Amphipods eating certain kinds of zooanthids?

[Lamchops]

I was wondering if you have heard of amphipods eating certain kinds of zooanthids? I purchased a rock with metallic blue center zooanthids and when I first put them in they opened up the first day. The second day I noticed that they had almost all closed. After a few more days I started to notice that polyps were disappearing. So after the lights turned out that night I broke out the flashlight and saw hundreds of pods on them. After 1 month a rock about 3 inches by 2 inches that was completely covered in zooanthids was all but gone. The weird thing is I have 6 different types of zooanthids in the tank. They seem to be leaving the larger zooanthids alone. They have now moved to another zooanthid rock that has green metallic centers. That I have had for about 5 months. Which is really weird since they seemed to have left them alone for 4 months until they got a taste for them? Well any insight is appreciated.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[rshimek]

Jason,

Plenty of amphipods are carnivorous, and there have been scattered, and to my mind, unsubstantiated reports of them eating zoanthids in reef tanks.

My suspicion is that they are being scavengers and are attracted to animals that are, for one reason or another, in distress. However, they could, I suppose be fully predatory on them. I do consider this unlikely.

 

[bkiba]

lamchops,

I had a case of these zookiller amipods. They certainly ate the zoos, because they had a redish coloration to them. Most likely the zoo tissue in their guts. I cannot say that they weren't scavaging on a already stressed animal, but their sheer numbers were definatley making plenty of zoos irritated, kind of a vicious cycle. One thing I do know, a few FW dips later and the addition of a mandarin eliminated the problem.

Certainly not very scientific but that is how it happened.


Why I came on this forum - I read the nudi article and I watched the movie of the sea slug eating the nudi. Are these slugs reefsafe? I know there was quite an effort on some members of the zoo forum to find a natrual predator for zoo eating nudis. Is there any way to buy these sea slugs (if they are indeed reefsafe)?

 

[Markarian421]

Just wanted to add that over the past month I've had one zoanthid colony eaten by amphipods, and they've moved on to a second colony of different zoanthids now. When it started I didn't believe that was what I was seeing, but as I watched closer, it became clear that the amphipods were doing the damage, nothing else seemed to be touching the zoanthids. That they have now moved from one colony to another (which has been a healthy colony for about a year in my tank until now, just after the first colony was consumed) clinches it for me. As bkiba notes the ones eating the zoanthids seem to be darker in color, and fairly large, at least 3mm in length.

 

[bkiba]

yes they are quite large, as I said if you can FW dip the colony while it is being swarmed that could work. After adding the mandarin I didn't have anymore problems. And I'm not suggesting you add the mandarin / scooter blenny if you can't support it long term, but it worked for me. If you have a smaller system a scooter would probably work too