Sixline Wrasse eating Birdsnest Coral? Or something else?

[TangGood]

Hi guys! New to the forum, but not reef keeping. I'm dealing with a bit of a sudden problem and I'm hoping you guys can help me out. A couple days ago I bought a very healthy and sizable frag of Birdsnest coral from my LFS. The first day it looked great; awesome color, nice polyp extension etc etc. Yesterday I reaquascaped my tank because I had some fighting going on between some established tankmates and some newbies. Of course I kicked a bunch of crud up, and I did a small water change to accommodate (5 gallons because that's all I had at the time). So naturally the coral became agitated and closed up. Today it's looking about the same (irritated, closed up, less color), so I decided to take a closer look. What I saw is very displeasing to me. Around the bases of some of the stocks are bleached and it appears some critter has taken chunks out of the coral tissue itself. I've noticed my sixline wrasse has been nipping at it rather heavily, but I didn't think much of it until now. I took some pictures and circled the effected areas. I'm hoping the pictures can shed some light on the problem, and help figure out if it is indeed my wrasse or something else I am unaware of.

On a side note, today I found my heater slightly dislodged from it's outlet thanks to my fiddling of the tank yesterday, and thus my tank is about 8° degrees lower than normal. If the coral is reacting negatively to that it's understandable, but very irritating because it's completely my fault that I didn't take notice sooner.

Anyway the coral seems healthy enough that I could reverse the situation, but I'd rather figure out the problem sooner rather than later. Thanks!

 

[TangGood]

How come the only picture I can upload is the worst of the three? :facepalm: The other two tell me they failed to upload, even after multiple attempts...

 

[heathlindner25]

You got alot of unstablity going on , I wouldn't blame the 6 line.

 

[CindyK]

Is it typical for a wrasse of any variety to damage SPS? Never heard of one eating coral...maybe it damaged the birdsnest going after pests?

 

[TangGood]

Well I've heard some rare instances of other people's sixline eating the polyps of coral, and it also seems to mostly be Birdsnest in those cases. Thus my reason for suspicion. However, given what heathlindner said about my instability given I reaquascaped and stirred up gunk, and my heater became unplugged and the tank cooled during the night and half of today, it seems to also be a logical explanation given the sensitivities of most SPS coral. However, my sixline may not be helping the situation given its still foraging on and around the coral... I can't tell if it's damaging the coral or not when it nips, but it definitely has most interest in the bleached spots it seems.

I'm just hoping I can reverse the situation and save it because this Birdsnest was a beauty. Now it's looking rather... iffy. Any recommendations guys?

Also, can you see the pictures lol? I can see the one I posted, but it's not very good. The two I'm trying to upload don'the want to cooperate for me.

 

[AwesomeDavid]

Perhaps a pest has eaten your bird's nest and your sixline is eating the pests.

 

[CrayolaViolence]

+1 with AwesomeDavid. I'm not a six line fan but I'm willing to bet this is more likely scenario.

 

[JWClark]

Perhaps a pest has eaten your bird's nest and your sixline is eating the pests.

That would be my first thought. I'd be doing a dip to see what falls off. Sounds kind of like acro eating flatworm to me but don't know if they'd go for a Seriatopora.

 

[TangGood]

Thanks for all the responses guys! As an update, I am no longer blaming the wrasse. The night I posted this thread I noticed some of my other corals were starting to look on the iffy side of things, mainly my green Hydnophora coral and Frogspawn. My Hydnophora has always been a very hardy SPS for me so I'm suprised its not doing so well suddenly. So I'm thinking it had something to do with water quality from stirring up the gunk, and the accidental temperature fluctuation.

My Birdsnest as of yesterday is starting to look better though. It's color is coming back, and it has some nice polyp extension at all times once again.

However, I am kinda curious about dipping for pests just in case as it is a new coral, and those bleached spots look rather interesting to me. I can't decide if one spot the coral just grew kinda funny, or if something was munching on it, so dipping would probably be a good idea. I've never dipped corals before (I only have a small handful of corals) so what do you guys recommend for this process?

 

[ryeguyy84]

I use coralRx, grab a bucket add tank water and dilute the coralrx to the instructions on the label. put the coral in, swish around wait (label instructions) and add to tank.

at this point if it is a pest it's probably headed toward other corals.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...UpHrkQXfzRnCHA_K7QT51g&bvm=bv.151426398,d.eWE

 

[FishN00b83]

I would recommend always dipping and QTing coral. I had a six line for a long time and she would hunt for pods ALL day. She would just be swimming in and out of the corals and rocks eating every pod in site. I would say it's eating a pod/bug of some kind.

 

[anbosu]

I would recommend dipping your corals, but I would give them some time to recover from all of the stuff that just happened before you do it. If you dip them now they might die.