Zoanthids dying

[Bifferwine]

Oh the irony. I start doing water changes after my animals looking perfectly fine for six months, and all of a sudden my clams go downhill, and now, my zoanthids.

A few weeks ago, I had one colony in the left of my tank where half the rock died off (it was an approximately 8 inch by 3 inch rock completely covered in red, green and white zoas). I did a freshwater dip a few times, and I managed to slow down the die off. Now, other colonies on the other side of the tank (6 or 7 feet away) are starting to die off too, along with a couple colonies on the left.

I can't even remember the last time I introduced new zoanthids into my tank. It's probably been at least 4 months.

Tonight I took out all the colonies that could be removed. Unfortunately, a lot of them (about 75%) are living on very large rocks that are too difficult to remove or make up the base of my aquascaping. I did freshwater dips on all of them. Besides killing off a freaking stadium full of pods (I can't believe with all my fish I have so many large pods in my display tank), I didn't find any of the usual suspects: sundial or pyramid snails, nudis, spiders, etc.

I did, however, find a CRAPLOAD of another type of small snail. It doesn't look like any picture of sundial snails that I've ever seen. I'll try to get pics, but they are smaller than a pinhead. Any ideas?

Any ideas about what to do with the zoas that I can't get out of the tank?

[Bifferwine]

Okay here are some pics. Sorry about the shadows, I took them from every side, every angle and in three different rooms but I kept getting the same shadow.

These snails just look too "tall" and not flat enough to be sundials... Dontcha think? So what are they? They kinda look like turbos. These were actually among the zoas, not just on the rocks, but I picked them off from between the polyps with tweezers.

[Bifferwine]

Collinista snails??

[daugherty]

maybe??

http://www.thesea.org/reef_aquarium/...sts_snails.php

[Bifferwine]

I don't believe the patterns are defined enough to be sundials, and they are disc shaped enough, they are rounder.

[daugherty]

i found this. i don't know if it will help
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/lofi...p/t145149.html

[Bifferwine]

Yeah they definitely look like collonista. Hahaha, now that I've murdered a handful of probably good snails and pods, what's killing my zoas?!?! I think that my inverts just got so used to nitrate levels at 150+ they just don't know how to handle clean water! ...They're city animals, not fresh-clean-country air animals.

[daugherty]

i just found this while i was looking for zoanthid killers

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/podcompfaqs.htm

[daugherty]

something else i found

Pods eating coral - Coral eating pods..?
I was reading the Q&A forums trying to find out if pods were eating my xenia. The fish store that I shop at says that pods only eat dead or dying things. I have noticed, however that a few people seem to think the pods are eating xenia and zoanthids. I have a similar story. First I had a small finger leather, that looked like it was ripped off it rock. I came home from work to find it floating on the bottom of the tank. There was a lot of "flesh" left on the rock, as I inspected the situation, I noticed several big pods eating the flesh. I tried to replant the leather but it disappeared over the next day or so. My hours of work don't allow me to keep a close eye on things so I don't know exactly what happened to it. As the leather disappeared, a colony of xenia began wilting.
Upon inspection of the sick xenia I noticed that the pods had regrouped to the Xenia. I thought that it could be that conditions weren't right causing the xenia and leather to die and the pods were just taking full advantage. My pH was low 7.7 so I adjusted my power head to get more top water movement. However ,there is another colony of xenia 2 inches away from the one that died. There are no pods on it and it seems to be fine. If the water conditions caused the leather and the first xenia colony to die, why not the other xenia. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that things are dying after the pods start to congregate. I thought I was just paranoid of some sort of pod conspiracy, until I started reading the Q&A. Is it just coincidence or could something be going on? Gary
<IF, they are pods, they are not going to eat live coral. Your LFS is correct is saying they eat dead material, fish poop, waste, whatever. You may have another critter in there causing the damage. James (Salty Dog)><<RMF disagrees... whatever group of crustaceans these "bugs" are part of, they may indeed consume cnidarians that are compromised... and maybe ones not so... It may be that the "other" Xeniid colony was "aware", or just "different" in its tastiness, response... to these critters>>

[Bifferwine]

If this is the case (and I have TONS of pods in my display tank, not to mention my fuge which is pod heaven), this means I can get another pod eating fish! I already have a sixline wrasse, leopard wrasse and green mandarin. All fat and happy. Maybe I'll get a target mandarin. I've never seen my two wrasses and the mandarin eat anything but live food. In fact, I feed my fish at night and I only see the mandarin and wrasses in the mornings, so they don't even show up for feedings.