Found the culprit!!!

[Ludwigia73]

Hey all!
Anyone who's been over my house recently has heard me lament of the demise of my "mean green" zoas. I had a huge colony, about 500 polyps, that slowly withered away. I have a stray polyp here and there, so all is not lost. I looked in on the tank this morning, and right in the middle of my neon green rim zoas, is sitting a huge "teddy bear" crab. This thing looked like it was wearing a wool sweater. Of course I grabbed him, I think he was sleeping, he didn't move till I touched him. I wasn't worried about getting pinched, just get him out! Anyway, if anyone has a fish that likes to eat crabs, he's free. Got him in the fuge for now. If not, I'll feed him to the fish on the end of a hook next time I go fishing!

[Rogger Castells]

Wholly crab! You think he ate a whole colony of zoo's? That is one expensive crab now; I could give you some recipes instead if you decide to eat the little guy ?

[jeffbrig]

What color was it? I've pulled a couple of white fuzzy crabs out of my tank, but something still takes a chunk out of my zoos from time to time, even ate a GSP frag once.

[Ludwigia73]

Light tan. I wouldn't eat him, he's probably full of palytoxin.

[Ludwigia73]

Glad he didn't become a purple people eater eater.

[Rogger Castells]

Jeff, someone at the tank hop pointed to me some zoo's eating snails I had in my softie tank, I pulled them out but I no longer have them to show you how they look like, they are kind of round low profile and with radial black lines arround their shell, they seem like any other snail but they eat zoos

[DJOfir]

That sucks how do you think he got in there?

[ZURCSREEF]

Rogger, I had some of those in my tank, ate a few of my colonies, my Eagle Eyes are gone, My radioactive dragon eyes are gone and many of my dragon eyes are gone, I went through my tank one day and picked them all off, there were about 8 of them. I just recently started purchasing some new zoo's to retrieve what I had lost. Those things are definately something to look out for if you have zoo's or any other coral imo.

-Mike C. aka ZURCSREEF

[DJOfir]

Zurc do you have any pics of them?

[ZURCSREEF]

no, I killed them, they killed over 300$ or more in zoo's alone... they are pretty small, circular with black and white stripes. There not big, pretty small and hard to see, they camouflauge very well.

[DJOfir]

thanks for the description. Yea if they did that too me I would have probably did worst to them.

[Speckled Grouper]

Do they look like this
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/images/feb2003/Heliacusthumb.jpg (http://)

or this
http://melevsreef.com/id/tbs/sundial_tb.jpg (http://) ?

[Ludwigia73]

That would be them... the dead giveaway is the weird trapdoor that looks like a spiral cone shaped shell.

[ZURCSREEF]

First link and the second one very well resembles them, I personally wouldn't trust any of them. I was talking with someone about these snails and they said that they are very likely to be found in nassasirus (if thats how you spell it) shells aswell. So I will not be adding any nassasirus snails to my tank anytime soon. Also, when you purchase zoo's exam the piece for these snails very well as thats how they were introduced to my tank from a few pieces of coral I bought, one being from California that I brought when I went on Vacation over there and one from a local fish store. I was not aware of there doing til I saw some of my zoos not opening and started to notice that they were on only my zoo colonies. I picked them all off then found this thread.

-Mike C. aka ZURCSREEF

[Rogger Castells]

I think that those are the snails I found, I hope I don't have more, i am going to take a good look fro them on my next day off

[chrisaggie]

ZURCSREEF, the sundial snail can not and will not be found in a nassarius snail shell. Snails can not switch shells like hermits.

Or did you mean that the sundial snails (with shell and all) will be inside the nassarius? I don't see this to be very likely either.

[Ludwigia73]

I think he meant hitchiking, which I also find doubtfull, but you never know. They're crafty little buggers. I think he may have them confused with pyramid snails in that respect, but the zoo eaters are sundials.

[ZURCSREEF]

I have seen snails not in there shell, unless they are not shells and are probably something else I am going to start needing to be aware of, as I have seen them in my tank, small and large. Like I said about the hitchhiking, I just heard it from someone, not 100% whether its true or false.

This may be off topic, but ChrisAggie, do you still happen to have any more frags of Safecracker reds? I was never able to get to you about them a couple months ago. LMK

-Mike C. aka ZURCSREEF

[chrisaggie]

ZURCS, I still have safecrackers, but they are very hard to frag in the position in my tank.

[ZURCSREEF]

Ok, let me know if you will be able to frag them or if you have any other zoo's or ric's or monticap frags.

Thanks!
-Mike C. aka ZURCSREEF

[Dactyl]

im from cali. sundial snails come in all the time on zoanthids at the wholesalers out there. also all other sorts of critters. i do miss getting the 'surprises' which comes from getting livestock straight from the indo-pacific. btw ludwigia, those green zoos i got from you are completely taking over one of my rocks.

[Ludwigia73]

That's a good thing, I hope... If it's the green rim, be sure to segregate that rock a bit so it doesn't take over the tank. Awesome zoos though, huh? Great bright color!