Dang amphipods eating my frags!!!

[1Snapple]

For the 3rd time I've seen, personally, with my own eyes, these little P.O.S's eating my FRAGS!!!! not the colony, just the frags.
They just ate my Meteor Shower Paly from Zoanthids.com (brightest orange skirt I've ever seen!) They ate a sweet dark red Unnamed zoo, and now a 2 polyp frag of my blue hornets!!! DANG LITTLE BUGS

So, to get most of them dead, Not feeding the tank for a week, the wrasse and the trigger should be able t clean them up so they aren't eating my z's and p's

 

[Neon Reef]

sad part is that most of them hide in the rocks during the day and only venture out at night when they know predators are asleep. hope you get those little suckers though.

 

[-Logzor]

Why not just nuke the tank with interceptor? Shouldn't that kill them?

 

[H2O]

Dude you got it all wrong pods don't eat healthy coral if your frags died or were just about to be dead then they just clean what's left on the rock .
Check your test kits and test the water this is your problem not the pods

 

[miyags]

+1 interceptor!!!. look in forum, for write up on how to use it. It worked for me.

 

[1Snapple]

Dude you got it all wrong pods don't eat healthy coral if your frags died or were just about to be dead then they just clean what's left on the rock .
Check your test kits and test the water this is your problem not the pods

My problem? the Frag WAS OPEN AND HAPPY 1 HOUR AFTER FRAGGING!
Put em in the rack, next morning a a small chunk of polyp was gone! and they refused to open from that point on. Not my fault amphipods are Mules.

 

[A. grandis]

LOL, amphipods are not Mules. :bigsmile: [the faces in this forum are SO FUNNY!!!]

There has been other reports in the past saying that some amphipods eat their very live polyps!
Some people said also that in their tanks only the " skirts" of the polyps were eaten by amphipods.
Others reported the amphipods in their tanks were eating only damaged or dead polyps.

It is hard to really know if those people were correct in their identification. They said the animals were amphipods.

There are many types of amphipods: herbivores, carnivores, omnivores...
Many times the carnivores are omnivores too.
Carnivores are most times bigger and normally white, cream or beige in color. Those are the ones that eat soft corals and zoanthids.
The herbivores eat strictly algae, so they are the good guys! They are most of the time greenish, brownish, clear, beige and reddish in color.
Those colors are not rules!!!
Sand hoppers are an example of amphipod also. The are most of the time carnivores/ scavenger animals and they come in many colors. Many times they look like the sand (substrata) of their habitats.

Yes, to eradicate them is basically impossible because they are most of the time nocturnal animals and they do hide very well.

The use of chemicals could affect other invertebrates as well. It is better to avoid any type of chemical control for invertebrates in marine closed systems because that could affect the chemical balance of the system for a while and even the fishes could have some side effects.
Many times we connect the problem to the water params or to a lack of an additive, when actually the problem is " the additive" we used to kill something in the past...

The only way to be free of the trouble (amphipods) would be to avoid introducing them in the system!!
But they do come with the live rocks, so...
To prevent the problem would be good to dip all new frags/colonies in Lugo's solution + water, avoiding the introduction of such organisms.

I still don't know any way to deal with the problem 100% successfully because normally when there is one amphipod there are many more throughout the whole system. Fishes are not going to eat all of them in a short period of time.
To have wrasses is for sure the best bet for us and eventually the wrasses will take care of them, but only bringing them down in numbers. I've heard Mandarins are good too. I don't know if the Mandarins would really eat the larger amphipods though. Small basslets do a great job!
They will be in the sump and where the fishes can't get them, so having a fish for a small period of time to take care of the problem is not not the way to go either. Keep those fishes in the system for good!

Isopods are also crustaceans, like amphipods, but they look different than amphipods.
They have flat bodies. The amphipods have their sides compressed.
Isopods are mostly parasitic, scavenger animals or combination of both.
When they are found in our tanks they normally are parasites of fishes.
I don't know if isopods could eat healthy zoanthids.

Good luck!

Grandis.

 

[buddythelion]

I think it's rather impossible to not have amphipods in your system... They're kind of like a package along with bristleworms. But I feel you. I've SEEN amphipods crawling around my tank at night once chowing down on one of my zoas... It's only the big ones that get down to mowing. And yes, thye tend to go for slightly stressed frags. Same thing go for sexy shrimps though. I think of amphipods as the sexy shrimps of the night in terms of coral eating.

 

[niftyjosh]

Interceptor your tank and don't introduce any new pods if you don't want any lol.

 

[Salty Dog]

Dude you got it all wrong pods don't eat healthy coral if your frags died or were just about to be dead then they just clean what's left on the rock .
Check your test kits and test the water this is your problem not the pods

I agree totally

 

[A. grandis]

Well, it could be that you never saw an amphipod eating a healthy polyp...
Some people say the actually saw amphipods eating the healthy polyps.

I do believe that a carnivore amphipod could attack a healthy zoa if it's hungry.

Sand hoppers will attack your feet at night!

Grandis.

 

[buddythelion]

Well, it could be that you never saw an amphipod eating a healthy polyp...
Some people say the actually saw amphipods eating the healthy polyps.

I do believe that a carnivore amphipod could attack a healthy zoa if it's hungry.

Sand hoppers will attack your feet at night!

Grandis.

Really? o.o

 

[blurry]

I've had similiar suspicions and treated the tank with interceptor. miraculously all the problems go away...

 

[redemer123]

I think it's rather impossible to not have amphipods in your system... They're kind of like a package along with bristleworms. But I feel you. I've SEEN amphipods crawling around my tank at night once chowing down on one of my zoas... It's only the big ones that get down to mowing. And yes, thye tend to go for slightly stressed frags. Same thing go for sexy shrimps though. I think of amphipods as the sexy shrimps of the night in terms of coral eating.

Id say its pretty hard to not have pods in your tank but as for bristles thats not impossible, I've never had an undesirable in my tank because I started with dry rock and closely examined/qt'd/dipped everything I added. I've never seen a pod eat my coral and I fail to see how they are/could be the problem. Pods are something one wants in their tank they are good.

 

[A. grandis]

Please don't forget that if you would like to treat the whole tank with Interceptor you would need to remove any crab or shrimp you want to keep.
All the good crustaceans will die if you don't remove them.:sad:

Grandis.