what the crap! is this eating my acroporas?!

Ive lost a pink stylo, and two colonies of bird of paradise, I still have my green millipora its untouched.. none of the LPS have been touched.. When I turned on the lights this morning, this guy was flying across the glass and I snatched it up. It is a slug of some type, and it does have a sort of shell like a turtle and cannot retract. It moves way faster than my other snails, I know I did not put this thing in the tank.









the damage...



the damage started at the base of the acroporas, and traveled up along the branches.. Every other coral is doing just fine.

 

That is a Stomatella, a good guy. I have several and have a lot of sps and they never touch it. Nor have I heard of them eating sps.

 

+1 to coralline

 

Are you sure he was eating it? He looks like a good guy...

 

Stomalla (however you spell that thing) snail.... good guys to have.

Death from bottom up is a sign of a parameter off.
When was the last time you ran a battery of tests? Results? Phosphates in particular.

 

as soon as I saw things happenin, I did huge 4 water changes 70% a day apart, and Im doing 50% changes weekly now.. havent got a phosphate test, ill take water in to the lfs to do that. looks like the loss has slowed on the stylo.. maybe it will come back.

 

yeah you got poor water and your SPS RTN'd

 

stomatellas are imo THE best cleaners you can have in your tank!!!
Also they add a great planktonic culture to your tank because of how often they reproduce

 

+1 on that

 

I’ll echo Dingo’s sentiment “the best cleaners you can have”

These are herbivores feeding on micro algae. They reproduce freely in your system so chance are you have a whole lot more than just one. I had a spawning in the middle of the day several years back, they release egg’s and sperm together in a milky cloud – I have some great pictures that I can’t seem to find right now.

Get those test kits, bleaching from bottom up is a sign of poor water quality. Please keep us posted. Check your make up water too and make sure that your filters (using ro/di right?) are still in good condition and also verify that your water container is not leeching phosphates.