The Carnage Continues

[mattj206]

Some Noctournal Creature is munching on my acropora #%@*&^

Random attacks on all frags and colonies of Acro's %#@*

No major damage - just a couple polyp sized wounds here and

there - stripped of all flesh at night.

Most nights this happens- It's starting to make me MAD.....

Anyone ever heard of this???
:exclaim:




All Acro's are very Healthy Otherwise - no Culprits as of Yet?

 

[Elmo18]

Err...any clown gobies??

- Elmo

 

[mattj206]

no clown gobies or any known fuzzy acro crabs either

whatever does it is noctournal.

could it be small brown/cream mottled snails?

I've seen several of these emerge in the evening.

I grab them when I can.

The wounds cut all the way to the white skeleton.

I would try and wake up one night and catch the culprit, but its

sooooo hard to do....

 

[BlennyBabe]

Do the snails look like this? If so they are predadory on most everything including sps. If they are just the baby trochus, you dont have much to worry aobut. Are their actually bites missing from the skeleton or just the living tissue.

 

[MarineDreamer]

I’m just the new guy around about these here parts…..


But I’ve read a lot and the first thing that popped into my mind was flatworms. They’re nocturnal, hiding in the live rock during the day, eat the corals by night leaving the damage as you describe. I read it in Delbeek and Sprung’s book “The Reef Aquarium, Vol. 1.”

Hope this helps.

Trevor

 

[mattj206]

I haven't seen those snails B.B. I have spotted some very small snails with that coloration only less bold-- and their shape is more round.

Thanks Guys--The Worm Theory Sounds.....Scary...


P.S.
The Bites might break the skeleton a little, but maybe not---hard to tell.

 

[SueT]

Matt, have you seen any small brittle stars?? Awhile back I had something that was doing the exact same thing you described and I sat up one night to find like baby brittle stars wrapped around my frags or within the branches of my colonies and what they would leave was a bleached, clean white area they munched on. These brittle stars do not grow but stay small like say a 50 cent piece. I was picking them off with tweezers, but have found they all disappeared.

 

[Alice]

I think you may have to make yourself an espresso, prop your eyelids open and do a few midnight rounds of the tank to catch your cuplrit. The really scary part is if your muncher is growing and breeding in your tank. :shock:

 

[mattj206]

-Munched on My Tort Last Night-

I once saw a small 3-4mm spiny starfish.

It blended with the rock-very hard to see

This is very frustrating

Whatever This Bandit is it has a healthy appetite.

And it roams the entire tank

The bites are very random

 

[mattj206]

Damn, I just saw a small black crab with hairy legs hiding in the liverock.

Do those crabs eat the polyp and the flesh of a coral?.

 

[MikeS]

I've had several of those nasty hairy hitchhiker crabs in my tank...they feast on my mushrooms at night...I'd say it's a likely culprit.

Mike

 

[Alice]

Maybe it's time for the bait-in-a-glass trick and see who turns up! I sense an exile to the sump coming up soon.

 

[mojoreef]

Sue tell me more about these starfish???? are they banded in color, sort of grey and whitish???? If you have any links to other experences with them put them up would ya. I have about a quarter million in my tank and I am worring now!!!!!!


thanks

Mike

 

[MCSInc]

You could have a Reef Frontier non slumber party. Accessories include magnifying glasses and flashlights covered with red film for spying. OK, just kidding.

I have heard that for night spying you need to have a good flashlight filtered with red so things don't hide when you zero in on them. It might be worth a shot.