What keeps eating my corals??

[NedFlounders]

Livestock in tank:
Yellow tang
2 lyre tail anthias
1 bartletts anthias
Starry Blenny
2 clown fish
1 skunk cleaner shrimp
Assortment of nassarius and trochus snails

I had a bubble coral destroyed recently and attributed it to a peppermint shrimp. After the peppermint shrimp was removed my torch coral came under attack. At this point I thought it was all my hermit crabs so I relocated all of them to the sump (maybe I missed some??). Now tonight I see my elegance coral has been attacked!

The only explanation I can come up with is the food that I feed the fish is clinging to the elegance and/or torch coral and the fish are nipping at the coral to get the food. Anyone experience this??

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Eunice worm? aka Bobbit worm.

 

[heathlindner25]

Just looks like they're dying to me not being eaten, I have an extremely hard time with torch

 

[heathlindner25]

Eunice worm? aka Bobbit worm.

Ambush predator

 

[jason2459]

Could be many things from lacking or excessive elements or parameter of some kind, predators, parasites, bacteria, or virus.

 

[Dogshowgrl]

Nothing. Your coral is not an easy one. Elegance corals that do well in aquariums are out there, but not common. It seems to be dying. Sorry.

 

[NedFlounders]

Nothing. Your coral is not an easy one. Elegance corals that do well in aquariums are out there, but not common. It seems to be dying. Sorry.

Normally I would agree but this is what it looked like this afternoon:

 

[ca1ore]

Doesn't matter. Elegance corals are highly susceptible to tissue loss and can look fine even as parts are receding. As parts die, it is not unusual for fish to pick at those spots, exacerbating the problem.

 

[Garridactull]

I just read an article today about yellow tangs and it suggested that if a yellow tang is under fed or has lack of a grazing area they can nip at coral mostly LPS.. Try feeding your tang some lettuce or algae once a day. Just a thought


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[JWClark]

I had a powder blue in a 125 that started nipping at softies and a Duncan. Took me a while to figure out was going on. I increased access to algae but he never stopped. Had to take him out and sell him. All the corals recovered once I removed him. I attributed it to the tank being too small for him--125 is a minimum for a powder blue, despite some websites listing to the contrary.

 

[NedFlounders]

I just read an article today about yellow tangs and it suggested that if a yellow tang is under fed or has lack of a grazing area they can nip at coral mostly LPS.. Try feeding your tang some lettuce or algae once a day. Just a thought

Definitely good advice, though I already give him veggies 3x a day :|

If he is the culprit, I may have to just dedicate some time and literally sit in front of the tank to try and catch him in the act...

Or maybe use one of those nori cages/nets that keeps a lot more in the tank at a time? There is no visible algae in the tank for him to graze on. Could that be the problem??

 

[NedFlounders]

Update...it's my starry Blenny

https://youtu.be/8C5M5q7wxb4

This is the first time I've seen him act abnormally :/

 

[Bent]

I don't think he was the original culprit. I think hes just eating the dead tissue and whatever has settled into the skeleton.

How long have you had the corals in question? Have you introduced anything new recently?

Edit:
looking at your good pic, I don't think it looks very healthy. It looks pretty bleached unless that's just the lighting.

 

[NedFlounders]

That's just the lighting. It's a new coral, added 2 weeks ago. I added a black torch at the same time. The black torch is wide open and swaying in the current too.The rest of the elegance seems happy and is wide open. Maybe it was just because some pellet food had collected in and around it? And the fish were just trying to get the pellets??

 

[heathlindner25]

That's just the lighting. It's a new coral, added 2 weeks ago. I added a black torch at the same time. The black torch is wide open and swaying in the current too.The rest of the elegance seems happy and is wide open. Maybe it was just because some pellet food had collected in and around it? And the fish were just trying to get the pellets??

Black torch...? Can I see a picture? Never seen one

 

[NedFlounders]

Here's a video after I put it in the tank. You can also see the white torch that was nipped in front of it.

https://youtu.be/Ls5uUC-OX80

 

[kgeig001]

Torches shouldn't be white...sounds like it was bleached or already bleached when you got it.

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[NedFlounders]

Torches shouldn't be white...sounds like it was bleached or already bleached when you got it.

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It's just the lighting, I know it's not actually 'white' and definitely not bleached. In person, it's more yellow than anything. :thumbsup:

 

[Garridactull]

Those two corals look like are pretty close to each other.. They might sting each other and cause die off. Feeder arms can reach 4-6 inches. Also i have had bi color blennies nip at sps so it had to go. I didn't have any lps at the time so no real experience with blennies and lps. So i dont trust them anymore. There are lots of other fish for algae control or reef environments


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