something is going on here

[Hara]

Some of you may remember from the chatroom the other night that I had a flowerpot coral with a couple of"feathery handlike thingies" popping out of them now and then. Well, the feathery things were barnacles...

What is weird is that the flower pot coral was active happy, extended, eating..acting just like a coral should. Now, all I have is a white coral empty shell with 2 barnacles in it. It is like something came along and sucked out each of the little flowers.OVERNIGHT! The tank contains peppermint shrimp, 2 banggai cardinals, 2 serpent stars, some small blue leg hermits, a tomato clown, scooter blennie, 2 tigertail sea cukes, snowflake eel, sailfin tang, red leg hermits and snails(astrea and mexican turbo).
None of the above list is supposed to murder coral.

 

[reefrunner69]

Was the coral new? Was it injured in any way? My first suspect would be either brown jelly or predation.

 

[Hara]

there was no brown jelly. I suspect predation for it to have happened that quickly. I had no idea who the predator would be until this afternoon. One of my clients told me that he had blue leg hermits that kept eating his feather dusters and smaller corals. He caught them doing it en masse about 2:00 a.m. one day.

I guess I will be removing them from the tank this evening.

 

[Hara]

not again....

There HAS to be some kind of predator in the tank. Today, the sea cucumbers were eaten. One dead, one almost dead. They had chunks of flesh torn from them. The linckia's also had meat missing, I had thought it happened to them after they died, but after seeing this this morning, I am not too sure about that.

 

[fishfreek]

You have an eel in your tank correct?

Has the eel been eating well? Are the bites simular in size to that of what the eel could produce?

have you ever heard clicking coming from your tank?

 

[Hara]

The eel never ever leaves his rock, we handfeed him raw shrimp and scallops every night and he eats alot. (The tang whipped his arse the second day in and he is now afraid to come out )

I have listened for the clicking of a mantis shrimp, I have gotten up in the wee hours to try to sneak up on something, and have found nothing.

I did remember something that I feel might be pertinent. The night that the "murder" occurred. I went in with trusty flashlight to observe the afterhours activity and I saw "colored small flatworm-type things" . In hindsight, I believe it was pieces of the coral. like a mass evacuation or plucking.