Question (Problem Solved)

[allan]

Ok, here's your friday trivia,

Below is a list of my pets in the tank. The question is, which one of these could possible eat zoas and palys? This morning when I was checking out my tank I noticed that two frag rocks (close together) were missing the zoas and palys that were on there last night.

Truth be told, they may have just fallen off, but I couldn't find them this morning. The frag disc with the lime green palys that I got from Z28 is now barren. The glue is still there, and very clean. Neither of the frags (about ten on each) were showing any signs of melting.... but the pink centered ones from the christmas party had been growing and in the last couple of weeks haven't shown any new growth. Last night I pulled the disc out, leaving the majority of the colony on the rock and moved it to a higher location in the tank.

This morning both are gone. Of the list below, are there any culprits that could eat about 20 zoas/palys in a single night?

Yellow rim tang
naso tang
blue hippo
yellow tang
two skunk clowns
cardinal (bengai)
cleaner wrass
chromis (two)
scooter blenny
target manderin
starry blenny
Diamond Goby

Fromia star fish

sally light foot crab
emerald crab
cleaner shrimp
pistol shrimp (Don't think he made the move though)

Rapidly diminishing population of snails
Rapidly growing specimens of hermit crabs

[Big_Pun]

might be the tangs, snails are probally getting killed by hermits i had that prob till they all found bigger shells, also zoas and palys are weird, i have some that die off or close for a while then open all of a sudden, prob just came unglued

[hobogato]

i agree with chris. also, check your hermits closely for type - the only ones that i have found to be totally reef safe (except for killing snails) are the blue legs and the scarlet legs. if they have black legs or black and white legs, they tend to be more destructive. also, you may have something there that you dont know about coming out at night, like a pencil urchin or rock boring urchin.

i have also heard that sally lightfoot crabs will turn a little more carnivorous when they get large

[roscozman]

We had a purple tang eating zoas once. One night we were admiring his color and right before our eyes he came down and nipped at a frag and ate three heads.

He was Eve's favorite fish and well... we had to get rid of him.

[Europhyllia]

The sally would be more suspect to me than the hermits

[Big_Pun]

also emerald crabs love to pick at newly glued frags, especially if its a crab that you have had a while, i had one that knew i put in a new frag and would go picking at itlooking for something to eat off it and then rip the frag off

[Mr Cob]

This is why I don't use hermits anymore....they like to pick at the glue and they kill snails.

I have had hermits get stuck in epoxy too....was pretty funny.

[allan]

My light foot is about the size of a really worn down quarter... or a buffed up nickle (just the body)... how big do they get?

I moved the fromia to the sump since he was nearby, and what I was thinking (hoping really) was that he passed over them and knocked them loose.

[Europhyllia]

I moved the fromia to the sump since he was nearby, and what I was thinking (hoping really) was that he passed over them and knocked them loose.

Seems unlikely. They are so slow and gentle when they pass over stuff.

[BSJF]

zoa eating nudis! Had these in before and they about wiped out my zoas! Evil!

They can camoflouge themselves to look like the zoa they are eating. It really cool to watch if you don't care about the fact that they are eating your prized possessions.