A Zoa Conundrum...

[ReefBridge]

May want to check for these guys too. Had one come in on a frag from the LFS. Always fresh water dip before adding your zooanthids

Oh absolutely! I've spent hours over the course of a couple weeks looking specifically for these guys. Quick sad story... when I was 'greener' I found one of these guys and I was super excited because I loved nudibranchs. It was a hard lesson learned... I dip everything now.

 

[GoReefin]

Oh absolutely! I've spent hours over the course of a couple weeks looking specifically for these guys. Quick sad story... when I was 'greener' I found one of these guys and I was super excited because I loved nudibranchs. It was a hard lesson learned... I dip everything now.

Started in this hobby over 15 years ago i had to sell my tank about 11 years ago and recently got back into the hobby I've noticed a huge increase in pests and infections since I was last in the hobby. Sad really.

 

[ReefBeta]

Didn't see you mention about water changes. Did you do regular WC? Or any routine change before zoa stop openning? If it's lack of some element, more frequent water change should show improvement. Not saying just relying on water change to supplement. But use frequent water change to confirm if it's lacking element. If it's confirm, then narrow down to which and supplement that as longer term solution.

 

[ReefBridge]

Didn't see you mention about water changes. Did you do regular WC? Or any routine change before zoa stop openning? If it's lack of some element, more frequent water change should show improvement. Not saying just relying on water change to supplement. But use frequent water change to confirm if it's lacking element. If it's confirm, then narrow down to which and supplement that as longer term solution.

So before about 3 months ago, I was doing 1 gallon a day, but my nitrates and phosphates were dead zero. I couldn't even get algae to grow, until some dinos starting lurking around. Fought that battle and once they were gone, I stopped doing the water changes. Then I stopped doing water changes up to about 1 month ago. I was worried about trace elements, so I am now at 1/2 gallon a day, not running carbon or GFO to help keep nutrients up. I can't tell you exactly when the zoas stopped opening and where that corresponded to my water changes, but I think I would've started seeing improvement before a week ago when I started dosing iodide. The iodide does seem to be working, but it's not definitive yet.

 

[ReefBridge]

Ok so in follow up, since as a reader, I appreciate seeing conclusions of other threads. I did the iodide treatment for a few weeks and I think there was some improvement, but it may have been mostly imagined. But I wasn’t getting the results that I was hoping for. I had a large Xenia in there and just in case that was absorbing too much iodine, I took it to the LFS. Another recommendation was lighting. I have a Red Sea reefer 250 with the two 90w LEDs. To increase lighting, I got a pendant assembly and added red sea’s new 160w LED. It all fits in the pendant together. I slowly ramped up that light as well. So now I’m shining 240w down into the tank 10 hours a day. Based on par readings, I should really have enough light to keep anything alive at this point. Alas, my zoas still aren’t happy. To allow some of the nutrients to increase, I cut my skimming and reduced my water changes to a half gallon a day. The nutrients went up a little and now, I have GHA creeping up so I’ll have to back off the lights a little and up my skimming again. Not sure what else to do at this point.

any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[DDenny]

Sorry to hear that they are still not doing well. Seems that Zoas have ton of pests that hitchhike in with them. Hope this gets figured out soon and you don't see any more issues.