Help IDing a yellow poylp killer

[tiredoldman]

Something in my 40 breeder reef tank has taken a liking to eating my yellow polyps. Everything in my tank is suppose to be reef safe. Here is a list of the tank current inhabitants. Royal gramme, blennies a red lip, scooter and spotted, Damsels Electric blue, orange tail and plain blue, Scissor tail Gobi, Small flame hawk, Sally light foot, coral banded shrimp. cleaner shrimp, 2 emerald crabs, 25 small 1/3' to 1/2' assorted hermits, brittle star and 20 snails. 2 times I have put yellow polyps into my tank and they have vanished off their rock. water checks fine and I have approx 700 GPH of water flow in the tank. Lighting is 270 watts of compact bulbs. It is only the yellow ones that are vanishing. My starburst, brown and green polyps are doing great and even expanding same with my mushrooms. Any one have any ideas? If it was my crabs that were vanishing I would say the flame hawk but I have never heard of them eating polyps

 

[fishtaco]

I had the same exact thing happen to me, both my nano's had healthy colonies and then they just started to go missing. All my other coral is doing well and none have come up missing. I'm don't have much livestock besides other coral in my tanks either. I suspected that it was the work of my peppermint shrimp, but I only have them in one tank, so that cancelled them out. I have a few hermits, a damsel in one tank and a pair of clowns in the other and some snails. Even did a few late night flashlight searches and that also turned up nothing. Glad you posted about this.
Fishtaco

 

[cranberry]

Nothing is an obligate yellow polyp eater. Some peeps with the yellow polyps find they flourish and then die off. I would guess the prob is with your polyps, not the tank's inhabitants.

 

[fishtaco]

Very interesting Cranberry, I wonder what they need that we are missing?

 

[tiredoldman]

Peppermint shrimp will eat yellow polyps. I care for a tank the was overrun with Aiptasia and put 3 peppermints in it. They got rid of the 500+ Aiptasia in a month but then turned on the large yellow polyp colony in the tank. They munched approx 200 in 2 weeks before I could get them all out. That is why I don't have any in my tank. They are semi reef safe no matter what some books say.