A fish to end all soft corals, especially zoas.

[Kattes]

Hey!

I was wondering, if you'd have any recommendations for a total softie killer. There is this maintenance tank that started out as a mixed reef but naturally ended up having an explosion of zoas and of course GSP. Now to clean the rocks would pretty much mean nuking the whole system at this point, which is of course always tempting, but I'd rather experiment with the common problem before doing that.

So 200 or so gallons, not that many fish, SPS, some LPS and softies. I don't care if the LPS go as well, all have been fragged so many times that there is plenty of replacements if needed.

Basically I'm sort of torn between removing a devil of a yellow tang and throwing in a C. melannotus and/or some angel species. But which angel?

 

[aquasport24]

I just added an adult Emperor angel into my reef tank and it cleaned out a small colony of zoa within an hour.

 

[SDguy]

The blackbacked butterfly will definitely eat soft corals. Not sure on the star polyps...

 

[ryguy886]

My Juvi emperor angel doesn't touch any of my corals. It nibbled on the Acans a bit when he was first introduced but that was about 6 months ago. doesn't touch the Zoas, ricordias, pulsating xenia, or anything for that matter...

 

[Beandawg]

Dog face puffer

 

[polleke]

There are snails that eat buttons... sundial snail or something if I remember correctly.
Maybe you can find someone who has this "problem" and get some snails from him or her.

 

[Marshall O]

Any chance you just can't trade your coral covered rocks for dry ones? There must be someone who would want them...

 

[fishfreak2009]

A Raccoon or Threadfin Butterfly would probably take care of your problem. Heniochus acuminatus might also work (my old ones all loved aiptasia). I am actually taking my xenia and duncan polyps back to the store today as well because my lemonpeel angel and my bicolor angel both decided that they taste good. I just like the angels more than the corals...

 

[chema]

I would recommend either Pygoplithes diacanthus or Apolemychtis trimaculatus. Both of them ended with all the zoas I had in my tank.

 

[Dmorty217]

I wouldn't hold your breath on a emperor eating the softies, mine doesn't touch a thing in my tank... Not even the sponge growing on the rock with my glove polyp

 

[chipchip]

My Moorish Idol munched all my zoa's within a few days..

 

[Kattes]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I realize the smart and somewhat easy thing to do would be just to tear it down, as I there is about 100 lbs of cured live rock just waiting in same space, but as the SPS in the system have just recently started to get into their groove, I'll definately try some fish first just to see what happens. I can always tear it apart later if need as I'm not paying for any of this.

I'm really liking the idea of P. diacanthus, just for the visuals. And then put my real hopes on some butterfly as there is ample space to relocate the emperor after it outgrows the tank.

If all fails, I can always redo the horrid wall of reef rockwork so it's a win win really.

 

[TommyP]

Find out shipping to 11754. Depending on how much it is I'll pay for you to just ship me all the corals this way you don't have to worry about trying to find a fish to eat them all!

 

[Kattes]

I sincerely doubt you'd be willing to pay for a trans-atlantic shipping of about 80-120 lbs of rocks and softies Too bad, if I wasn't locationally impaired I'd happily send this stuff your ways. It's sort of sad to try to kill them off, but damn, they're starting to climb up sps..

 

[corabeauty4]

Leopard blenny may enjoy eating your coral...will be difficult to get him to eat prepared food though.

 

[Dmorty217]

You could Kalk paste the softies, that will kill them