zoa eating copepod claims
 

ok.........I have never believed the claims of this I have heard.

I just always assumed people were blaiming them much in the same way that people blame bristleworms for doing nothing more than their job of cleaning up.

I have this one colony that I swear they ARE indeed eating and kjilling. Ive been watching it for months....im unfortunately experienced with all pests and have been doing the standard observation and puling out to dip and inspect for the usual.....have found nothing...but these dang monster sized copepods are constantly chipping away at said colony....

Im thinking of dosing entire system with interceptor just to stunt them some. I know it wont erradicate these things and they will return, but killing 95% of them is ok at this point.

thoughts???

I've erradicated 90% of the large ampipods that destroyed tons of my nicer zoos/palys. I had a bunch of wrasses in my 100gal large and small.. but after trading and selling my 2 lineatus, 1 mystery, and 2 other clown and carpenter deaths... My predators have lessened so now I need more predators since the pods are growing again and they just took down a RPE frag.

ya know.....DUH. :rolleyes:

I didnt even think about that. I lost my 6 line this summer. Never had the problem with him

I found some yellow pods on my PPE and a couple other palys a couple of days ago. Should I be worried?

if they start closing up more than usuall and start looking irritated, start watching them.

I lost multiple zoas (especially the green and red people eaters) to large pods. Ever since I got my six line wrasse, I haven't had this problem...

Nice to know Durwin, just lost most of my RPE's to stupid large ampipods, I moved them up to a frag tray up in the walls of the tank, the frag is now recovering without being bothered.

incidentally.......the colony in question that they are bothering in my tank is rpe's as well

i just ordered a couple of yellow coris..hoepfully they will help(2 tanks)

I'm inclined to believe that it's a specific type of copepod that is the culprit. For a long time I didn't believe it, but with close observation, think is was very early this year or late last year, that I saw it with my own eyes. The colony was sick, dead or dying, it was perfectly healthy. I have but one wrasse in my tank and I still see tones of copes run for cover when my actinics come on. I haven't seen any signs of pod damage or consumption since early this year. Don't know why, can't explain why, yet as with everything else we deal with in reefing, there's a reason.

just my 2 cents.


Mucho Reef

Just as an advice, any frag that comes under attack can be place in frag racks away from the main rocks. Ampipods don't want to really stray away from the main rocks and sandbed in fear of being taken out. I've saved a bunch of frags that were being taken out by ampipods. I've recently done that to my RPE frag and its slowly recovering.

I totally agree with Charles and use the same practice. Any new frags that I get through the mail are immediately placed on the frag rack to avoid attack while they are recovering from any stress from shipping. In addition, any new frags that I make are always routinely put up on the frag rack to avoid getting irritated and eaten by pods. Finally, I also move any frags on the main rockwork that look irritated or are being eaten by pods up on to the frag rack and they seem to recover.

I meant to say, "the colony WASN'T sick, dead or dying".

I just wanted to add, after selling a couple of the larger wrasses ( pair of lineatus ) , 2 1/2" mystery and a couple of jumpers ( before my screen was installed ). the absence of predators have quickly helped in adding a lot more larger pods that have recently demolished 3 frags of more common zoos. besides the RPE they tried to decimate... I just added a carpenter flasher and a exquisite wrasse hopefully they make up for what the previous wrasses did.

the leopard, yellow coris and blue sided are doing their job, hopefully the 2 new additions ramp up the ampipod eradication.

And which is why my 37cube I'm building is being started with base rock only and coral frags are going there.. ( thoroughly dipped ) to prevent any ampipods from getting in to the new tank that replaces my 100gal.

Marvin, I knew what you were talking about, that happened to me roughly a dozen times now. Wrasses are THE best natural way of control.

I experienced the same with large ampipods attacking healthy colonies, and some of the ones that came under attack were rpe's.
Used a green coris wrasse at one time and a melenarus wrasse another time.

RPEs and PPRPE both under attack, PPEs seem to be fine (today...). I have a XMAS and a blue-sided wrasse but I am going to get my zoas pulled off the rocks and up into racks. Thanks for the idea, Delsol650.

Never hurts to have a wrasse in your tank.

Jerome

oops

I put the yellopw coris in last night..........if he survives the beating he is getting he might live long enough to eat some of these monster pods.......... : (

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11336890#post11336890 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by flyyyguy [/i]
[B]I put the yellopw coris in last night..........if he survives the beating he is getting he might live long enough to eat some of these monster pods.......... : ( [/B][/QUOTE]


Beating from what?

Just for consideration, as anyone traced teh lineage of their RPE's PPRPE's etc back and checked to see how far back this pod p-redator goes, it may have originated with someone, or it may have snuck in from the wild.

Just for consideration, as anyone traced the lineage of their RPE's PPRPE's etc back and checked to see how far back this pod predator goes, it may have originated with someone, or it may have snuck in from the wild.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11337651#post11337651 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mfinn [/i]
[B]Beating from what? [/B][/QUOTE]

My 8" chevron and my 5" PB. the chevron hasnt actually hit him that i have seen, but the PBT has several times that i have seen. the coris is 3" or so........

its not a very fair fight in any regard. I put a mirror up to the side of the tank to catch the PBT's attention and it seems to have helped......i didnt think about it or I should have done that before the lights came on this morning.

th fish is defintely hurt....i just hope not too bad, hope it stops, and he can overcome it

its pretty hard to be eating any pods when youre looking over your shoulder for those two

I KNEW IT!:mad2: this is my post from 08/04/2005

"shaggydoo541, I'd like to add that I've been keeping zoas and palys since the start of my tank which is more than a couple of years ago, I have large colonies if zoas that seem to do extremely well and then over night, more than half shrink up and die, this process repeats itself and for the life of me I can't seem to find out whats causing this. some colonies seem to to fine 100% of the time but the others display the same symptoms. recently I've been looking for nudi's but what i saw really caused me concerns. copods eating my zoas. i've been watching them for a few nights now and they ARE eating my zoas. my zoas also show signs bite marks if you will. I know people have said they don't eat live and healty zoas but this happens over night that my zoas go from healty to barely alive. I recently bought a sixline wrasse to keep the copods in check but i fear he won't be able to keep up, also all the big copods seem to hide during the day and the sixline sleeps at night so I'm kinda at a loss. I need help also. "

BTW... I have a new colony that is being attacked.. I lost my sixline a few months ago and so I got a mandrine dragonet. Are these any good at keeping the pods population under control or should I consider another sixline?

Thanks in advance

Mandarins have small mouths.. meaning only smaller ampipods and pods..

Got get a yellow coris, green sea grass, leopards , any fairy/flasher type wrasses can help. I had 8-9 wrasses in my 100 ( they decimated the ampipods in no time ) but since either selling , trading, some dying.. the Large ampipod population has come back.

My old way now of assuring a NO ampipod tank is on my new 37 cube , I'm only going with base rock. NONE of my current live rock will go into the new tank to ensure that none of these bastards get in. Plus all corals will be throughly dipped to wipe out any hiding pods/ampipods. Wrasses can do damage to the pod population during the day but can't touch them at night. Till this day, no one knows of a fish to get to hunt at night for pods.

My yellow coris is out and about doing his thing this morning........hes even concentrating in the side of the tank that I keep my polyps

He has what looks like a big shiner across the side of his body, but besides dirty looks from the pb..........nobody is even really chasing him anymore.


:)