Hi All,
This morning I woke up to a disturbing site. A few tips on my bonsai acro appeared as if they had been gnawed on... there was clearly erosion in the skeleton, the polyps at the very end of the tips were gone, and those areas were producing mucus like crazy. Similarly, A few weeks ago I added an orange sea fan and the next morning one of the branches had been chewed off and another branch had been partially chewed. I tried taking pics but they didn’t turn out well.
My #1 suspect is a black longspine urchin I’ve had for a few weeks. Considering I’ve read they can eat coraline algae, it’s the only tank member I can imagine would be capable of gnawing a coral skeleton.
Has anyone had this happen and figured out the culprit? Any other guesses besides the urchin? My other critters are listed below
Fish: 10 blue green chromis, 1 hippo tang, 1 powder brown tang, 2 bangaii cardinals, 1 mandarin, 1 firefish, 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 lubbock’s wrasse
Inverts: hermits, turbo snails, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 1 strawberry crab (although it’s probably dead because I haven’t seen it in weeks)
Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
-Matt
This morning I woke up to a disturbing site. A few tips on my bonsai acro appeared as if they had been gnawed on... there was clearly erosion in the skeleton, the polyps at the very end of the tips were gone, and those areas were producing mucus like crazy. Similarly, A few weeks ago I added an orange sea fan and the next morning one of the branches had been chewed off and another branch had been partially chewed. I tried taking pics but they didn’t turn out well.
My #1 suspect is a black longspine urchin I’ve had for a few weeks. Considering I’ve read they can eat coraline algae, it’s the only tank member I can imagine would be capable of gnawing a coral skeleton.
Has anyone had this happen and figured out the culprit? Any other guesses besides the urchin? My other critters are listed below
Fish: 10 blue green chromis, 1 hippo tang, 1 powder brown tang, 2 bangaii cardinals, 1 mandarin, 1 firefish, 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 lubbock’s wrasse
Inverts: hermits, turbo snails, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 1 strawberry crab (although it’s probably dead because I haven’t seen it in weeks)
Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
-Matt