Zoa's disapearing
 

Hello everyone,

I've finally experienced enough of this where small headed frags of Zoas just disappear.

the last straw was my two headed devils hornet frag I got from a fellow reefer in Vancouver and the next day... gone. I had a few single headed frags of the same thing, and all was open and happy - then the frag plug was empty one day, on the highest perch on the "thrive" product frag tree which is about 8 off the floor.

so obviously I'm thinking one of my fish or critters did it, below is a list of fish and shrimp - if anyone has had experience similar to this with any of these fish let me know, I'll have to keep my eye open on them:


yellow tang (first suspect, but never see him peck at stuff)
bi color blenny
starry blenny
ruby fairy wrasse
long fin fairy wrasse (second suspect I've seen him peck at deadlooking zoa heads)
cleaner wrasse (third suspect I've seen him peck at deadlooking zoa heads)
blue spotted goby
red scooter blenny
zeba demsel
blue / yellow demsel
two clown fish
fire fish (stays on opposite side of tank)

1 peppermint shrimp
1 blood fire red shrimp
2 skunk shrimp

blue legged hermit crabs (although to get up there would be a feat for them)
snails etc.

I wouldn't think it's any of those fish. I would bet that the suspect is amphipods. Happens to me alot when I don't have any predator wrasses. Wait an hour after lights go out and look at your zoas with a flashlight. I would almost guarantee that you have fat amphipods making a nice dinner out of your zoas. I lost many colonies this way until I figured out what it was. If you find that is the problem a melenarus wrasse or yellow corris wrasse is your best bet. Took care of my pod problem within a few days. Hope this helps.

You could be right - because we have noticed some HUGE pods in our tank - close to a 1/4" for some? and I agree.... no one really appears to be going after our stuff, and at night everyone hides.....

and I have noticed a few of our zoas having the skirts kind of withered (not happy looking)

I've actually had a pod or one of those transparent creatures bite me one time when handling a piece of rubble.

do those wrasse hunt at night? what about a mandrin?

Yea sure sounds like pods to me. 1/4" is huge, and once they are that big they will start to eat other things to. Iv had them destroy acan and ricordia colonies to. Mandarin isn't nearly aggressive enough to hunt and take care of your problem. The wrasses you have wont really touch them. You need a strong hunter wrasse. Most wrasses sleep at night, but the good hunters do enough damage to the pods during the day that slowly they take care of them. Id highly recommend melanarus or yellow corris.

here are some of the normal sized guys during the day behind a water filter in our 28 gallon nano - bigger ones in our 125 gallon

Hard to tell but I don't think those are amphipods. However if you have those that size in your tank you surely have massive pods as well.

I'll wait until a dead one is floating in the water and take a picture of it against a ruler :biggrin:

Could those be mysid shrimp?

That's my thinkin'