Zoanthid friends

[Raptor]

I love hermit crabs for keeping new zoa rocks clean of dieing polyps and sponge picked off the rocks. I try to get the majority off when acclimating, But the hermits do the clean up after me.
I see them all rushing over to new rocks as soon as i add it. For the first day to week (Depending on how bad the colony is) picking at the zoa's and rocks to pick it clean. They do a bang up job.
I keep 3-500 hermits in my tank at all times and i cant find a better zoa keeper.
My second zoa keeper is my psyhcodelic manderin pair. They clean up any flatworm the zoa colony may have. Nothing worse than thousands of red flatworms. LOL
I would keep a black velvet nudi, But it would get sucked up by my tunze's like my lettuce nudi's fell. :evil:
Sixlines are a ggod friend as i believe they ate zoa nudi's.
Dont worry i eliminated them over 2 years ago.
One last thing i can think of is my peppermint shrimp eating aiptaisia.
All are good friends of zoa's.
Share what you have found to be helpfull to your zoa keeping.

 

[surfn]

interesting. i've heard six-line wrasses are hit or miss if they will go after flatworms/nudi's etc.

i used to know of a good website that showed all of the inverts, and the stuff they preferred to eat.

i.e. the differences b/w hermits (red leg, blue leg, electric blue, scarlet, zebra etc.)

i.e. the differences in diets b/w types of snails, other crabs, and shrimps

 

[khuzhong]

to me-
the hermits
my 2 sixlines, they're always searching my zoanthids, for what.. i dono
but i have not seen a nudi for bout a 1.5 years now. i had them at the very beginning then i cleaned up and have not seen them since
and my yellow tangs, they take care of the algae and the rotting, bad zoa polyps. They'll eat the dead, decaying polyps but have never touched a healthy one.

 

[Raptor]

Your right surf it is hit or miss, But i dont feed my tank very much so my fish have to work for food.
I have a clown tang a tomini tang and 2 mandirins in my 190.
The sixline R.I.P Tried to fly.
He always searched my zoa's and he would search right along the zoas, For what i dunno, But they eat flatworms so the nudi is not out of the realm of possabilitys.
I am not a big fan of judging fish as they are in nature as they are in captive tanks.
They are in a tottaly different enviornment and cant be expected to do anything they would do in nature, Its not always going to happen. IMO

Oh i keep micro bluelegs and a few scarlets, But the micrp bluelegs are the maj.

 

[surfn]

what do the small blue legs mainly eat? besides snails? lol

 

[Raptor]

Dieng stuff, and algea, waste food .
I have had snails in for a long time, yes some do fall, but i am ok with that. Not as many as you may think, I have snails that are 4 years old.

 

[surfn]

well, i meant what types of algae specifically...

 

[Raptor]

I recently had an attack of red hair type algea, and my hermits munched it down, along with my clown tang. I suspect they eat alot of types of micro algea. Never seen them eat macro algea.
I took this from wet web media i am off to work, yeah its too early to work. LOL in short this is what i have read about them in the past. Micro blie legs atleast.
Clibanarius tricolor, the Blue-Legged Hermit Crab. To less than an inch in length. One of a few "reef-safe" Hermits that stay small and almost exclusively feed on algae (and Cyanobacteria!). Good for aiding in aerating the substrate as well.

 

[Marine Flora]

to me-
the hermits
my 2 sixlines, they're always searching my zoanthids, for what.. i dono
but i have not seen a nudi for bout a 1.5 years now. i had them at the very beginning then i cleaned up and have not seen them since
and my yellow tangs, they take care of the algae and the rotting, bad zoa polyps. They'll eat the dead, decaying polyps but have never touched a healthy one.

thats very interesting.. the YT actually eat the dying zoa polyps? i'm getting ready to build a new system and wanted a YT but didn't want it to eat all the nice macro algae i keep.

 

[twon8]

I think what happens is dying polyps often get overtaken by algae, and the zoas are eaten along with the tasty algae. But a yellow tang will certainly eat an and all macro algae you have in the tank.

 

[Marine Flora]

your an early riser too twon? its 4:48 here in california

 

[jessiesgrrl]

I keep blueleg hermits, one larger scarlet hermit, and a few fiddler crabs. I also have a six line in the tank, and he does eat nudi's, even though I dip as well just to be sure.

I had a yellow tang, but all I could keep in the tank for macroalgae was mostly calcium based or had a texture he didn't like like chaeto, halimeda, etc. When I started adding codium, caluerpa, sea lettuce, and that red autumn leaves looking macro I had to give him away because he ate it faster than I could add it.


Laurie

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Oh yeah and two regular brittle stars, a few micro brittle stars, the mandarin, and a horseshoe crab.

Clean up crew got rather extensive after a few years of pet shop boredom.

Laurie