Amphipods irritating zoas

[zdrc]

I have a small zoa colony I purchased recently that has taken a turn downhill. It looked great for the first half week I had it, but now it's mostly closed up all the time. I have a lot of amphipods, bordering on an infestation. The zoa frag was down on the substrate where most of the pods are and quite a few have made there home on the zoa colony. I fear they are irritating it, and not letting it open up. There is no sign of damage, they just won't open up.

The tank is small, a 12 gallon aquapod

Other corals in the tank:

• one SPS frag in the process of bleaching (I think it's a deep water acro), this was a mistake impulse buy
• a micromussa frag doing quite well since I added it, it "unbeached" part of itself and has grown some
• a Calaustrea frag, doing OK too, just grew another mouth
• a torch coral that just grew another head
• a ricordea that split not too long ago
• a lobophyllia that has been feeding/coloring well
• a duncan doing weird things, It was originally just one head, it grew 4! more heads then started to pout really bad (I accidentally tanked my nitrate and phosphate causing some dinos). It hasn't fully extended it's tentacles in at least a month. It's weird though, the polyp is open/extended, but the tentacles are stubby

Most recent water params (from Sunday)

• Sg: 35 ppt (calibrated refractometer)
• KH: 8.0-8.3
• Ca: 420-430
• Mg: 1470 (it's always been this high, I'm not that worried about this)
• pH: 7.7 (usually 8.15, but it was low this last time I tested)
• NO3: ~10 ppm
• PO4: ~0.1 ppm

Some what recently I ran into a problem with my water parameters. I was stuck in a battle between raising KH, Ca, and Mg, and keeping NO3 and PO4 up. The tank is small and I just do weekly large water changes (~40% changes) to replenish. I ran into a problem where NO3 and PO4 were dropping to zero and KH, Ca, and Mg were also too low. I couldn't do water changes because I was trying to increase NO3 and PO4, but I couldn't replenish KH, Ca, and Mg without doing those water changes. KH hit an all time low of 6.7. Recently, I have aggressively increased my feeding regiment (way more than the fish could eat) which has upped the NO3 and PO4 nicely, allowing me to do water changes and up my KH back to around 8. The heavy feeding has caused the amphipod population to explode.

A side note: I have live rock, and there are still a few gorilla crabs in the aquarium (one tiny and one medium). I hope to get them with time. So far they haven't eaten anything they shouldn't, probably because I've been feeding lavishly.

Fish are a clown goby and a tailspot blenny.

The large amphipod population is kinda annoying. Even if they aren't the primary problem, I would still like to knock it down. Are there any inverts that will eat the amphipods (especially in the sand bed)?

 

[Nano sapiens]

I have a small zoa colony I purchased recently that has taken a turn downhill. It looked great for the first half week I had it, but now it's mostly closed up all the time. I have a lot of amphipods, bordering on an infestation. The zoa frag was down on the substrate where most of the pods are and quite a few have made there home on the zoa colony. I fear they are irritating it, and not letting it open up. There is no sign of damage, they just won't open up.

The tank is small, a 12 gallon aquapod

Other corals in the tank:

• one SPS frag in the process of bleaching (I think it's a deep water acro), this was a mistake impulse buy
• a micromussa frag doing quite well since I added it, it "unbeached" part of itself and has grown some
• a Calaustrea frag, doing OK too, just grew another mouth
• a torch coral that just grew another head
• a ricordea that split not too long ago
• a lobophyllia that has been feeding/coloring well
• a duncan doing weird things, It was originally just one head, it grew 4! more heads then started to pout really bad (I accidentally tanked my nitrate and phosphate causing some dinos). It hasn't fully extended it's tentacles in at least a month. It's weird though, the polyp is open/extended, but the tentacles are stubby

Most recent water params (from Sunday)

• Sg: 35 ppt (calibrated refractometer)
• KH: 8.0-8.3
• Ca: 420-430
• Mg: 1470 (it's always been this high, I'm not that worried about this)
• pH: 7.7 (usually 8.15, but it was low this last time I tested)
• NO3: ~10 ppm
• PO4: ~0.1 ppm

Some what recently I ran into a problem with my water parameters. I was stuck in a battle between raising KH, Ca, and Mg, and keeping NO3 and PO4 up. The tank is small and I just do weekly large water changes (~40% changes) to replenish. I ran into a problem where NO3 and PO4 were dropping to zero and KH, Ca, and Mg were also too low. I couldn't do water changes because I was trying to increase NO3 and PO4, but I couldn't replenish KH, Ca, and Mg without doing those water changes. KH hit an all time low of 6.7. Recently, I have aggressively increased my feeding regiment (way more than the fish could eat) which has upped the NO3 and PO4 nicely, allowing me to do water changes and up my KH back to around 8. The heavy feeding has caused the amphipod population to explode.

A side note: I have live rock, and there are still a few gorilla crabs in the aquarium (one tiny and one medium). I hope to get them with time. So far they haven't eaten anything they shouldn't, probably because I've been feeding lavishly.

Fish are a clown goby and a tailspot blenny.

The large amphipod population is kinda annoying. Even if they aren't the primary problem, I would still like to knock it down. Are there any inverts that will eat the amphipods (especially in the sand bed)?

When Gammarus Amphipods have no predators they typically get large and will dine on zoanthids, blastos, acans, etc. Especially noticeable in a small nano.

I was able to rid my 12g tank of them completely by using a Black Barred Circus Goby (they are nocturnal and that's when the Pods are most active).

 

[Bucs20fan]

An alternate way you could deal with it is see if your LFS will "lend" you a red scooter or standard scooter blenny. They are peaceful and they would decimate those small amphipods.

 

[zdrc]

When Gammarus Amphipods have no predators they typically get large and will dine on zoanthids, blastos, acans, etc. Especially noticeable in a small nano.

I was able to rid my 12g tank of them completely by using a Black Barred Circus Goby (they are nocturnal and that's when the Pods are most active).

That's a nice looking goby. Any idea why my clown goby isn't eating them? Are they not known to be amphipod eaters? I'll look for one of those gobies locally. Are there any other species that would be able to take out the pods?

An alternate way you could deal with it is see if your LFS will "lend" you a red scooter or standard scooter blenny. They are peaceful and they would decimate those small amphipods.

I could try this, I have a pretty good LFS.

I was thinking of getting another inhabitant. Would a Koumansetta goby eat the amphipods?

 

[Tavero]

I hate this things with a passion. I also had an infestation in my nano and they were eating zoas.

How many other critters do you have in the tank (bristleworms, copepods ect)? Amphipods usually only multiply a lot if they have no competiton.

While i don't recommend this to anyone, i killed 90% of mine by using flatworm exit and shutting off my pumps over night, suffocating them.

Then i've introduced a glob of bristleworms and a few palaemon elegans shrimps into my tank as competiton. Since then the amphipods disappeared.
I think these shrimps are eating freshly molted amphipods. At least i have seen them several times pulling a small critter out of the rock scape.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Dosing with reef safe PraziPro will kill of amphipods

 

[Nano sapiens]

That's a nice looking goby. Any idea why my clown goby isn't eating them? Are they not known to be amphipod eaters? I'll look for one of those gobies locally. Are there any other species that would be able to take out the pods?

My 2nd choice for a small nano would be the related Rusty Goby.

 

[zdrc]

Would a Wheeler's shrimp goby or Koumansetta hectori goby work too? I think I may have more luck finding these gobies.

There are plenty of amphipods out during the day, I can see them crawling all over the rocks.

 

[bitstream]

Dosing with reef safe PraziPro will kill of amphipods

This is false. I dosed once every 7 days for two weeks and the amphipods didn’t even notice.

I ended up taking my zoas and bathing them in an 80/20 FW/h2o2 mix and TONS of these critters were in the bowl afterward. The problem is that there is an ever expanding amphipod population in the tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is false. I dosed once every 7 days for two weeks and the amphipods didn’t even notice.

I ended up taking my zoas and bathing them in an 80/20 FW/h2o2 mix and TONS of these critters were in the bowl afterward. The problem is that there is an ever expanding amphipod population in the tank.

That's correct. This pertains to flatworms, not pods as well as bristleworms at full strength