Coral Beauty nipping corals

[dmbedard]

Hey guys and gals -

My coral beauty has decided that it likes to nip my blue tort. Does anyone know any secrets or have any ideas for discouraging this?

I don't want to lose the tort. It's beautiful.

I dont' want to get rid of the Coral Beauty. It's beautiful.

Any ideas or suggestions for having the 2 live in harmony would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Diane

[reefrubble]

Diane, That's Nature, I don't know any way of changing that. I never had any coral nippers. You might want to post on the SPS forum. Some one there may be able to help you . Ted

[BankerJohn]

oh Diane, I feel for you. You could always put the Tort in a club members tank and visit the frag once per month, LOL. Ted and Steve both keep really nice SPS :)

[robthorn]

this is there nature to pick at corals especially if they are not as fed as much as they would like. only thing I could suggest is to try to feed it more so it's not as hungry. they also like algea so if you don't have nori in there try to keep some in there daily. they are pickers and I guess are accustomed to doing so. I hope for your sake giving him something else to pick on might help.
the coral beauty as far as I have seen hasn't been one of the angels that are iffy reef safe. I have seen flames and lemon peels listed as this though. genecanthus is an angel genus that is more reef safe than most the others. I have a lamarcks that so far hasn't touched a coral. not near as pretty as a coral beauty but a better disposition

[gatorolsen]

Just an idea, don't know if it would work or not but why not try to set up an area to encourgage the coral beauty to pick and browse at

maybe a small pile of rubble with nori or algea mixed in and when you feed you could try to concentrate the goodies at that area - if you can keep it busy in that area it might do a bit less picking at the corals


if the tort is the only one it is picking at - maybe you could move it , maybe the CB likes that particular spot to browse around and might lose interest if the tort was in another spot

gatorolsen

[dmbedard]

Thanks to all for the ideas and encouragement. I tried to cover the tort, but couldn't get anything around the rock and get the rock back into place, so I let it go while I went to work. I came home and the CB had effectively stripped the tort of all it's beauty and reduced it to a white skeleton. Wah.

On the happier side, that seems to be the only coral that "Lil Nipper" wants to eat, so I guess I just won't put any more tort in the tank : (

Diane