Hi all, is this an amphipods eating my zoa? I just picked up 5 new frags and I’m really nervous because I don’t have anything hunting these amphipods. Also, if I get a wrasse it will be minimum 14 days before I can get it in the tank (QT process). Any thoughts?
Amphipod eating my zoa?
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BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
Amphipods won’t eat corals. They will eat all the gunk around them. It’s hard for me to tell if it is, in fact, an amphipod.
Still.... get a Wrasse.... they’re the greatest!
Still.... get a Wrasse.... they’re the greatest!
BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
Six-line
BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
Well... my experience is that’s not the case. Many, many, many will tell you otherwise but I’ve had my six-line for over a year. He was the first fish in the tank. Early on, he was nearly killed by a diadem dottyback. He’s never even looked at another fish. Never. He hunts all day, oblivious to everything around him. I think they get a bad wrap. They’re pretty and active and fun to watch.
Foothill Corals
Active Member
Amphipods absolutely will eat zoas in some cases.
I started a new tank recently and had this happen. This tank was cycled but had no fish for the first four months or so. In that time the amphipod population exploded thousands of them covered the rocks 24/7, they were eating the algae on the rocks. When the algae went away I started to add zoas and some would disappear over a few days. One day on a weekend I watched a hand full of them eat my last Rasta polyp over the course of a day and I was in disbelieve. I added some wrasses that quickly brought down the number of amphipods and I started putting food in the tank for the first time since I now had fish to feed and the problem went away. I lost three zoas frags before I figured this out.
In this case I had thousands of pods that suddenly ran out of there food source (the new tank algae went away) and they turned to the zoas. They like the Rastas (2 seperate frags) and my Bob Marleys and left my 8 other frags alone.
I started a new tank recently and had this happen. This tank was cycled but had no fish for the first four months or so. In that time the amphipod population exploded thousands of them covered the rocks 24/7, they were eating the algae on the rocks. When the algae went away I started to add zoas and some would disappear over a few days. One day on a weekend I watched a hand full of them eat my last Rasta polyp over the course of a day and I was in disbelieve. I added some wrasses that quickly brought down the number of amphipods and I started putting food in the tank for the first time since I now had fish to feed and the problem went away. I lost three zoas frags before I figured this out.
In this case I had thousands of pods that suddenly ran out of there food source (the new tank algae went away) and they turned to the zoas. They like the Rastas (2 seperate frags) and my Bob Marleys and left my 8 other frags alone.
BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
Yea... they have to eat something but corals are not their meal of choice as far as I know. Sorry you lost your zoas.
PicassoDan
Active Member
To answer your question, amphipods will absolutely eat corals in certain situations; if there's not much in your tank, and they are starving off, for example. I've witnessed them eating healthy zoas, and acans. I did experiments moving the corals off the sandbed and up onto an upside down glass that they couldn't climb, and saw immediate improvement. I waited a week and moved the frags back down to the sandbed, and saw the amphipods back at it the next night. They would typically be munching right at the edge of the coral tissue, and most actively at night.
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