Problem with polyps

[Joey89]

Hi there guys, sorry if this was posted in the wrong place.

I'm fairly new to this hobby and today i encountered something weird. I only have a small aquarium with 2 clown fish 1 goby 1 mandarin fish (i know it's a fusy fish, but so far so good) and a bluestreak cleaner wrasse (also fussy, but still handling it), i have a red shrimp,1 emerald crab, 3 red leg hermits, 1 turbo snail, and 1 bumble bee snail. I don't have many corals, only a small Kenya tree, few small zoas, some green and blue mushrooms also small, and 3 polyp rocks. never had problems with anything until this mornig when i woke up i realised 1 of the polyp rocks was nearly 100% harvested, no polyps on it anymore. Instantly i thought the hermits would of done it as when i first added them they liked to sleep on a different polyps stone, right on the heads. then after i done some fast googling i realised most people were talking about the emerald crab not being as reef safe as the lfs recommends him to be. took him and put it in a breeders container . im just wondering , am i doing the right thing taking him out, or the "suspect" could actually be someone else. and if so, i was wondering if anyone could tell me what crab would actully be reef safe so i wont have and ugly surprises like this mornimg.

 

[NAClFiSHy]

Sally Lightfoot

 

[Sk8r]

grows up to a foot in span and ultimately turns fish-eater.

Emerald is safer. I'd say pull your zoas and dip and observe them in qt for eggs. Nudi is most likely. Things travel on what they eat, and if you are treating the zoas, you should be able to nab a zoa predator lining up its next meal.

 

[C.Eymann]

grows up to a foot in span and ultimately turns fish-eater.

Emerald is safer. I'd say pull your zoas and dip and observe them in qt for eggs. Nudi is most likely. Things travel on what they eat, and if you are treating the zoas, you should be able to nab a zoa predator lining up its next meal.

+1 SLF crabs are not suitable reef citizens.

I agree that this maybe a zoa specific predator if the OP didn't witness them melting away or covered in goo like you would see with a bacterial infection.
My money is on nudi's or sundial snails.

 

[Joey89]

Well hence the i got the emerald crab out no other polyps dissapeared. Altough now i have even a bigger problem. the past 2 days none of my corals opened up. I took water samples to my LFS and told me my phosphades are high , really high. but the rest of the pm were grand. so i did a big water change and added some poweder in a small bag in my filter which as the guy from LFS said will help keep the phosphades low. problem is... still no change in the corals, none of them opened not even after the water change. its been 2 days since and was expecting maybe 1 to open up. the fish are doing fine altough my goby fish kinda throws himself at the sand every now and again making me thing theres something on his tail (but nothing i can see with naked eye). i had a red starfish i got from a friend which was closing up his tank ( the starfish seemed sick as he had 1 leg missing , i knew that he will die because of the lack of food,i took him out of the awuarium today, as there were only 2 legs left.) maybe that released some posion in the tank? i have a kenya tree which actually seems ok-ish, not full expanded but not shriveled as expected. I only have internal filter that came with the aquarium, i will be getting an external filter tomorrow ,im just hoping i wont loose the corals

 

[Keeponreefingg]

I have read bumble bee snails eat polyps if there is nothing else to eat (I was going to buy one last weak until I found this out) keep ur eye on them and make sure they ain't nipping at ur coral