Can Nipping Fish Cause STN/RTN?

aarbutina · Dec 29, 2020

Like the thread title says... what are your thoughts on a nipping fish causing STN/RTN?

The backstory: A few weeks ago I added a Filefish to try to get the aiptasia in my tank under control. I knew it was a gamble to begin with. Long story short it appears he hates to eat aiptaisa but loves to nip at all of my Acros. Super. Now I need to trap it and get it out.

i know he is a nipper I have seen him do it. All of my tenius have been closed up since he was introduced into the tank.

i have also lost several other non tenius frags during this time. And I am scratching my head at the cause. Add to that, that I am losing frags one at a time and not all at one. First it was an unnamed smooth skin acro, then it moved to my piece of full spectrum, now my piece of what I think is WWC After party is going. The way it is moving from coral to coral makes me think it is that the corals are getting picked in and not a chemistry thing but... we all know that chemistry could also be the issue even if it is one at a time.

I never actually saw the filefish pick in any of the piece that I have lost. I am just puzzled by the situation.

jda · Dec 29, 2020

It depends. Larger corals can absorb this damage and usually keep on keepin' on. Smaller corals and frags can suffer but suffering depends on the damage done. It is usually a slow death, IME, if a fish is going to pick a coral to death.

drawman · Dec 29, 2020

aarbutina said:
Like the thread title says... what are your thoughts on a nipping fish causing STN/RTN?

The backstory: A few weeks ago I added a Filefish to try to get the aiptasia in my tank under control. I knew it was a gamble to begin with. Long story short it appears he hates to eat aiptaisa but loves to nip at all of my Acros. Super. Now I need to trap it and get it out.

i know he is a nipper I have seen him do it. All of my tenius have been closed up since he was introduced into the tank.

i have also lost several other non tenius frags during this time. And I am scratching my head at the cause. Add to that, that I am losing frags one at a time and not all at one. First it was an unnamed smooth skin acro, then it moved to my piece of full spectrum, now my piece of what I think is WWC After party is going. The way it is moving from coral to coral makes me think it is that the corals are getting picked in and not a chemistry thing but... we all know that chemistry could also be the issue even if it is one at a time.

I never actually saw the filefish pick in any of the piece that I have lost. I am just puzzled by the situation.

jda said:
It depends. Larger corals can absorb this damage and usually keep on keepin' on. Smaller corals and frags can suffer but suffering depends on the damage done. It is usually a slow death, IME, if a fish is going to pick a coral to death.

I had the same fish take out all euphyllia I placed in my tank. I can't say for sure that she was the cause of some acro decline but I think she helped out. They may not seem overly aggressive but their nipping can add up (as jda said especially if it's not well dispersed over a bigger tank with larger colonies).