Expensive coral food

[ReefJunkie]

We picked up a true percula on saturday. After putting it in the tank it started exploring and seemed very happy. Later on sunday I watched it roll in the frogspawn a few times. Yesterday I saw it checking out the open brain and saw it roll around on it a few times. Today I came home to find that the open brain had decided to make him lunch! The percula was about 2" long and now I can only see his head http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/frown.gif Is this common for a coral to eat live fish? I feed the open brain shrimp reguraly. Know I'll have to find away to keep the wife away from the tank until the brain is done with it's lunch.

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Scott

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all"
reef@pacifier.com
"Work like you don't need the money,
Love like you have never been hurt,
And dance like no one is watching"

[Thallone]

It may be that the clown has decided to swim into the mouth of the coral, similarly to the way that they can swin into the mouth of a host anemone. Check and see if it maybe isn't being eaten, but is 'hiding'.

Best of luck!

[ReefJunkie]

It is deffinatly being eaten. It is not breathing and now you can only see the very tip of it's head. You can also see the brain take kind of a gulp every so often and he slides another 1mm or so into its mouth. If he would have only picked the toad stool for his host.

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Scott

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all"
reef@pacifier.com
"Work like you don't need the money,
Love like you have never been hurt,
And dance like no one is watching"

[DennisW]

Wow! I cant even get my open brain to eat a little piece of prime reef! Wish mine had an appatite(sp)! Dennis

[Rick O]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I can't even imagine that sight. I've never heard of that happening. I have heard on several occasions of anemones eating clownfish.

Rick

[trendsmash]

I feed my anemones live minnows every now and then, but I have to admit...ouch.

[tdwyatt]

I have to say it is unusual for an open brain to be able to capture a healthy, normally active fish such as a clown, but then again, I learn something new every day. The normal prey of open brains would be small planktonic-sized to copopod sized creatures. Most have very short tentacles that usually only extend at night, and have only enought "punch" in their nematocysts to be able to capture prey of the size mentioned before. I take it we are speaking of Trachyphyllia or a related genus. I can't say that I have ever heard of this happening in an aquarium=sized specimen, but then again... I WOULD like to see a picture of the coral, I don't suppose there is a chance that you could post a picture of it...

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Tom <"{{{{>(
(TDWyatt)
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -Plato

[ReefJunkie]

Tom, I wish I had the digital camera here so I could post some pics.. The mouth of the brain that ate the clown partially regeratated the fish and one of the other mouths took over. This mouth has the clown by it's head and only part of it's tail is sticking out. The tail is perrty much a skelaton. One of my skunk cleaners decided it was feast time and sat on the brain picking at the clown for about a minute. When it tried to leave it had to strugal franitaclly too get away from the brain. It was like the shrimp was super glued to the tenticles of the brain. The cleaner is back up ther again but this time it's prancing around and not staying in one place for very long. Hopefully I still have 2 cleaners when I get up tommorow.

[WindWalker]

Sorry to hear about your fish.

[Alice]

http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/eek.gif Scott; that's bizarre. The brain that ate Pittsburgh.

I'm really sorry about your fish, though. It's bad enough to lose a fish but like that must have been horrifying.

~Alice

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Reefkeeping is my life; I can't afford a hobby too! My specs: www.thereeftank.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000029.html