Zoa eating pods?

[Docstach]

Last recently I pickup up a small rock with a nice little colony of Fire and Ice zoas on it. Yesterday I noticed several polyps missing. I blamed my emerald crab and banished him to the refugium though I had never noticed him eating them or others before. However, after the lights went out last night I took a look at the zoas with a flashlight and saw the rock was swarming with larger pods/?mysis? which seemed to be eating the zoas. Has anyone heard of this before? Any other ideas? Funny thing is none of my others seem to be bothered. Not sure if maybe they were just picking off dead/dying material but the zoes looked great and did not seem to have problems(all fully opened). Now that I don't have any fish I have definitely got an explosion of pods but I have been trying to feed the tank a little bit to keep everyone happy. I tried to take a pic but it did not work very well. The bugs almost look worm like in the picture but they are not, much more crustacean like.

EDIT: after a little more researching it seems this isn't a terribly uncommon problem, especially when available nutrients have been decreased (decreased feeding and increased population due to having no fish).

 

[twenty2twenty]

I have had the same problem in one of my pod tanks. If they are feed enough they won't bother any healty corals. But, feed or not they go after anything dead or dying. So, if hungry the will go after health corals. I think they are mysis of some sort. Are they white and move around scrunched in half ? Like they are bent in the middle. If so, those will eat anything. Hopes this helps.

 

[P-Nut]

I have had the same problem in one of my pod tanks. If they are feed enough they won't bother any healty corals. But, feed or not they go after anything dead or dying. So, if hungry the will go after health corals. I think they are mysis of some sort. Are they white and move around scrunched in half ? Like they are bent in the middle. If so, those will eat anything. Hopes this helps.

My aquarium is full of pods. If I point a power head at a rock 10-20 pods will get blown out, they even eat and carry fish pelets.
I have never seen them eat any corals, clams, zoas or mushrooms.

 

[Shark Bait]

Id be interested to know how you fix this. I am pretty much going through the same thing. Had a colony of at least 30 watermelons and then one day less than half were opened. I dipped in coral rx hoping it would kill a pest if one was present. The weird thing is my greenbay packer colony is untouched and is only about 7 inches away.

 

[Ellabug]

I had this happen with a darth maul colony when my tank was a few months old. I added a sixline wrasse and never had a problem again. I still don't know whether the isopods/anthropods were to blame for decimating the colony, or whether they only went after it after it started to melt and were just cleaning up dead tissue. Regardless, once I added the sixline I've never again had a problem with larger sized pods.

 

[Docstach]

I had this happen with a darth maul colony when my tank was a few months old. I added a sixline wrasse and never had a problem again. I still don't know whether the isopods/anthropods were to blame for decimating the colony, or whether they only went after it after it started to melt and were just cleaning up dead tissue. Regardless, once I added the sixline I've never again had a problem with larger sized pods.

That's what I was thinking. If I can I make do until I can add fish, they should take care of the problem. For now i added some nori so hopefully that will fill them up. Hoping to find some macro algae, chaeto, this weekend.

 

[jamesdong009]

I guess it's possible but I haven't seen any pods go after something that's healthy. I hope they're just cleaning up dying or dead material.

Can you imagine if pods started getting a taste for zoas and palys ...My tank would be empty

 

[Jarob]

I have seen pods do this to a few different colonies in my tank now. Magicians, blue agave PE's and another PE. Ive been needing to add a fish to my tank that will eat them to keep their population under control.

On a side note my damn sexy shrimp eats SPS polyps. It was only a theory for awhile but it definitely happens now. Where ever it stands on my birdsnest or pocillopora will be dead the next day, only little spots here and there.