Pods stomping all over my zoas!

[george9]

Hi everyone,
I have about 6 small zoa colonies and only one of them is giving me a little trouble lately where certain polyps will open and close periodically during the day. All of my other colonies stay open fully for the entire photoperiod except this one frag seems to have little isopods or copepods that like to crawl on the polyps during the day hours (I don't see any pests at night when they're closed) and it causes one or two polyps to quickly retract for a couple minutes as the pod crawls by. I don't see any damage being done or missing polyps - the coral is actually rapidly growing and has just about tripled its size in a couple months. The open polyps are alert and the frag appears healthy, I just wish all of the polyps would stay open all of the time like my other zoas. I've dipped the frag twice in CoralRX since I received it in December with the latest dip being about a month ago, but it's rapidly spreading off the plug onto my rocks so removing it is a little trickier and more invasive now.

In the picture I posted you can see the two center polyps are closed while all of the others remain open. Has anyone dealt with this before, and is it even an issue if the corals appears healthy and is growing rapidly? I'm just worried more and more pods will make the coral their home and more of the polyps will remain closed for longer.

 

[Chrisv.]

Brace yourself, you're about to hear a whole lot of people say that an amphipod would never hurt a healthy coral.

 

[george9]

Brace yourself, you're about to hear a whole lot of people say that an amphipod would never hurt a healthy coral.

lol I don't know that it's 'hurting' it since it's growing like a WEED and looks very happy, but just annoying it when they dash across the side of the open polyps. Or maybe the presence of pods implies the coral isn't actually healthy, but its growth rate and appearance would beg to differ?

edit - I do feed them Reef Roids about twice a week - maybe this is encouraging more pods to hang around them.

 

[Chrisv.]

Who knows. I think mine must be a completely unique strain never encountered by another reefer. A strain that eats healthy corals. As evidenced by the presence of gfp containing tissue in their digestive tract... That matched to color of an adjacent coral. Could have just been a coincidence though.

 

[ColoredRock]

Brace yourself, you're about to hear a whole lot of people say that an amphipod would never hurt a healthy coral.

do they?

 

[Chrisv.]

do they?

Apparently it's a question for the ages.

 

[ColoredRock]

Apparently it's a question for the ages.

.. I guess your right.. when an urchin walks all over mine.. they do close up. I stand corrected.

 

[Chrisv.]

.. I guess your right.. when an urchin walks all over mine.. they do close up. I stand corrected.

I'm not actually so concerned about the zoas retracting briefly when they are scuttled over. I do believe that amphipods CAN and in my tank, DO eat tissue from healthy corals. Not to the point of killing the coral though, at least in my tank.

 

[ColoredRock]

I'm not actually so concerned about the zoas retracting briefly when they are scuttled over. I do believe that amphipods CAN and in my tank, DO eat tissue from healthy corals. Not to the point of killing the coral though, at least in my tank.

and so back to my question then..it's new to me reading it... but I'm a going to do a:

 

[Chrisv.]

and so back to my question then..it's new to me reading it... but I'm a going to do a:

View attachment 2565650

Every time this subject comes up, extremely passionate people pop up on both sides. Heck, there are even people selling amphipods as fish food who chime in. You will see both positions taken. I only can say what I have seen in my own aquarium.

 

[ColoredRock]

So not to derial this topic but from 2000- 2008 I had a 180 LPS/ Staghorn tank with 250 MH's over it.. it had amphipods with a mandirn and a full belly at that...all over it.. didnt event think twice about it when I cleaned out the socks. They where the size if a:

I am happy to see them now in my sump again.. so again I go down another rabbit whole.

 

[Spare time]

.. I guess your right.. when an urchin walks all over mine.. they do close up. I stand corrected.

Its almost like something can walk over them and NOT eat them. Strange.

 

[wattson]

I hate pods of any kind in my tank, I really dont care how harmless they all say they are,,I seen what they do...if they agitate my zoa's/palys then they agitate me.. Good bye pods..I head hunt them with a passion

 

[Chrisv.]

I hate pods of any kind in my tank, I really dont care how harmless they all say they are,,I seen what they do...if they agitate my zoa's/palys then they agitate me.. Good bye pods..I head hunt them with a passion

Kill them all and let god sort it out.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Theres 9900 species of described amphipods not all are harmless, most people only know about certain gammarus amphipods and assume that amphipods are all created equal

 

[Chrisv.]

Theres 9900 species of described amphipods not all are harmless, most just have gammarus amphipods and assume that an amphipod is an amphipod.

YES.

 

[wattson]

Too many things to calculate in reef tank, no pods are just one less thing to calculate..Always trying to use the KISS method.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Too many things to calculate in reef tank, no pods are just one less thing to calculate..Always trying to use the KISS method.

Is it even possible to eradicate all in amphipods in a reef tank? If so how so you do it? I have a bunch of fish that feed on mine and they make no dent in the population. Not being critical just curious. I do want to say one thing amphipoda are seen as a keystone species and are a sign of a diverse ecosystem to each their own but you may be doing all that work for naught.

 

[wattson]

I have BB tank with Med to high flow. all live rock sump below in the sump, so no rock in my tank. Everything new gets dipped 3 times before corals go in the tank.
I only keep zoas and palys. Propbably some pods are in there but always have my eyeball looking for pest

 

[george9]

I’ve dipped the coral twice in Coral RX the past week and it doesn’t help *that* much because the pods just find the coral again lol, but once the pod runs off the polyp it will open up again within a few minutes. I don’t see any damage at all either, so I really think the pods running around the polyps just cause them to close up briefly.
Do you think target feeding reef roids into the zoa colonies would encourage pods to hang out more there? I typically feed them twice a week but have been taking a breather the past week to see if the pods diminish. I love the growth the reef roids gives but if it’s causing these pods to hang around the coral I need to cut back!