Polyps being eaten...

[llama72]

I had a colony of orange/brown polyps that started to disappear. When I would get up each morning, the copepods (looks like little shrimp) would be all over the polyps. When I turned the light on, they would swin off.

I thought there must be something wrong with the polyp colony so I just wrote that off for experience. Now, I have a huge colony of yellow polyps, that are dissappearing. Same situation. The little shirmp creatures are on the polyps when i turn the lights on each morning. I have probably lost over 100 polyps already.

PLEASE HELP!!!!! Any suggestions????

 

[taillonjohn]

my money is on your shrimp is eating them.

 

[Randall_James]

The polyps are likely dying and the little guys are feeding off the naturally occurring algaes that are forming or eating the decaying matter.

Get a magnifying glass and look very closely for Nudibranchs. They can be pretty hard to see. They are a common malady and can wreak havoc on a colony.

Freshwater and iodine dips (I have used flatworm exit on them too) seem to all have pretty good effect on the monsters. (not done in tank)

If you do not see any other predators, you might try increasing the light level to the colony and see if that has an effect. I have had some that just never really did well until I bumped the light level up.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

you may have to do some late night flashlight checks to determine if it is predation or disease/dying

I've seen the plague of white fleas clean house on dying sponges/gorgs on fresh LR. they only ate the dead stuff.

look for a sundial snail also along with the nudis, possible badboy hitcher crab, your shrimp as mentioned, or even something weird but around, like those crazy sandworms from dune with the 4 fangs that eat everything