Australian Stripey eating coral?

[highergroove]

My friend gave me a pair of Australian Stripeys and they seem to be reef compataible but we think they are eating our acans. Anyone have any experience like this?

 

[Dmorty217]

Do you ever see them picking at them? Any other LPS in the tank? How often do you feed? What are you feeding? Individual fish are hit or miss on corals, definetly not out of the realm

 

[highergroove]

Yea - they were nipping at two and now half the heads on two of the are gone. Also, the other 3 acans were all tipped over today. There are a bunch of other LPS - so far just seems to be the acans. I feed once a day - Rod's Reef - (large flat split into 24). Anything else I should try? We have only had them 2 days. My friend never noticed them picking at his at all and I know he had acans...I am hoping it is just getting used to the tank but I think that might be wishful thinking :/

 

[Dmorty217]

Your Acans will always be eaten by them. You could try feeding more times throughout the day to help keep them full and "less" likely to pick. There are a lot of fish that find Acans tasty for whatever reason. Do you have a acclimation box to put the Acans in to keep them safe from the fish until you figure something else out?

 

[snorvich]

As they are algae eaters, if your supplied food is insufficient in this area, they may be trying to eat zooxanthellae for the algae equivalent. They are normally considered "reef compatible", however.

 

[Dmorty217]

As they are algae eaters, if your supplied food is insufficient in this area, they may be trying to eat zooxanthellae for the algae equivalent. They are normally considered "reef compatible", however.

^This is also very important