Iodine may not be the problem. The amazing growth of coral could not be happening without Iodine.
But this losing of Emerald Crabs is also a clue as to why new fish don't live long in that tank. Please don't be offended, but I'm a little worried about the coral too. What are the levels of Alk and Ca in this tank these days?
I know that many think I'm just an old fart. Maybe my good days have passed, but I have seen a lot of reef aquariums. I have seen older tanks that eventually have major problems with one thing or another, or they crash. I would hate to see that happen to this tank. I would hate to see a lot of beautiful life lost and you have put too much money into that tank to let it crash.
I believe there may be too much GSP in the tank. The chemicals put off by too large of any coral colony are always a risk. There is also all that irritating sponge and the problems it may be causing.
It would be good to look at this tank from the broader perspective.
Let's look at it this way.
The ocean is a huge place where no one organism has
complete control. Yes there are areas where one organism is dominant for a while, but in general the ocean environment is populated by a huge diversity of life. The various organisms keep each other in check, somewhat. In the wild, there is always an ebb and flow of different organisms coming in and taking over an area only to later die off because of their own monopolizing existence. Then some other organism comes in to take over where the other one died.
Unfortunately when this happens in our little ecosystems, the thing that mostly takes the place of a major die-off is nuisance algae. So if we want our little ecosystems to continue to do do well, we should try as much as possible to copy the natural environment. We should place a variety of things in our tanks. The way I have always described this is that we should avoid allowing one thing to take up more than 5-10% of the space in our tanks.
An example of this comes from the originator and founder of the WMAS. Tim Weidauer had an absolutely beautiful tank (for those days). But he had a huge Klyxum that had grown to the size of a basketball. One day a powerhead slipped and was blowing directly on that coral all day so that when he got home it had dissolved and killed half the tank. The huge colony of Green Slimer Acropora was one of the losses, which certainly added to the die-off as it wasted into the water. It was a major tragedy.
I know that sometimes I say things without proper tact. Tact and kindness are not my strong suits but I do know reef aquariums. I brought up this discussion at this time to help all WMAS hobbyists avoid similar mistakes leading to similar tank crashes.
I hope you will take this in the helpful spirit in which it is intended. Please forgive any offense. None was intended.
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