get into the current.

Thoughts on temp variation while I was out? ie) AC on and off. WHat's a normal range of temp control without really ticking off LPS? I keep my house/water at 77. When I left the AC kicked on at 80, so 3 degrees in a given day sometimes, I have a feeling I had Polyp Bailout bc of that..

 

[sfin52]

thanks for the responses - I haven't seen the pShrimp eating or really agitating all of the corals (some of the gone ones) bc they were in higher flow (doing great in it) and they never liked to get into the current.

Thoughts on temp variation while I was out? ie) AC on and off. WHat's a normal range of temp control without really ticking off LPS? I keep my house/water at 77. When I left the AC kicked on at 80, so 3 degrees in a given day sometimes, I have a feeling I had Polyp Bailout bc of that..

The pshrimp are more active after lights out. I would take a gander at night after the lights been out for a couple of hours. A red lens for the flashlight should give you enough light with out disturbing the tank.

 

[WallyTime7]

The pshrimp are more active after lights out. I would take a gander at night after the lights been out for a couple of hours. A red lens for the flashlight should give you enough light with out disturbing the tank.

Will do.
It's just stumping me because I've had the shrimp for months. Then these two 'trips' I come back to chaos - both of which have been summer when my AC def probably turned off, creating inconsistencies.

 

[sfin52]

Will do.
It's just stumping me because I've had the shrimp for months. Then these two 'trips' I come back to chaos - both of which have been summer when my AC def probably turned off, creating inconsistencies.

3 degrees isn't much of a change over 24hrs.

 

[WallyTime7]

+1 for the peppermint shrimp is the only critter you have left that would be most likely. Was it all euphyllia that was gone? Are there any signs of brown jelly?

One torch had brown jelly but that was the only one which had it that I could see. ie) I'm watching one of my hammers just have one of the heads floating around (polyp bailout) with no jelly or visible disease.

 

[MoshJosh]

Could be the peppermint shrimp, or could be that you got some “fake” peppermints. I I think there are other shrimp that get miss labeled as peppermints, look similar, but are not reef safe.

 

[tbrown]

One torch had brown jelly but that was the only one which had it that I could see. ie) I'm watching one of my hammers just have one of the heads floating around (polyp bailout) with no jelly or visible disease.

BJD can lose you a LPS in a matter of days from perfectly healthy looking to gone almost overnight at times. It also spreads fast. If a torch had BJD then chances are most/all of your LPS have BJD and just haven't started showing signs yet.

 

[Dav2996]

Coral beauty but now gone.
My money on the peppermint shrimp.

When I had a blue tang it ate acans like candy and other corals. I also had a flame angel it only ate off the rock I had tons of coral with it. Tangs can be the fish doing it too. Stay a distance and watch the fish.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Pick up a Wifi Camera and watch it while you are away. Put the cameras where you think the next victims will be.

 

[alton]

Yep I have Two on one tank, and one on the other