Zoas Being Eaten...I Think

[Jacuzzi]

Ok so my tank is a 40 breeder and I have had a coral beauty and a lawnmower blenny for around two years. It has about 35 lbs of live rock and alot of corals mostly zoas/palys, leathers and hammers. So My issue is that certain colonies of zoas are slowly being depleted. At first I was suspect of my coral beauty but have never seen him really nip at zoas consistently, I have done a lights out test. I found a few asterina stars on them and have been removing them ever since but am still unsure if they are the culprit. The main colony I am concerned about I even dipped and nothing fell off but one star.
So now I go back to the coral beauty and watch him very close yesterday and I def saw him nip the toadstool a couple times which annoy it but I dont see any real damage being done. He also nips around very close to the zoas but I just cannot tell if he is eating the zoas or whats in between. The zoas that I see are damaged have missing skirts, close up and never come back. Anyone have any advice on how I can find my zoa eater?

 

[BongoSolo3]

I'm actually have a similar issue and can't figure it out. I too have a Coral Beauty that I've never seen nip, but who knows - there are about 23.5 hours/day when I'm not looking at the tank....

 

[zmckenzie]

Do you see any of these around be base of your zoas. The pictures make them look big but this was under a microscope. They are very small. You will need a tweezers to pull them off if you have them.

 

[Alysiak00]

zoanthid eating nudibranchs

 

[Jacuzzi]

No nudis that I have ever seen and I dipped 90% of the corals in the tank. I am going to do another lights out test and see what I find. Whatever it is has already cost me around 100 dollars in zoas. Am I ok at assuming it could never be the blenny? And what about the asterina stars, has anyone ever had problems with them eating corals?

 

[Nanz]

Zoanthid Pox...

Do you see any white spots on them? DO they look like this Zoa?

They will soon melt all your Zoas away. You can try the Furan 2 dip but I had no success with it and lost all my colonies over the past 6 months.

 

[reggiepe]

Asterinas will eat your polyps. I have picked them off of my colonies many times. I am making this statement in the broadest of spectrums as I am betting that ALL Asterinas are not guilty of this practice. I have had Asterinas for years and it seems that there are a high percentage that never go near the colonies....but the guilty ones can and will do some damage.

 

[Jacuzzi]

The zoa pox may be to blame but what confused me is that the skirts go missing like they were nipped and eaten. Although from that pic mine do look similar