With my recent new tank upgrade I wanted to start growing zoas. From the recent frag swap as well as purchase from Diablo with the gift card I won at the swap, I got frags of 2-5 polyps each of: rasta, eagle eye, bam bam, utter chaos, blue tubs. I placed them a few inches apart on a rock at mid height along one side of the tank, with the idea of growing a garden.
They were doing well for the past few weeks with new buds starting, when 4 days ago suddenly 2 of the 5 completely disappeared overnight. No tissue left, no apparent culprit hanging around, just a cleared surface. 2 nights later the rest of them vanished completely. I never saw anything munching on them or even interested in them. So my assumption is it is something relatively large chomping them down in a couple bites and then moving on.
I haven’t kept zoas in a few years, but I had lots of larger palys in my previous tank without any problems. All of my fish/inverts/snails are from my prior tank and haven’t had similar issues with them before. I’d like to get your best guesses on who ate my zoas because I’m determined to try again and am willing to move or sell the offender if needed.
My primary suspect is my cowrie, who I’ve had for years without issue, but not previously kept with zoas. I’ll list out everyone here:
Fish: Yellow tang, blue tang, coral beauty angel (another candidate but I’ve never seen nipping at any coral for years), royal gramma, ocellaris clown, mandarin.
Snails: Arabian cowrie (medium size, prime suspect), fighting conch, variety of other standard small CUC (trochus, astrea, nassarius, cerith.
Mobile inverts: Cleaner shrimp, coral banded shrimp, royal urchin, orange linckia star, large serpent star, lots of mini serpent stars, several small blue-leg hermit crabs.
I have read that when they don’t have enough food to graze on several of the omnivores including the cowrie can go after soft coral. I was aware of that and while the tank/rock matures I have been intentionally over-feeding lots of varied foods and have 2 clips of seaweed out all the time, including near the sand bed. I’ve seen the cowrie as well as the rest of the cleanup crew munching on it happily.
I’m so upset but I don’t want to make any rash decisions and I’d like your opinions before I act. Thanks for any help.
John
They were doing well for the past few weeks with new buds starting, when 4 days ago suddenly 2 of the 5 completely disappeared overnight. No tissue left, no apparent culprit hanging around, just a cleared surface. 2 nights later the rest of them vanished completely. I never saw anything munching on them or even interested in them. So my assumption is it is something relatively large chomping them down in a couple bites and then moving on.
I haven’t kept zoas in a few years, but I had lots of larger palys in my previous tank without any problems. All of my fish/inverts/snails are from my prior tank and haven’t had similar issues with them before. I’d like to get your best guesses on who ate my zoas because I’m determined to try again and am willing to move or sell the offender if needed.
My primary suspect is my cowrie, who I’ve had for years without issue, but not previously kept with zoas. I’ll list out everyone here:
Fish: Yellow tang, blue tang, coral beauty angel (another candidate but I’ve never seen nipping at any coral for years), royal gramma, ocellaris clown, mandarin.
Snails: Arabian cowrie (medium size, prime suspect), fighting conch, variety of other standard small CUC (trochus, astrea, nassarius, cerith.
Mobile inverts: Cleaner shrimp, coral banded shrimp, royal urchin, orange linckia star, large serpent star, lots of mini serpent stars, several small blue-leg hermit crabs.
I have read that when they don’t have enough food to graze on several of the omnivores including the cowrie can go after soft coral. I was aware of that and while the tank/rock matures I have been intentionally over-feeding lots of varied foods and have 2 clips of seaweed out all the time, including near the sand bed. I’ve seen the cowrie as well as the rest of the cleanup crew munching on it happily.
I’m so upset but I don’t want to make any rash decisions and I’d like your opinions before I act. Thanks for any help.
John