In need of advice and/or help!! Please...

[Moose]

Just to give an idea of my tank... 46 gallon tank, I have a t5 light system with 4 bulbs. I have a remora skimmer, with a large pump running it. I have a hang on the back filter with just the sponge (which I change or bleach often to keep bacteria from growing).((this is just to pick up big debris in the tank). I have 4 power heads running in the tank right now as well.

BUT....
Corals are Disapearing!!!!!! Mostly Zoas, look in the tank, my beautiful BLUE TUBS are doing great about 20 heads on my frag, today look at them, probably 5!!!!!! LEFT...
what in the world is eating my tubs???

I have been seeing Zoas go missing, and assumed that it was maybe the little star fish, so I have since gotten a harliquin shrimp who has done his job, and now eating a poor chocolate chip star because there is nothing left. What else could be eating zoas.


I recently put in a nice Xenia frag, and that too looks light it was lawn mowed down???
Any Ideas....

I have 4 clown fish, A cleaner wrasse, A diamond goby, a watchman goby, a blenny, a mandarin, blue urchin, sea hair, haliquin shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp......

I am also seeing a few hard green bubbles on some rocks.... WHat is this??? There was one on my tubs frag but not near the missing zoas?


I am also seeing some bubbles on some of my corals, I thought it could be cyno, BUT i have had an seen it before and it doesn't look the same...
Was thinking maybe treat for cyno just in case??? And Suggestions...????

 

[Turbosnail]

Have you added any new live rock or anything recently? I would suggest checking your tank at night after the lights are off for a while and see if there is an unknown critter in there.

 

[Moose]

Recently moved, about a month ago, I know there were some large bristleworms, but I removed almost all of them, I have checked at night but haven't seen anything, the newest additions to the tank would be the urchin... but i was loosing some zoas before that ((Im more worried about the fact that im still loosing, and I believe the only reason I noticed so much is because of how much I loved the tubs... ))) We did get to hard corals recently, and some mushrooms on a rock, but I dipped them before they went in...

 

[Cheetos]

You do know that chocolate chips stars aren't reef safe, right? That would be my guess to the disappearing zoas.

 

[Southshorereefer]

Don't clean anything with bleach

 

[Codeman]

Peppermints can also get pesky and pick at corals

 

[Moose]

clean with bleach then dechor. them first, then i leave them out for a few days for any remnants of bleach to evap...

Peppermints stay in one area of the tank 24/7, Chocolate star has half a leg and middle left, soon as he was in the harliquin jumped on him, so the star in always on the sand with the shrimp.... any other ideas?

 

[Arthur1]

Also as far as pinpointing a culprit that may be consuming the zoas, look for a sundial snail

 

[Moose]

thats a good idea, Im about to do my weekly water change as well as im going to set up a frag rack directly in the middle bump out of the tank with my tubs an a few other frags, and this way I will be able to watch closely!

 

[Moose]

Is this a sundial snail, its about the size of a small pea... just found it in the tank?
If so, how do i get rid of them??

 

[Aquaman_68]

tubs zoos have been known to do awesome & then just shut down as well...I grew a frag out from a few polyps to close to 30...only to find one day they were closed & they never reopened...(they just stayed closed for over a year before I decided to move them....& now they have turned to dust after being closed for more than a year!!!)

no hippo tang or tang in ur tank...which can become a favorite for them once they get big & acquire a taste....sundial snails....zoo eating nudis....

 

[Aquaman_68]

thats a sundial bro!!

 

[Aquaman_68]

remove them manually..move the zoos up & keep them on the frag rack & inspect them...one sundial can be devastating!! some people put a small less desirable zoo frag on the sandbed once they have been detected in the tank to see if any more turn up!!!

 

[Moose]

Alright I will start working on it... On average, how many/how fast do they grow? I have ALOT of zoas, and softies sooo alot of stuff everywhere.... my 46 is busting with corals,((((side note, Painting the 90 stand we built and will soon be upgrading ))))
Will they mess with anything else???

 

[Aquaman_68]

sometimes when ur lucky their is only one cuprit!!!
if it hasn't been going on for a while & u have brought something in recently....U may b on the lucky side!!

 

[Moose]

two so far...

 

[pillowfish]

Hard green bubbles on your LR is most likely bubble algae. It will multiply quite quickly if you do not remove properly. Do a search for dealing with it and find a method that works best for your tank set-up.

 

[JohnK]

Hard green bubbles on your LR is most likely bubble algae. It will multiply quite quickly if you do not remove properly. Do a search for dealing with it and find a method that works best for your tank set-up.

I missed that, yes bubble algae aka valonia is a nusiance. It won't directly kill anything, but it will overgrow and smother some corals. It's not the source of your losses (the sundials are), but it is a nusiance. The tricky part is that if you pluck the bubbles out with tweezers or something similar they usually pop, and when they do they often release offspring that then spread and make the problem worse. Best bet is probably to remove rocks one by one and clean them off outside of the tank, then rinse well in seperate saltwater and return the rocks to the tank.

Don't stress over the valonia for now, most if not all of us are dealing with that headache. For now, the sundials are the problem to worry about.

 

[billythomas]

It's your peppermint shrimp. Get them out quick! I had 3 of them and they ate some of my zoas and a green birds nest right in front of me. I used a small soda bottle and dropped a frozen cube of mysis into it and only had my moon lights on and they all jumped right into the bottle in under a minute

 

[P-Nut]

It's your peppermint shrimp. Get them out quick! I had 3 of them and they ate some of my zoas and a green birds nest right in front of me. I used a small soda bottle and dropped a frozen cube of mysis into it and only had my moon lights on and they all jumped right into the bottle in under a minute

Are you sure you had true peppermint shrimp?

I had 3 and they never bothered any zoas, or Palys. They did bother one hard coral, and I took them out. And I ahve over 10 different kinds of zoas and 2 differnt kinds of palys.

I think his problem is the snails and that chocolate star fish. The starfish is not reef safe.