Zoanthid eating pods?

[geekdafied]

Im not sure what to make of this, but this is a frag I got the other day and it never really opened up, and then I noticed something all over it, and it was pods. I removed all of those and it started to open a couple of polyps and then back to looking like it wasnt going to make it. Well I noticed tonight that some of them are gone, so I took a macro pic of it and you can clearly see a pod munching away on it. Every ther frag I got from that person has opened up extremely nice! So I know its not that. I no longer have anything that eats pods, and I am begining to get overrun with them apparently.

Any opinions?

[omard]

My guess is the polyps were already dead/dying, and the pods are just "cleaning things up."

[MDeth]

I have seen some of the bigger amphipods irritating zoos sometimes. That would explain why my colony of bam-bams hasn't opened in about 1mo

My guess is they just keep irritating and keeping them from opening

[geekdafied]

That piece, Ive seen as many as 15 on it. My tank is truly overrun with pods. I had a scooter blenny before that took care of them, but I dont have anything now. Looks like its time for something. At any given moment, at any given time, you can see pods crawling over something. Thats just what you can see, so there has to be a lot more that I cant see. Which means its time for a mandarin, haha!

[IBMGeek]

What if you try dipping it in some iodine solution like kent lugols solution. Dont know if it will work but its worth a try.

[geekdafied]

I always dip my corals in lugols. That wont get rid of the pods, the pods are in the tank. I can pick up the piece and shake it real well and they all fly off and my fish think Im feeding them and they eat them up, but my fish dont activly hunt for pods, which explains the popultaion boom. Pods are known zoanthid irritators but I never they ate them, if they are dead or dieing. Whats to stop them from eating the living ones, if they eat the dead or dieing? Usually people have fish that keep them in check such as blennies, gobie, wrasse and dragonets. However I dont at the moment, but its about time I get something to put a stop to it.

Its something worth researching. We all try to build our pod population to help feed picky eaters, but what if it has a reverse affect on our corals? All the websites Ive seen say they are omnivores, not scavengers. We all know there are copepods that are parasites to fish, then more then likely there are some that are parasites to corals its just usually we other things that prey on them that keep the balance in checkso they are not openly out all hours of the day. Another thing it could be, I do not over feed. I feed my fish every 2 or 3 days and its enough they will eat in 5-8 mins usually. All my tests stay perfect now. I dont have any problems whatsoever other then pods eating those zoanthids, haha.