Huge amphipods are irritating/eating my zoas!

[cordell]

I've had this zoa colony for over two weeks now. The first week or so they seemed to be nice and opened and even growing new polyps, but since the last week or so, I've noticed not as many polyps are opening. So, I started taking pictures 4 days ago, and when comparing the pics side-by-side, I can tell there are obviously fewer polyps than there was when I bought them!

So I've looked all over this darn thing for zoa-eating nudis, with no luck. The only thing I see are TONS of large amphipods running all around inside the rock and all over the polyps. Sometimes I'll see some of the pods hunched down on one of the polyps and it seems later that polyp is either not opened or not there any more.

The amphipod population seems to be quite large in the tank. Those things are getting huge and running around everywhere, even during the day. They steal the food from my crabs and corals. Anyways, I know they are beneficial, but in moderate populations. I think my population is too large!

What do you guys think? I'm seriously considering giving the zoas a fresh-water dip to get the large pods out of them, and maybe anything else that is living in there irritating/eating the zoas.

After researching, it seems some folks say the pods won't eat zoas, only dead flesh or slime, and others are sure they do eat zoas, having seen them doing it with their own eyes!

Here's a video I took this morning -- notice the pods that have caught pellet food running around fighting away the other pods!

[Allmost]

nice video !

you can dip it ... or get a malanarus wrasse to take care of them.

GL.

[Enavas]

you can send me some of them. I would love them in my tank.

[cordell]

Thanks, Allmost.

I had been thinking about a Malanurus Wrasse... maybe this is a reason to get one. I'm curious though.... is this the same wrasse we are talking about?

I'm wondering how the wrasse can hunt them down during the day while they are hiding, and the wrasse is sleeping at night when the pods come out to play/eat. Any thoughts?

According to a couple places, the Copperband Butterfly is good at hunting the pods because they don't sleep much at night. But, they are difficult to keep, so I'll be passing on that option...

[cordell]

you can send me some of them. I would love them in my tank.

Haha, well these guys are so cool to watch and I like having them, but I just can't stand to see my cool zoas disappearing every day

If a freshwater dip wouldn't kill them, I'd be glad to send them to ya, Enavas! I don't think they'll make it alive out of the bucket, though...

[Enavas]

Rofl. They actually live for a while if you put some water. I have shipped some before. I was only kidding on the sending me some though. It cost to much to send. You can sell it on ebay. Shipping for live aquatics is usually about $50.00. I've had some fishes sent to me from Malaysia and Thailand before and they lived.

[Allmost]

Originally Posted by cordell

Thanks, Allmost.

I had been thinking about a Malanurus Wrasse... maybe this is a reason to get one. I'm curious though.... is this the same wrasse we are talking about?

I'm wondering how the wrasse can hunt them down during the day while they are hiding, and the wrasse is sleeping at night when the pods come out to play/eat. Any thoughts?

According to a couple places, the Copperband Butterfly is good at hunting the pods because they don't sleep much at night. But, they are difficult to keep, so I'll be passing on that option...

yes, that is it.

they are great animals, prety interesting to watch, they would swim around every rock, looking closely and hunting pods, prety fun looking at them do their thing.

I had AEFW and red bug for SPS ISsues, very interesting watching them go through each coral one by one, looking for something to eat ....

my copperband never touched amphipods ... not sure but they are hard to get eating ...

[cordell]

Haha, well, I think if any of them live after the dip, they'll be going into the fuge. I remember when I was starting this tank, I couldn't wait to have a lot of pods n stuff running around, but never did I think they would be munching on my zoas!

Seems like the more research I do on zoa-eating amphipods, the more people I find that are certain they eat zoas, even some "seasoned" reefers on RC and nano-reef.... just crazy!

[Enavas]

If you get a wrasse though, all your amphiods will disappear. That is what happened to mine.

[cordell]

Originally Posted by Allmost

yes, that is it.

they are great animals, prety interesting to watch, they would swim around every rock, looking closely and hunting pods, prety fun looking at them do their thing.

Sounds good! This might be a good solution, but it will be a while before I can get a new fish because my QT is booked up for 3 more weeks. Maybe I'll try the freshwater dips for now, and when I can, get the Melanurus.

I wonder if the Melanurus will get along with the Tri-Color Wrasse (Solon Fairy) that I have in QT now. Will have to go do some more reading...

Since I have a fuge with a good amount of live rock and chaeto, I wonder if that will be enough to sustain pods if I do get the Melanurus wrasse. There is already tons of pods down there, too. Hmm...

[CaptainErratic]

burn em!

[SKurj]

Originally Posted by cordell

Since I have a fuge with a good amount of live rock and chaeto, I wonder if that will be enough to sustain pods if I do get the Melanurus wrasse. There is already tons of pods down there, too. Hmm...

I picked up one of these Wrasse this past weekend, he eats anything, pellets, frozen.. He's in my QT now seems fine so far, but he eats everything I put in the tank.

[cordell]

Thanks for the info, SKurj... that's good to know! I'm going to start checking my LFSs to see if they ever carry them..

[MaxxedMan]

That is awesome and makes my skin crawl at the same time.

[Allmost]

yea malanarus is not like mandarin, it will eat other food prety fast.

I intentionally never "train" mine to take frozen or pellets, so it would hunt the pods and flatworms first ... and since it adapts to aquarium well, it will start eating when he finishes pods.

[globe]

I have seen my amphipods eat a small zoa frag. I assumed the zoas were dying so they were attracted to the decay or what have you. Now im worried about my corals because my amphipod popultation is huge and they dont seem to care about hiding much anymore lol. I just bought male and female scooter blennys and im not sure if they are going to take care of them or not. Was thinking about getting one of these wrasses but do not want them competing for food with the scooters.

[SKurj]

Originally Posted by Allmost

yea malanarus is not like mandarin, it will eat other food prety fast.

I intentionally never "train" mine to take frozen or pellets, so it would hunt the pods and flatworms first ... and since it adapts to aquarium well, it will start eating when he finishes pods.

How do you do that when the fish is in QT for weeks?

[aleonn]

Nice video! Your amphipods are huge! Since getting a yellow coris wrasse (halichoeres chrysus), as well as other wrasses, I never see amphipods in my tank anymore.

[philosophile]

I have zoas and lots of amphipods, but I've never seen one eat a zoa... Whenever I buy Zoas though, I really comb through them meticulously for pests.... I've never bought a colony that didn't come with some of horrifying pest like zoa eating spiders, nudibranches, etc. So.... I'd suggest you take out the colony, do a good dip in lugols or coral RX or something similar, rinse, then with a bright light, some tweezers and a toothpick or two, really go looking in the colony and see if you can find anything else that might be killing your zoas....

[cordell]

I think I'll do that, philosophile... just to be sure about anything else eating the zoas.

How long can the zoas safely stay out of the water while poking around with tweezers?

[cordell]

I went ahead and did a freshwater dip, although I didn't have any lugols or any other dip. All I could get out of the zoas were a ton of big amphipods and some sponge that I tore off with tweezers and toothpicks. No nudis...

So after putting the zoas back in the tank for a few days, I can still see where zoas are disappearing. It seems as the red zoas are disappearing faster than the green ones. Is it possible the red ones just aren't going to survive in my tank, but the green ones will?

I check the tank all day and during the night and never see anything "eating" the zoas, so I'm stumped as to why these are disappearing.

There is some sponges growing on the rock and that might possibly be taking over some of the zoas, but for the most part in the areas where I can obviously see a lack of zoas where they were before, there are no sponges.

Any ideas? Or should I just leave it be and let nature take its course?

Before and after:

[andyvalk]

Originally Posted by Enavas

you can send me some of them. I would love them in my tank.

You sure about that? These might be zoa eating amphipods...

[cordell]

Well, I know it just seems crazy that pods would be eating these zoas, but I think I may have caught one in the act just now! Earlier this morning, there was a polyp that wasn't looking so great, but it was for sure still there. Well, I came in a little while ago and see a big pod on and, from the looks of it, chowing down on that polyp.

I'm thinking I might freshwater dip these to get rid of the pods, then put them in my QT tank. Only problem is my QT tank lighting is mediocre at best, just enough for fish to see around. Would this be a bad idea?

Here is a short vid of the culprit and his buddies, along with a before and after pic below.


Before, see the polyp just barely hanging on (what is left of it!)?


After, no polyp!

[greech]

If you did a FW dip, you very well could have killed some polyps and that pod in the last video may be cleaning up a dead polyp. I have no doubt a melanarus will help but it may very well severely pick on your CUC and cause them to go into hiding. Mine tormented my CUC to the point that they went on strike and my tank (especially my sand bed) started to suffer as a result. ONce I removed the wrasse, everything went back to normal and all was well. I realize a lot of folks like this fish (why I bought one) and I may have simply had a misbehaving fish but thought I would mention just in case. Sometimes solutions bring more problems .

[Mikez1207]

Would a six line wrasse do the job???