Tang eating coral?

coralbeauties · Jan 18, 2019

i have been experiencing the tips of my sps coral being eaten on lately. I have never caught anyone in the act but I blamed my flame angel. The flame got the boot and today, 5 days after the angel being removed I see fresh damage to 3 corals. I have a powder blue, yellow, sail fin tangs. My other fish include a yellow wrasse, anthias, copperband and clowns. Other then a long spines urchin, I am unsure which might be the culprit. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Jeff

Jacked Reefer · Jan 18, 2019

Copper and butterflies have been caught eating corals in some tank. That would be my first geuss. What species is the yellow wrasse?

DSC reef · Jan 18, 2019

Don't count out that sailfin tang, I've seen them go nuts on coral before.

Reab · Jan 18, 2019

I would suspect the copperband but the best way to tell would be to set up a camera. A cheap solution is to have a computer webcam pointed at the tank set to record.

coralbeauties · Jan 18, 2019

The wrasse is a coris. The bite marks are pretty extensive with whole chunks missing. I was almost positive it was the angel since it started maybe a month after adding that fish. All my other fish have been in the tank for years. The tanks are probably almost 6 in long
Thanks
Jeff

LobsterOfJustice · Jan 18, 2019

What types of coral? I would suspect one of the tangs before the Butterfly, CBB mouths are really not designed to eat coral and coral do happen to be full of symbiotic algae and of course tangs love algae.

Urchin is also a very real possibility.

BestMomEver · Jan 18, 2019

I had a Rabbitfish fish go munching on some acans and other lps. He’s never gone after my SPS but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. They’ll eat whatever they stumble upon.

coralbeauties · Jan 18, 2019

Sps corals.

nereefpat · Jan 18, 2019

It's possible that, instead of eating the coral, the big tangs are running into it and breaking it.

coralbeauties · Jan 18, 2019

nereefpat said:
It's possible that, instead of eating the coral, the big tangs are running into it and breaking it.

The corals are being eaten on even at the base. My Disney was really munched on at its base. I guess worst case I can catch one fish at a time and move them into my frag system and see where the damage occurs.
Thanks
Jeff

nereefpat · Jan 18, 2019

Ah, I see. Bummer.

jda · Jan 18, 2019

You mean like this:

jda · Jan 18, 2019

When I had my larger FOWLR set up, it was full of tangs that ate coral... yellows, purples, sailfin, a few blacks (dude got the pair and they started to eat his acans within a week (back when acans were like $100 a head)), etc. Any tang can be a coral muncher.

Jesterrace · Jan 19, 2019

As mentioned I would film your tank. Doesn't make much sense to just start getting rid of fish when you don't know who the culprit is. My money is on the Copperband or one of the Tangs though.

coralbeauties · Jan 19, 2019

I don’t have a camera to set up. If I see more damage today I will trap my desjardini tang and move him to my 100 gallon frag runway and see what happens for several days. That fish is the biggest pig at eating time that I have so I suspect him first.
Thanks
Jeff

rmiles54 · Jan 20, 2019

I have recently added a purple tang to my 180 and he is nipping all of my acans. Removing visible chunks. I’m trying to overfeed nori. He’ll graze the nori, then the rocks and sand and doesn’t forget to stop by every acan he passes for a bite. This guys like 2.5 inches and never stops eating!

rmiles54 · Jan 20, 2019

I’m curious to know if anyone has any ideas on how to get the fangs to stop nipping coral? Possibly remove, dip, reintroduce? Hoping for a flavor change. Lol