Fish Eating my Soft Corals

Question
QUESTION: I have a 75 Gallon Setup with 2 Blue Damselfish, 2 Percula Clown, 1 Brown Scopas Tang, 1 Banded Goby,and finally a Yellow Tail Dascyllus. As for soft corals I have a Lavender Mushroom, various Xenia, a cat eye polyp. My question is that my soft corals are being eaten...the only culprit I can think of is the Yellowtail..who from various sites state you should use caution regarding it being reef safe. I just took it in as a favor and wanted to know of all my fish listed...Is this the culprit?

ANSWER: Hi Terry. Out of all the fish you have that would be the only one that may have a tendency to nip at corals. I am curious as to what other non fish creatures you might have in your tank as well. There are allot of small shrimps, crabs, slugs and snails that are not reef safe as well as many kinds of starfish that will eat coral polyps as well. If you do not have any other creatures in your tank then the dascyllus is most likely the culprit. If you do have lots of other creatures you may want to look into them just to rule them out.

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QUESTION: I also have quite a few hermit crabs of different sizes but I have had them a while. I would not think they would mow down a Lavender Mushroom in less then 6 hours. What do you think

Answer
It all depends on what type of hermit crabs you have. Some as they get bigger can destroy everything in their path. Most are harmless but it only takes one of the wrong species to decimate a reef tank. If you have simple blue legs, scarlets or Mexican redlegs you are okay and it is your fish.