Something eating my Montipora/acropora.

[Jacob1]

Something eating my Montipora/acropora.
I had an arcopora frag that showed signs of something eating it. It had two small areas (1/8 inch by 5/8) that looked liike something had eaten the tissue completely off in these areas. There was no sign of sickness or RTN on the coral I thought that it might be my mithrix crab and have been keeping an eye on him and have never seen any evidence of guilt.

I moved the acropora frag and it is healing up. However the purple montipora I moved it next to now is displaying localized tissue loss. It is happening slowly and their is no sign of disease in the surrounding tissues. This guy is getting 400W of MH and was growing fast but its growth has waned. The Green Digitata and orange cap both about 12" from the Purple are not having problems. TI removed the frag from the water and carefully examined it and I could not find any preditors on the coral.

I have never seen the mithrax crab even near this rock. I don't deny that he is a prime suspect but I don't know how he could do the damage to the monti (3inch long by 1/4 wide strip on the back of the coral. Along with a couple of very small scrapes.)without me seeing him. Also due to the size and shape of the bare area I suspect a snail, nudi or polychete.

But I definitely may be wrong

There is a Tricolor arco and A. Yongi within 6 inches that both show not signs of predation.

Anyone care to venture a guess as to what is eating my coral?

Regards
Jake


By the way
My ALK is about 3.0 and my calcium is ~475
PH 8.2
No major additions except for Nassarius snails from E tropicals.

 

[Jacob1]

Fairy wrasse and Yellow Tang are the only fish and the problem origionated with the acro before this showed up.

I have suspected that there might be a small stone crab int he tank but I cannot for the life of me find evidince of any since my rock cured. I caught one when my rock was curing.

I might bring the monti to the meet saturday if you would like to look at the tissue loss pattern. It is really odd

Regards

Jake

 

[Greg Hiller]

Jake,

Any fish that might be questionable? Any chance you have a big ugly crab that came in on your live rock that might be coming out at night? I've seen tissue loss occasionally in Acropora that I could not explain, but the fact that you're seeing it in a M. digitata is cause for concern.

- Greg Hiller

 

[Jacob1]

I think I may have found the culprit. I saw my "Nassarius" snails from etropical all around the base of the coral. But it couldn't be them right? Well turns out Etropicals has been selling a poorly identified preditor as Nassarius snails. Good news is THey are offering to replace the snails at their cost. When I looked this morning there were a couple on my squamosa shell. He detached last week from the rock he was on but other wise looked healthy. Man I hope I get these imposters out before they do any more damage.


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