What's eating my ricordea?

[dipan]

So I picked up a frag from B&B and glued it to a rock in my 20 gallon. Two days later it was gone. Even the small rock frag it was attached to is gone. It was attached to a very small rock which was superglued to a big one, maybe not too well. I've got an Anthias in the tank as well as a single coral banded shrimp. Both are eating well and my water parameters are checking out just fine. I did notice some small worms ?bristleworms coming out of small holes in the rock, but my understanding is that these are common and just detrivores.

Darn ... I liked that Ric too ...

[justahobby]

Do you have chocolate chip starfish or other disguised aggressors? I lost a waratah anemone and some gsp to a choco chip. Hermit crabs will flip coral over. Have you dug around for it? I've had lots of frags get flipped over or disappeared only to return on a different side of the tank. It's not coral but I just found an emerald crab that disappeared a year ago.

[Daniel]

Snails could have knocked it over and it got covered up by sand. My snails have knocked off super glued zoos and green star polyps off many times.

[MikeP]

I had a problem with this years ago. Turned out to be a 2 foot long Eunicid worm was munching my softies (particularly liked Rics). Check the tank after dark with a flashlight with a red filter, very slow, sneak up on tank and watch for a bit. you'll know if you have one, they look like something out of 'Dune'.

[dipan]

Thanks for scaring the *$#& out of me MikeP :)

You were right, Justahobby ... under some sand. Hope it does OK!