Tang eating coral?

[coralbeauties]

i have been experiencing the tips of my sps coral being eaten on lately. I have never caught anyone in the act but I blamed my flame angel. The flame got the boot and today, 5 days after the angel being removed I see fresh damage to 3 corals. I have a powder blue, yellow, sail fin tangs. My other fish include a yellow wrasse, anthias, copperband and clowns. Other then a long spines urchin, I am unsure which might be the culprit. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Jeff

 

[Jacked Reefer]

Copper and butterflies have been caught eating corals in some tank. That would be my first geuss. What species is the yellow wrasse?

 

[DSC reef]

Don't count out that sailfin tang, I've seen them go nuts on coral before.

 

[Reab]

I would suspect the copperband but the best way to tell would be to set up a camera. A cheap solution is to have a computer webcam pointed at the tank set to record.

 

[coralbeauties]

The wrasse is a coris. The bite marks are pretty extensive with whole chunks missing. I was almost positive it was the angel since it started maybe a month after adding that fish. All my other fish have been in the tank for years. The tanks are probably almost 6 in long
Thanks
Jeff

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

What types of coral? I would suspect one of the tangs before the Butterfly, CBB mouths are really not designed to eat coral and coral do happen to be full of symbiotic algae and of course tangs love algae.

Urchin is also a very real possibility.

 

[BestMomEver]

I had a Rabbitfish fish go munching on some acans and other lps. He’s never gone after my SPS but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. They’ll eat whatever they stumble upon.

 

[coralbeauties]

Sps corals.

 

[nereefpat]

It's possible that, instead of eating the coral, the big tangs are running into it and breaking it.

 

[coralbeauties]

It's possible that, instead of eating the coral, the big tangs are running into it and breaking it.

The corals are being eaten on even at the base. My Disney was really munched on at its base. I guess worst case I can catch one fish at a time and move them into my frag system and see where the damage occurs.
Thanks
Jeff

 

[nereefpat]

Ah, I see. Bummer.

 

[jda]

You mean like this:

 

[jda]

When I had my larger FOWLR set up, it was full of tangs that ate coral... yellows, purples, sailfin, a few blacks (dude got the pair and they started to eat his acans within a week (back when acans were like $100 a head)), etc. Any tang can be a coral muncher.

 

[Jesterrace]

As mentioned I would film your tank. Doesn't make much sense to just start getting rid of fish when you don't know who the culprit is. My money is on the Copperband or one of the Tangs though.

 

[coralbeauties]

I don’t have a camera to set up. If I see more damage today I will trap my desjardini tang and move him to my 100 gallon frag runway and see what happens for several days. That fish is the biggest pig at eating time that I have so I suspect him first.
Thanks
Jeff

 

[rmiles54]

I have recently added a purple tang to my 180 and he is nipping all of my acans. Removing visible chunks. I’m trying to overfeed nori. He’ll graze the nori, then the rocks and sand and doesn’t forget to stop by every acan he passes for a bite. This guys like 2.5 inches and never stops eating!

 

[rmiles54]

I’m curious to know if anyone has any ideas on how to get the fangs to stop nipping coral? Possibly remove, dip, reintroduce? Hoping for a flavor change. Lol

 

[Mical]

Had a powder brown that took a bit out of almost everything. Literally killed a torch and a duncan. Now he's a model citizen in someone else's tank