Are your fish really picking at your corals?

[black_majik]

There seems to be this huge issue of:

what angels will pick my coral
which are more likely to nip....
i caught ___ nipping on my coral
etc
etc
etc


Well after thinking about this I realized what fish exactly are "caught" picking corals. The most common is the angelfish family. Whether they naturally prey on coral or coral polyps or not I truly do not know. But I do know most ( pgymys) will feed of the liverock.

Now after hearing stories of:I saw the fish picking but nothing was damaged. I began to think.
It was as simple as this: Pgymy's feed on sponges, as well as live-stuff off of the liverock. So basically it appears that your flame is tearing into your Tubs Blue colony, but in reality the fish is simply eating the sponge of microfuana under the poylps where the LIVErock is.

For example I thought my foxface was actually nipping my radioactive dragons, but after investigation I noticed no damage to the coral, but I nicely mowed algae patch next to it.
After talking to some customers today we both shared the same idea so I decided my some on RC agree.


So as I thought of this I began to think of other species....

Butterflies- Naturally feed on SPS polyps ( Blue Planet) ..sorry

The Sixline Scare... Sixline wrasses are very active on live things on the liverock are you sure he is eating the coral??

Foxfaces- Very opportunistic algae feeders (herbivore) maybe the foxface is munching on coral, but perhaps the patch of green algae next to it?(My experience)

Hawkfish- They naturally prey on small crustaceans which live on the liverock which is under the coral.

And there are more.....


Now I understand there are many factors to the coral eating scare.. the fish is under fed....it looks like a natural food.....too small of a tank, there are also incidents when there is obvious damage on the coral and that is very possibly the fish picking it. All I wanted this thread to do is:

Before you chase and stress that Coral Beauty with a net, are you sure it was picking on the coral or the liverock?

Maybe even have some of you not be so scared to venture into a fish the is a proposed "coral nipper".

Or even strike a conversation about falsely accused nippers.

Heck maybe I save a fish or two from flushage or a trip back to the LFS.

Anyone who wants to add anything to add to this or comment are welcome to.

[Dog boy Dave]

I have six Rabbit/Foxface types. They all love to mouththe SPS corals in order to eat te slime. They have done it for years and cause no harmt to the SPS. My angels neverbother an SPC but give any LPS a hard time and I believe they nip at my pagoda coral. The Golden Flake Angel is the worst nipper but he doesnt bother the sps.

[SDguy]

Well, I've only had a couple nippers.

Argi angel - definitely ATE coral. When it ripped the polyps off the gorgonian, the whole coral would move and shake after each peck.

Lined blenny - well, the damage was pretty obvious:
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p5/SDreefguy/Blennydamage.jpg

My fish are very well fed thanks to the anthias in the tank, so the picking had nothing to do with lack of food. Both pickers were very small, so tank size was not a factor. Sometimes you just get unlucky, I guess.

[black_majik]

Anyone else want to comment on this?

Man SDguy that is intense.

[SuperNerd]

SDguy: You actually saw the argi rip them?? I had a similar issue with tangs:

My problems:

Powder blue- it would rip my yellow polyps off their rocks and spit them out. It would also bite sps tips and rip the heads off xenia and spit them out.

Zebrasoma veliferum- It would eat the tube of my tube worm.

I also think I had a yellow tang that would nip gargonian polyps and xenia heads.

After those experiences I never added another tang. I guess not all algae eaters are completely reef safe. :lol:

[SDguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12542777#post12542777 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SuperNerd
SDguy: You actually saw the argi rip them??

Oh yes...it shocked me to see the amount of force used to rip off the polyps. Eventually I had zero PE on my acros and gorgs. Lost a few new acro frags before I trapped the fish.

BTW, I used to have a yellow tang that liked to eat the spines off my diadema urchin :lol:

[Znut Reefer]

SDguy,

I'm glad but not really glad to hear someone else had problems with tangs nipping sps. I have had them continue to nip until the sps frag or colony would RTN.

I just pulled 2 convict tangs out of my lps tank, seems they had a taste for chalices and started to nip at my Aussie lords. Glad I got them out in time!

Each time I post about nipping tangs everyone says feed more, it does not matter every tang was fat and well fed, but continued to nip at the sps.

So not all tangs are reef safe in my opinion either.

I had one thread where a guy posted it was Urban Legend about tangs nipping at sps and corals. It's not a Urban Legend when you see it happening.

[SDguy]

I'm pretty sure most European reefers don't even consider tangs reef safe, IIRC.

[flfireman1]

I currently have a flame angel and coral beauty in same tank. They not only tolerate each other but have been model citizens in my SPS and LPS mixed reef.

I also think people are quick to jump on the angel nipping band wagon. Ive seen my angels nip at areas around coral that could easily be mistaken for actually nipping the coral.

The most damaged caused in my tank was done by a leopard wrasse that developed a habit of stealing food from button polyps whenever they closed with food in them. She would tear at them until she could get to the food inside.