Amphipods are eating a zoa colony ...

I started noticing a few nights ago that I have Amphipods eating a colony of Zoas in my tank . They work in little teams of 2 and 3 gnawing away at the bases of the polyps untill they get up inside them and eat them inside out. Its only happening to one perticular colony, and luckily they are cheapys but Im affarid their next menu selection might be a little more painfull ... I have read this isnt totally uncommon , but I thought these were good guys . Im allreay at my fish limit with 4 in my 24 gal, so I dont know if adding a wrase to hunt them down is a good idea... I read about a product to nuke them with but it kills all the inverts in the tank . Help

 

you probably have a zoa eating nudi get rid of them now

 

I thought pods were all detrivoires anyone know of anything that looks like a pod but eats corals?

Any wrasse or dragonette will mow down pods with the best of them

 

hmm...ok, I must admit - this is strange.

Sometimes the corals get like a mucus on them that can hold detritus which is really what the little buggers want for lunch. I supose I would drop in the wrasse if I was convinced I needed to get rid of them.

Any chance you can drop a picture ?

 

this is what I suspected as well but I didn't want to say it, so I asked for a picture .....great minds and all that !

 

They are definately Amphipos and not Nudis, I only have my phone camera and it cant get pics clearly enough of them ..But I am 100% sure they are Amphipods . I have read several threads from other forums about people being completly taken by suprise to see this happening in their tanks ...I'll try to find some of them again and post links ... one more thing ,there are several other zoa colonys right beside the one they are eating that they dont even touch ...

 

In which case drop in the wrasse and let him chow down sooner than later. With what you have said it will be only a matter of time before the move to the next restaurant for lunch or a midnight snack.

 

geekdafied had posted here a while bback about some pods that he had that were eating his zoas. You might want to do a search and see if you can find the thread?

 

From the reaing Ive done it seems they only eat sick , or dying zoas , and that would make sense why they are only going after the one colony , but it sure looked healthy before they started attacking it .... Everything else in the tank is happy and growing very well , and all Params are right on, thanks for the info on the other thread .

 

I found Geekdafields thread
http://www.3reef.com/forums/coral/zoanthid-eating-pods-41735.html