List of Zoa eating fishes

[Ciarán]

I have kept 100s of zoanthid colonies over the years....never seen it Mucho. Possible? Yep but I think they must taste nasty and/or have toxins.

Yeah, they are said to have a palytoxin (same as cowfish/boxfish/sea cucmbers etc) that makes tem undesirable to eat. I havent had any issues and i have kept them with a hippo tang in the past. I guess its on an individual by individual basis, some do some dont. I would put it past any species of hungry shrimp. My obese cleaner shrimp takes picks at them and irritates them (and me) closing their polyps in response. No probs with my current fish though.

 

[bckey]

I have a one spot foxface that eats zoas and picks on some of my other corals. I am going to net him and take him in to my lrs. He is a real terror.

 

[cyclops23]

thanks a lot guys. i'm trying to get some hard to get zoas, and after reading this, i'm going to be paranoid about my tomini tang eating them. just kidding, this is pretty cool, at least i have a heads up to watch him.

 

[mecold]

My yellow tang almost ate an entire colony of zoas. I do believe it was only eating the unhealthy polyps though. The colony was a new colony, and it was eating polyps that had no opened in well over a week. Other than that, I haven't seen it eat or even nip at any of my other zoas.

 

[taterman]

I recently added some frags and my hippo tang (Gomez) was pecking at them non stop. I tried to catch him to put in my QT for a time out, but when I had him trapped he finned me. My finger swelled to more than twice the normal size. After almost a solid week of this he has not touched them in the last two days. I guess he may have been eating dead and dying polyps, but I also saw a healthy one in his mouth. Anyway I hope this phase is over.