Who is eating my SPS?!

[Wrasse-cal]

I was just reading another thread on here earlier about a Bicolor eating SPS. Here’s the discussion-
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bicolor-blenny-eating-corals.556054/#post-5710288

Thanks! I posted in that thread to see if the OP there sees any similarities between my damage and his.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I'm still leaning towards the tang. My powder blue tang does this every once in a while. For the longest time I was stumped until I witnessed it first hand.

I leaned to feed nori much more often!

 

[Wrasse-cal]

I'm still leaning towards the tang. My powder blue tang does this every once in a while. For the longest time I was stumped until I witnessed it first hand.

I leaned to feed nori much more often!

I’m not sure what to do. The tang has fresh ulva on a clip at all times. He’s not wanting for food.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I’m not sure what to do. The tang has fresh ulva on a clip at all times. He’s not wanting for food.

Try nori. My YT wont touch ulva for some reason. Not sure if it just mine or what.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Try nori. My YT wont touch ulva for some reason. Not sure if it just mine or what.

Sorry. I wasn’t clear. My tang goes straight for the ulva the second I add it to the tank.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

I suspect my yellow tang or bicolor blenny started to nibble on my acropora. Nibbling might be an understatement. The tips are actually being bitten off. There are also some marks elsewhere that look like big bite marks. This really sucks. 6+ months and they've been model inhabitants. The odd part as well is the Tang and Blenny are well fed and fat. They have a clip of ulva in the tank and are fed TDO and LRS daily.

I did a dip in Coral Rx and saw nothing i.e., no AEFW/red bugs. Plus, I suspect I'd see skeleton, with flatworms or bugs. In my case, I have literal chunks missing.

Is this fish damage or something else? Do I have to re-home my fish?

Did you ever figure out who the offender was? I have the same thing happening to my SPS.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Sorry to throw some uncertainty in here but I have witnessed my powder blue tang bite chunks off the tips of my SPS.

I have seen a hippo tang go to town on acropora before. Never know what a fish will do.

 

[oldnsalty]

Any urchins in your tanks? I had a long spine urchin that went to town on my sps. Never caught it in action but all the damage stopped after removing it.
Jeff

 

[Dondante]

Mine ended up being my Bi-color blenny. He only does it if the frag was near his hole and he only bit it when he was mad. So I moved my frag and he stopped messing with it.

 

[shred5]

If this is happening at night it is not your fish. At night I would suspect a crab or urchin.
If it is during the day different story.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

I think mine must be a large strawberry crab that comes out at night. He struck again last night. I have a long spine urchin too but I never see him even crawling on the corals.

 

[oldnsalty]

My bets are on the long spine urchin. I never caught mine eating my corals but after rehoming a flame angel blaming it, the damage still was going on. I move the urchin to my frag tank and the damage followed the urchin. Gave it away and problem never happened again.

 

[Min]

My bets are on the long spine urchin. I never caught mine eating my corals but after rehoming a flame angel blaming it, the damage still was going on. I move the urchin to my frag tank and the damage followed the urchin. Gave it away and problem never happened again.

+1 I moved all my urchins to a frag tank and the same thing happened in there, really small frags sometimes got completely taken off the plug with only a little nub left where it was, after I got rid of them I haven't had anything like that happen again for months now