My polyps are being eaten up

[STUEYHAWKINS]

Hey everyone

Just a quick question in the recent months I have tried to add a couple of frags purple polyps and neon green polyps and the never seem to do well and eventually disappear.. I think they are being eaten maybe by aphid type bugs... Kind of looking like very small shrimp

I have noticed that their population in the tank have grow. pretty large and wondering if this is the problem... All my other corals seem ok only the polyps seem to be effected.. Any types of live stock fish or invertebretes that feed off these pesky things ?

Please let me know if you have any ideas

Stu

 

[Salty Cracker]

Hey do they look like this?

 

[chrisstevens]

if so they are harmless

 

[spyd]

A Mandarin or various types of Wrasses will eat pods. I highly doubt they would cause any issues though for you. Now, if you have Zoa eating Nudibranches, that's a completely different story. They will morph their colours to blend right into the Zoos that they are munching on. Zoas can be tricky sometimes to keep alive. I only have luck with certain kinds, others just melt away.

 

[reeffreak]

I'm going to go out a limb and say this has nothing to do with any critters munching them up
,  like spud mentioned some times they just melter away. I find that unless it's a bigger colony it's hard to keep 1 or 2 polyps alive compairwd to 100 in a colony.

 

[unibob]

When in doubt with zoas, dip them in either freshwater of same temp for 5-10 min. I have sprayed zoa colonies with a sink hose before and seen critters just a flying out. Or if you have some dip for corals, make up some and put them in there for whatever time the bottle says. Zoas are critter filled.

 

[Salty Cracker]

The critters I have caught eating zoas have been: emerald crabs, some hermits and a pistol shrimp that would blast them off the rock then drag them back to a hidey hole.  Pods don't eat zoas.

I think there are a lot of zoa predators out there though.  A coral dip is a good way of preventing most of them.  It's a pain but a worthwhile step.