Predators - Identification Please

[ryanmoorman]

Iam tryign to identify these things. I am thinking they are copapods and sundial snails. Over the weekend I lost my largest zoa colony in a matter of 3 days. Whats weird is that everything else basically is fine .... All LPs and SPS. I think another zoa or two might have been infected but could be cause I left them in a FW dip for too lond (10-15 min). Last Thursday I noticed the colony was not opening in areas. I gave it a luguls dip on Friday and FW dip on Saturday morning. The black things did not fall off and I just yanked the colony out in risk of affecting others.

Everything appears to be fine, or atleast not getting worse. I FW dipped half my zoas 9only ones showing signs of an issue) and put them in another tank.

I have been looking for Nudi's but have not been able to locate any... I stayed up late last night looking for them and found these after dipping a mushroom.


Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I really dont wanna loose another coral, and have been trying to stay very proactive with the issue. The 1st picture below is of what it looked like Thursday of last week and the 2nd is what it looked like Monday night.

[hobogato]

they look like copepods or amphipods to me - harmless to corals and beneficial to the tank

[LuckySingh]

look like Amphipods ....but hey shoudnt bother ur livesock!!!

[ryanmoorman]

Yeah I figured the copapods cause they are all over my refugium, but wasnt sure if possibly a sea spider resembeled it in some fashion. What about the small snails? Are those sundial ones? I havent had a issue with anthing for over a year and am almost certain I have had these for quite some time.

[ryanmoorman]

Please take a look at that first picture. I feel like that is the culprite.

[tebstan]

What in the first picture do you suspect?
Is that black sludge stuff something that was alive, like a nudi? Or a sponge? Or just slime?

Sundial snails have a weird little pointy bit, when they close up it looks like a spike where the foot would be.

http://www.ultimatereef.net/info/iddb/images/motile/snails/sundial3.jpg

[Kristy]

Yep, that's a good pic of a sundial snail. We found one in our tank several months ago. They also have a distinctive pattern on their shells of black and white checkerboard squares in a circular swirling pattern.

[txav8r]

Please take a look at that first picture. I feel like that is the culprite.

What about the first picture? I see some zoas and possibly a black sponge.

[ryanmoorman]

Yeah that is a great picture of the snail. My concern with the fist picture is those black looking slug things. They were all different shapes and sizes and havent seen anything like those before. I havent noticed the spike on any of the snails though I pulled several out that appeared to have the same pattern on the shell.

[ryanmoorman]

Black sponge you think... Hmmm well if thats the case then I keep having to eliminate potential problems and are leaning to Nudi's which have still been unable to locate. The only other possibility would be possibly zoa pox. I saw some tiny white spots on the side of some of the zoas and after my reading am thinking it would be from Nudi's and/or Zoa Pox which aparently dont have a methode of curing. It didnt seem like it would be zoa pox given this all hapened over a couple days. Going from 200 zoas to basically 0.

[FireWater]

Look for Furan2. It is a fresh water fish medication used for treatment of several infections/diseases. Do a search for "dipping zoas with Furan" and follow those directions. From the pic I do not believe you have zoa pox. If it is some other kind of infection the Furan2 might help. The black stuff looks like a sponge or bacterial algae to me. If the zoas built up with detritus then the copepods and other critters will pick around them and that can cause them to stay shut for a while from the constant picking.

When you say you lost them in a couple of days - what happened? Did they stay closed and melt away? were they open and pieces were missing?

[LuckySingh]

That blk stuff looks like the cyano bacteria to me and it takes over pretty quick...which i would concern more...lack of flow,bulb with low spectrum and excess nutrients

[ryanmoorman]

Look for Furan2. It is a fresh water fish medication used for treatment of several infections/diseases. Do a search for "dipping zoas with Furan" and follow those directions. From the pic I do not believe you have zoa pox. If it is some other kind of infection the Furan2 might help. The black stuff looks like a sponge or bacterial algae to me. If the zoas built up with detritus then the copepods and other critters will pick around them and that can cause them to stay shut for a while from the constant picking.

When you say you lost them in a couple of days - what happened? Did they stay closed and melt away? were they open and pieces were missing?


Yeah i left Saturday morning after FW dipping them and went to see family for the weekend. When i got back the colony looked like the second picture. They basically melted away. They looked to completely gone by late night Monday. I tried fragging a couple areas where the zoas looked potentially capable of recovering. They are in the other tank and have not opened yet. Its possible theres excessive nutrients thought my cal, alk, phosphate , hardness are all ideal... My Nitrate is the only thing elevated at I think 40 PPM and havent tested since I did a partial water change on Tuesday night. I am planning on taking out the bio balls today or tomorrow (slowly) and switching it to live rock. I should have enough movement to avoid the detritus but thats a possibility. Have 1200 gph, 750 gph, 250 in rear power heads and have a sump pulling 400ishgph and a hob backup filter doing 300gal.... so thats 2500-3000 gal a hour on a 65gal tank.

[ryanmoorman]

Yeah i left Saturday morning after FW dipping them and went to see family for the weekend. When i got back the colony looked like the second picture. They basically melted away. They looked to completely gone by late night Monday. I tried fragging a couple areas where the zoas looked potentially capable of recovering. They are in the other tank and have not opened yet. Its possible theres excessive nutrients thought my cal, alk, phosphate , hardness are all ideal... My Nitrate is the only thing elevated at I think 40 PPM and havent tested since I did a partial water change on Tuesday night. I am planning on taking out the bio balls today or tomorrow (slowly) and switching it to live rock. I should have enough movement to avoid the detritus but thats a possibility. Have 1200 gph, 750 gph, 250 in rear power heads and have a sump pulling 400ishgph and a hob backup filter doing 300gal.... so thats 2500-3000 gal a hour on a 65gal tank.


I will defiently do the research on the Furan... I have never heard of this methode but will consider.

[FireWater]

Just do a search like I posted earlier and you will find several different places with information. I was pointed to the furan2 and that is what I used with good results.