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Rescued fish eating my coral?


HDIII

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Good afternoon, I rescued some fish a week ago and now my pulsating xenia are gone, my green star polyps are thinner/no more green arms, and my birds nest are being cleaned off. I took in a tomato clown, neon blue, yellow tail, and three striped damsel.  All the research I've done says the are reef safe. Any ideas and help will be appreciated. If anything they might need new homes. 

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1 hour ago, ryansweet said:

I wouldn’t think that any of those fish are causing the issue. Can you provide more detail about the tank? How long it’s been up, what lights/filtration/etc, do you have parameter results from 

 The tank is a 75 gallon and has been running for about 3 years now. The first picture you can see the pulsating xenia that has been in my tank for a year now. They have been picked clean with a zoea that was with it.  That was taken the day(10/1/19) I put the rescued fish in. I left town for the weekend and noticed it today. I am running the current loop system with lights, t5 grow light, wave pumps, and DC pump with a dry wet sump. I don't have any test results right now. The green star pulps have been in the tank since March and growing strong. Started with a quarter size and grew to palm size. 

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Hmm...the more I research on it, I am seeing that damselfish (black damselfishes for sure) do eat soft corals. So they may be picking at those. I hadn't really looked into it before (never kept those types of damselfish, only clowns) so I didn't realize that they will eat softies.

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@ryansweet I just read a thred that said they had a yellow tail eating his coral. Looks like that one will be finding a new home. I've had 3 spotted and neon blue damsel and never had any issues. I will get that one segregated tonight. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/9/2019 at 5:35 AM, ryansweet said:

Keep us updated if you notice your coral making a recovery once you get the suspected culprit removed. I’d like to add to my notes on fish that are supposed reef safe, but turn out not to be. 

Well it looks like the blue velvet damselfish is the culprit. I've had frags end up on the sand bed that were sitting on my frag rack. I've been watching and waiting and finally caught him going to pick at a piece and completely pull the frag plug off the rack! Time for him to go!! 

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2 hours ago, HDIII said:

Well it looks like the blue velvet damselfish is the culprit. I've had frags end up on the sand bed that were sitting on my frag rack. I've been watching and waiting and finally caught him going to pick at a piece and completely pull the frag plug off the rack! Time for him to go!! 

That’s crazy. Definitely adding these guys to the “maybe” reef safe pile. Glad you caught it in action, and thanks for keeping us up to date. 

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