zoa eater??

[hayabusa2003]

This weekend I noticed my 15polyp group of devil's armour palys were looking strange. the mouths were fully opened on all of them. Yesterday and this morning they all look shriveled, and about 5 polyps were "melted" away. All my other zoos/palys/corals are doing fine. Couldn't see any evidence of nudis or other pests.

I removed the group and soaked them in an iodine solution, and out crawled this thing -- what is it? Could this be the culprit? It's half reddish, half yellow, and about 3/4in in length.

3 weeks ago I added a 10lb piece of liverock from a reefer breaking down his tank. I didn't have any reef-dip at the time so I went ahead and added to my tank anyway. Wondering now if this is the source, and hopefully it doesn't spread...

 

[Hawkeye]

dunno what that is - but based on what you stated - it's definitely very suspect!

 

[hayabusa2003]

Maybe a fireworm? http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=292

Now I'm staring at my tank looking for signs of any other coral being affected...
I QTd the palys, but they don't look so good. Hopefully I removed it soon enough before it spreads to my other colonies.

If it's bacterial, I will skim more aggressively. I just installed an H&S A150-F2001 yesterday so that should help. I already run carbon and do weekly 5% water changes.

If it's a pest..should I go with a wrasse of some sort? Any other suggestions?

 

[Hawkeye]

actually - is that even a worm? First thing that crossed my mind was a zoa /polyp eating nudibranch.

By the way - doing a search on other possibilities - I don't think you have "spiders" - but the suggested solution was a lugols dip. I dunno about purchasing a fish to help...I think given the choice between nice tasty pieces of fish food and the pest - he fish may opt just to eat at chow time. Off topic - but it's like in hawaii when they introduced a mongoose to help control the rat population...cept the mongoose liked eating the flightless birds more.