CB is going to jail.

I have been thinking and considering some way to keep my Coral Beauty. I am sure 90% its been malling my snails. I have my hair algae on the ropes but I can't get rid of it if I don't have any snails. I can't keep a Turbo snail alive for more than a week in my tank so something is going down. So I came up with something. I think I am going to set up my 10g tank and add a few pieces of LR and put the CB in there. Then I will add some turbo snails to see if the CB was to blame. The plus side is that if the CB is innocent I can introduce a Tang to the tank and let it settling in before I reintroduces the thug. It was somemthing I did back in my cichlids days when i had a problem fish.

What do you guys think?

 

Sounds like a good idea. Just make sure the 10g is fully cycled or you will kill the CB (duh). It's a good opportunity for the CB to claim innocence and adding a desired fish at the same time will ensure the CB wont punk it.

 

I want to know how you're going to catch the buggar without tearing your tank into a million pieces.
The idea is a logical one, eliminate the culprits one at a time to find the answer.

Jim

 

Are you feeding anything?

 

Covey, just an Idea but is there anyway you could just run water from your display or sump through the 10G? That way there would be no transfer shock either direction and you would not have to maintain seperate filtration for the 'holding pen'. I did this for a fish that was being picked on by others.

Mike

 

From my experiance with a CB is that he is not what is taking out your snails. Turst me on this one!

You have something else in your tank. Have you checked for worms? Also what other fish, crabs, shrimp do you have in your tank?

 

i agree w b joe. my CB never pays any attention to the snails,then again hes never really punked any new fish to the tank either.

 

Have a CB as well that harms nothing. Scrps wit the damsels for his spot in the tank but thats it. look elsewhere for the culprit and save your self the possibility of losing the CB.

 

It has always been somewhat picky and pygmy angels always had that "Reef Safe*" designation. Anyway no shrimp, only tiny blue legged hermits. Other fish are a lawnmower blennie, a 6 line wrasse and 3 green chromis.
Last time I added turbos. I was real careful. I picked healthy looking moving one from the LFS, came home and dripped them for a hour and watched them like a hawk. I lost 1 on day 2, another on day 3, and I WAS there to watch the CB swim over to the last one and bite the eye stalk clean off it . It reeled back fell off the glass and died the next day. Anyway the weird thing is that small snails do make it long term in my tank. Small astrea and trocheus snail seem to know to keep there head down. Also some of the snail only come out at night and they seem make long term too. Like I said 90% sure it is the CB but I want to be positive.

 

Have you seen any cracked shells to indicate you minght have a mantis shrimp?