Two 5" leather corals eaten in a week

duckbilled · 08/17/2012, 08:38 PM

I've had a saltwater tank for 10 years and love my 65 gallon tank. I have 5 acropora doing well, a montipora, a gonipora, a blastomussa, a large number of zooanthids, red and green shrooms, a couple of clams and two leathers. Livestock I have one chromis, one clown, a blue tang, a coral beauty, and a neon goby as well as a shrimp and many snails and hermits. I check parameters weekly, water change every week, and feed once daily. I am not a regular visitor to ReefCentral so apologize if I have missed any info here. The thing is in the past week something has eaten both of my leathers in the past week; there is nothing left of two quite substantial corals. As far as I know, nothing changed in terms of routine or inputs into the tank. I am kicking myself for not taking pictures. It was quite impressive. When I looked midweek it looked like something had been taking bites out of em (would that mean a fish?). It was pretty impressive to see that whole fingers of the leather had been sheared off completely. The other rather odd thing is that whatever ate the 1st leather coral was able to move the coral AND its rock across the substrate! I even noticed the rock had moved and placed it back where it was, and then the next morning it had move back to where it was. Any explanations gratefully received.

RyanSweatt2004 · 08/17/2012, 08:46 PM

Start looking for a crab. I was a helper at a LFS here in Maine for a long time and the owner had very similar experience in one of her 220 show tanks. Large 6 inch and larger corals would be half gone over a single night. Toadstools cut in half. We ended up taking out every single rock in the tank. We probed every hole in every rock with a metal rod and a flashlight. In the proses of pulling rocks, I found a huge chunk of toadstool that had been puled down into a rock crevice. That same rock was the very last rock to get probed and what would ya know. I found a half dollar sized gorilla crab that had been causing all the damage. I would start looking around with a flashlight at night, maybe try a crab trap to start. Thats my best guess.

duckbilled · 08/17/2012, 09:13 PM

Hi Ryan. Thanks for the advice. Will do.

08/17/2012, 08:38 PM	#1
duckbilled Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 8	Two 5" leather corals eaten in a week I've had a saltwater tank for 10 years and love my 65 gallon tank. I have 5 acropora doing well, a montipora, a gonipora, a blastomussa, a large number of zooanthids, red and green shrooms, a couple of clams and two leathers. Livestock I have one chromis, one clown, a blue tang, a coral beauty, and a neon goby as well as a shrimp and many snails and hermits. I check parameters weekly, water change every week, and feed once daily. I am not a regular visitor to ReefCentral so apologize if I have missed any info here. The thing is in the past week something has eaten both of my leathers in the past week; there is nothing left of two quite substantial corals. As far as I know, nothing changed in terms of routine or inputs into the tank. I am kicking myself for not taking pictures. It was quite impressive. When I looked midweek it looked like something had been taking bites out of em (would that mean a fish?). It was pretty impressive to see that whole fingers of the leather had been sheared off completely. The other rather odd thing is that whatever ate the 1st leather coral was able to move the coral AND its rock across the substrate! I even noticed the rock had moved and placed it back where it was, and then the next morning it had move back to where it was. Any explanations gratefully received. __________________ platypus

08/17/2012, 09:13 PM	#3
duckbilled Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 8	Hi Ryan. Thanks for the advice. Will do. __________________ platypus

08/17/2012, 08:46 PM	#2
RyanSweatt2004 Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: maine Posts: 590	Start looking for a crab. I was a helper at a LFS here in Maine for a long time and the owner had very similar experience in one of her 220 show tanks. Large 6 inch and larger corals would be half gone over a single night. Toadstools cut in half. We ended up taking out every single rock in the tank. We probed every hole in every rock with a metal rod and a flashlight. In the proses of pulling rocks, I found a huge chunk of toadstool that had been puled down into a rock crevice. That same rock was the very last rock to get probed and what would ya know. I found a half dollar sized gorilla crab that had been causing all the damage. I would start looking around with a flashlight at night, maybe try a crab trap to start. Thats my best guess.