Pods are destroying my zoas...

[MTBake]

The pods are picking off the brown growth on the zoas. That growth is most likely causing the demise of your zoanthids. I have never been able to eradicate it myself. Once a colony gets that growth, it usually dies on me.

 

[Tired]

Those are gammarid amphipods. They're opportunists. If a coral is sick or stressed, they'll go after it- I've had them devour zoa frags that had nothing wrong with them except that they had been left upside-down on the sand overnight and had gotten stressed. They'll stress zoa frags by crawling all over them, then decide it's a snack. I have healthy polyps go missing every now and then. Amphipods are usually just scavengers and detritivores, but, if there are a lot of them or if they're hungry, they can be a real problem. Or if a coral is stressed enough to get their attention.
The amphipods that are in basically every reef tank can breed at a fairly small size, but can actually get quite large. They normally don't due to being eaten. That, or they get large and aren't seen because they hide a lot. Look at your tank at night, with a red light, and you'll see loads.

OP, do NOT feed them more, they'll just breed more. Fish are your best option to get rid of them. If that's out of the question, higher flow, and putting the frags on a frag rack up on the glass, can help keep the frags away from what they like. Traps may be worth a try, but I haven't had any luck catching many. Manually removing things they like to hide in, shaking them out, and putting the things back can help. They like to hide in filter floss- leave a few pieces lying around, then remove it.

 

[Kershaw]

Like other have said pick a awesome wrasse, six line, malanarus, or any other that thinks shrimp and pods are delicious.

 

[wolfthefallen]

From what I an see in the video is there some brown algae they are eating off the frag. Due to the size and number it is probably irritating the coral and preventing it from opening thus the slow death.

honestly I am not sure what a Good answer is for you since it is an invert/coral QT tank. A reef safe wrasse would make quick work them. Honestly I would drop in a wrasse for a week let it thin out the population. Then drop it in again once the pod population is back up (If you have a DT house it in the mean time). Most people I know that have a frag tank also have a wrasse or mandarin in it to control the pod population. You could dry a banded shrimp, I know they like brissle worms, so I can imagine they would eat large pods too.

When it comes to the reef keeping hobby most of us look for fish by the job. Each fish, invert, snail has some job to complete in the eco system. Removing one can make life rough...

 

[elysics]

Dropping in a fish into an invert QT tank would prolong qt by quite a bit though, you can't just put the fish back into the DT after a week either without invalidating the entire point of the QT tank.

You could drop in a wrasse for a week, restart the qt timer for the inverts, and then put the wrasse in a third fish QT tank for the full 70 something days. Or pass it along to people who don't care about qt.

Gives you a nice excuse to go frag shopping too if you are going to restart the timer anyways

 

[Daniel@R2R]

There are many different species of amphipod, this must be a bad one. The reason other people say amphipods don't eat zoas must be that they have a different amphipod.

This is exactly what I'm thinking too. There are different types of amphipods.

 

[pocketreef]

I noticed also pods eating freshly made frags of zoas and different types of corals.

 

[Tankkeepers]

It depends alot on what type of pod they are as some are zoa and paly preditors naturally some when hungry enoff will turn predatory so there is a good chance they are in fact eating health zoas and palys heck there is even a pod that sucks the blood outta fish eventually killing them

 

[Tankkeepers]

As to killing them there are alot of small fish that will eat them but you will never be rid of all of them without throwing everything away and bleaching whats left

 

[Miller535]

I apologize if someone already said this. There are 1000s of kind of copeods, not even counting amphibious, and a host of other pods. They are not all good. Some pods are even cannibals. I'm not saying they are eating your zoas. But its possible. There are so many different kinds of pods, who knows.

 

[SaltISlife]

My amphipods eat ny zoas too. But they only eat new ones thst i introduce. Or certain ones.

Like i have large colonies of zoanthids. Like manderin oranges. Vampire in drags. Radioactive dragon eyes.rastas snd some others snd thry dont touch them.

But when i introduced HEALTHY and large frag of sunny delights and some other pinkish ones and 2 EXPENSIVE white zombies and some green goblins. They ate them overnight. I had to take them out and float them in a breeder container on the surface of my tank to recover. Once they recovered and opened back up and eveb grew new polyps i put them back down on my rocks.

And again overnight they got eaten.

Now suddenly they arent touching my sunny delights. But they have killed all my white zombies. I have 1 tiny pencile sized head of white zombie floating in my container. Im trying to ssve it. But its a battle between algae growing on it from being floated and away from everything and amphipods.

My amphipods also eat algae. They pick my rocks clean if everything. I cant griw cyano. Hair. Bryopsis any kind of diatom or powdery film algae. If i introduce a rock or frsg plug with algae on it. And put it on my rocks. I can watch the amphipods comes out at night and clean the algae off the frsg plug or rock.

Its quite interesting to see this. So on one hand. They are HUGGLY beneficial to me. But on the other hand it causes my snails seaurchins to go hungry my fish have no algae to eat other thsb what i feed them. And they est certain zoanthids even if theyre healthy.

But for some reason they dont touch my colonies of zoanthids. They only like the new zoanthids. Or zoanthids that only have 1-4 heads.

Its a pain because some of these zoanthids ive had for 4 months now and i cant get them to grow outside my floating container because if i bring then bsck down they get eaten. Ive only been able to get then to stop eating ny blue tubbs and sunny ds. After 6 months of putting then in my container and bsck on the rocks and container and back on the rocks. They finally arent touching them. It sucks because i had plans for one rock to be a like 7 zoa garden.. but now its got like 200 heads of manderin oranges and vampire in drags due to them being able to grow and only 6-7 heads of the other zoas due ti thrm constsntly veing put back n forth snd eaten.

Im just hoping i manage to save the white zombie.

 

[terraincognita]

Those look MUCH bigger and darker than my amphipods. These look like shrimp.
Mine are about 1/4 inch and clear. They don't bother the zoas. Is this a pest instead?

I apologize if someone already said this. There are 1000s of kind of copeods, not even counting amphibious, and a host of other pods. They are not all good. Some pods are even cannibals. I'm not saying they are eating your zoas. But its possible. There are so many different kinds of pods, who knows.

 

[Eldredge]

OK... "most" people have told me pods won't eat zoas... and maybe they're not.... but they're killing them nonetheless. They have literally taken refuge in my zoas, and they're either eating them or eating stuff off them, but either way, my zoas have barely opened in weeks. They'll open up briefly, but then I can watch the pods climb up on them, and they immediately close back up. This is a NO FISH quarantine frag tank... so my question is... are there an invertebrates that will eat pods?

I have an arrow crab that eats amphipods. I don't know if one would eat enough to solve your problem though...

 

[SaltISlife]

The issue is nothing eats pods at night time. Wrasses and other fish go in the sand or rock and sleep. And so yea. They eat em in the dsy IF they are out. But pods only come out at night

 

[living_tribunal]

OK... "most" people have told me pods won't eat zoas... and maybe they're not.... but they're killing them nonetheless. They have literally taken refuge in my zoas, and they're either eating them or eating stuff off them, but either way, my zoas have barely opened in weeks. They'll open up briefly, but then I can watch the pods climb up on them, and they immediately close back up. This is a NO FISH quarantine frag tank... so my question is... are there an invertebrates that will eat pods?

I’ve had amphipods completely demolish a couple of favias. Anyone who tells you it’s impossible hasn’t had a large population of them.

 

[Tired]

Circus gobies are nocturnal.

If you can get ahold of one, a Hasselt's goby will strip every worm and pod from your tank- those things are critter-destroying machines.

I guess the question is, are the pods going to kill the zoas before quarantine is over? If so, restarting QT with a fish in there to gobble them up is better than just not having any zoas.

 

[doughboy]

I had pods completely ate all my sps. It’s like a scene from a horror movie when I shined a flashlight at night, entire colonies were completely covered with crawling pods. This happened when my 6 line wrasse jumped and I did not replace it. The pod population exploded and just ate the corals. I have since added a 6 line and a melanurus wrasse and I have 0 pod for like 3+ years now with no problem.

there are still plenty of non believers, but if you google search, you will find other reefers that experienced this.

 

[clicfacil]

Hi Guys.... I have the same problem.... I fix it with a labrid... I HAVE A LOT OF PODS.... I CAN SEE SWINGING in my display.... Very Incredible... my friends can´t believe it. I hope it can help you.

 

[clicfacil]

There are many different species of amphipod, this must be a bad one. The reason other people say amphipods don't eat zoas must be that they have a different amphipod.

or because the pods don´t have a depredator

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

First of all, I'm sorry you are having this problem. Someone already mentioned using Interceptor. This medication (active ingredient milbemycin oxime) is used to treat heartworms in dogs, and requires a veterinary prescription. This is a completely different medication than praziquantel which treats tapeworms and other flukes. Google "interceptor amphipod" and you will find multiple articles that discuss it. .. both research journals and reef group posts. Melv's Reef has calculations but double check other sources as well, as Interceptor is also commonly used for red bugs so the dose might be different.

Your local fish store or reefers in your area might have some, but otherwise you will need to get it from a vet. Call and explain what you need it for and refer them to the studies; they shouldn't have a problem selling some to you (this stuff isn't meth or anything, but if given to a dog that already has heartworms, it can kill them, so vets require a heartworm test before selling/prescribing)

Edit: interceptor is likely to kill any other inverts in the tank, so you should plan on removing them prior to treatment.