Charlie Foxtrot involving Acans and Scribbled Rabbitfish

drainbamage

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I'll set the stage first-
My main reef is a 34 gallon, sumpless with pretty high flow (aprox 20+turnovers including koralia's), a tunze 9002, an eheim 2213 used as a carbon reactor with some zeolite (2 month old) as well. Tank is aprox 18 months of age. Basically stable with no major issues (at least in any sort of recent timeframe.) Tank is mixed reef with SPS's (red planet, green bird, hawkins echinata), LPS's (Acans, Micromussa's, Blastomussas, fungias, brains, euphyllias) and some softies (mushrooms, Z&P's.) Fish are a dwarf lion, a mandarin dragonette, tiny scopas, yellow coris, and scribbled rabbitfish.

I recently moved a bunch of frags into the tank, some from my growout, some from a recent purchasing spree, so used maybe a couple tubes of the 2 little fishies epoxy, plus a little bit from a different brand that I know is reef safe. At the same time, started redosing microbacter 7, but using the same measuring system as I do when pouring a glass of whiskey (1 onethousand, 2 onethousand, look at that pretty fishy.....three onethousand.) Now all the corals look great-Blastos are extended like huge, Zoa's are open and sparkling, Fungias are munching whatever food I offer them, hawkins echinata has nice PE, etc. But all the Acan's are shriveled up against their skeleton. Interestingly, I recently picked up some "mini Acans" which are shriveled, but my micromussa's are not. So basically only thing affected is just the Acans (mini's (don't know what they actually are, any help?) and Lords.)
So I mix up a water change, while at the same time I'm noticing the rabbitfish is picking at the Acans. I've never noticed him doing it before, but never really paid much attention to him. So water change was done last night, and today mid-afternoon I manage to catch the rabbit. Since then, a couple of the Acan Lords seem to be fleshing back out. I fed all the Acan's some caviar to help encourage them, and they all ate and so far so good.

But here's the question- Was the rabbit causing the deflation? Or was he just scavenging on the flesh as it was pressed against the skeleton? Was it the MB7 and the water change (a 50%) has fixed it?
I have the rabbit in a seperate tank in an isolation thing and I'm not sure if I should blame him and get rid of him, or put him back in. Catching him was a bit of extreme luck, so I'd rather get some thoughts before risking it again. Oh, and he's also quite small (maybe 1-1/2") and there's sufficient algae in the tank that he's not at risk of food.

Sorry for the novel-any thoughts/insights much appreciated
 
I had a scribbled rabbit that devoured four zoa colonies, five pricy acan frags, and a neon green Pocillopora in two days time... I'd keep an eye on the rabbit. Mine slept in the same upper corner of the tank every night, so I was able to grab it quite easily;).

Tangs can also be found munching on coral, though I've only personally experienced it with a purple tang eating Cespitularia like it was his job.
 
just curious...why a scribbled rabbitfish in a tank so small? the rabbit will likely consume all of the algae off the rockwork and go after corals. my scribbled rabbit loved zoas. it kept away from lps, but i'm sure they would try that if there wasn't enough algae present.
 
just curious...why a scribbled rabbitfish in a tank so small? the rabbit will likely consume all of the algae off the rockwork and go after corals. my scribbled rabbit loved zoas. it kept away from lps, but i'm sure they would try that if there wasn't enough algae present.


That's actually what I was aiming for-the scribbled consuming all the algae off the rockwork. Had a hair algae outbreak that's getting under control, and was looking for the rabbit to help clear out the hair algae before moving on to larger pastures (the scopas is a seconder, the first scopas got removed once he got about 2 inches or so.)
So definitly there was a pleantiful supply of algae, but seemingly amongst all the algae, LPS's, and Zoa's this guy had a taste for Acans. He's getting a trip back to the LFS it seems, meantime he's getting a timeout in the breeder net.
 

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