Can anybody help me with my zoa problem??????????

[reefpeeper]

Well recently like the last couple of days my z/p have been looking pretty blah. It started as only a couple and now it seems to be affecting more of them. What happens is that they start looking shriveled or not fully open. Others look like the skirts are disappearing. I have inspected the z/p closely during the day and night and have not noticed anything weird. Only thing different i have done lately is add about 10 drops of coralamino a day. Have been doing that for about 2-3 weeks. Also have started feeding the tank a little more. All other lps and sps look fine. My parameters are:

Cal 450
alk 9.6
ph 8.2
temp 76f
mag ?
Salinity .026
any other info needed?

Any ideas what can be wrong guys/gals?

 

[reefpeeper]

Anybody?

 

[Troylee]

Pest....

 

[fastrd400]

I'd dip em and see if anything drops off of the plug/colony. While you have them out of the tank get a magnifying glass and look at them really close for anything like eggs or zoa pox.

 

[Luisra]

How much flow do you have in your tank? In my opinion, 9.6 is a little high for them.

Have you checked your water for Ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, phosphates?

 

[Troylee]

Nah my alk is 12 right now and my polyps have exploded.... In just the last 3 weeks I have gotten 3 baby utter chaos, 2 space monsters... There loving it

 

[mnat]

It sounds likes pests to me as well.

 

[Luisra]

Nah my alk is 12 right now and my polyps have exploded.... In just the last 3 weeks I have gotten 3 baby utter chaos, 2 space monsters... There loving it

Alk @12? Wow! I can't go over 9, they don't like it. I keep mine between 7-8

 

[Reef keeper]

R the zoas n palys in the growout ok?
R ur bulbs old?

 

[Troylee]

Alk @12? Wow! I can't go over 9, they don't like it. I keep mine between 7-8

Normally I keep my alk at those levels since I
Dose vodka but I laid off the vodka for now and with my dosing pumps giving my tank a steady dose my alk crept to 12 I tested it yesterday since everything looked so great... Like I said my polyps exploded!!! I have had that space monster for a good 8 months as a single polyp since moving it to the new tank it has popped a fully developed polyp and a nub for a third... I also got a tyree orange rainbow from mike 1 month ago exactly a single polyp I now have 4.

 

[jdreef]

You know for what its worth i had the same problem and kinda still do but getting better daily.. I was using Coral Vital and feeding more often for about a month . All my paramiters are awesome. Everything else looks nice except my paly's and zoa's. I watched and watched day and night to find nothing. Even dipped and found nothing.. Although I always saw little coco pods ect. climbing every where all over .. So pretty much after losing a few frags and wacthing my other ones fall apart I stoped my adding of coral vital, feeding so much, I increased my flow and the ones that looked worse put them all in higher flow, got a six line wrasp and a couple pipe fishes and the problem seems to be reversing.. I think By my extra adding of nutrents ect. I had an explosion of coco pods ect. and when I missed feeding or they got hungry they started eating and irritating my paly's and zoa's.. I'm also adding another fish i forgot the name but its like a six line..The high flow seems to be doing the trick cuz I havent lost any more stuff.. I'll tell you what though when I was adding all that stuff my chalices were going crazy .Iv'e never seen them open up so much and feed... But the affect on my paly's and zoa's paid the price... I plan on using all that stuff again but my palys and zoas will be in another tank...
Hope this gives you some help, if you do try this it doesnt happen over night but it start to help.. When I do look at my paly's and zoa's now i don't see as many as I did at the time of the problem... Goode Luck and I'll check back!!!

 

[reefpeeper]

I just got back to the computer after checking and dipping again. Nothing was found. I have not tested nitrates or phospates because i do not have test kits for that. I am assuming that those parameters are good considering that lps and sps are looking good and no algea growth at all. Maybe your right jdreef. It seems to have happened when i started feeding heavy and adding coralamino. My chalices also have been looking better than ever.

 

[twinspots_goby]

I would recommend to do a large WC and see if it helps.

 

[jdreef]

Ya i was getting so worried. I was so close to doing a levosole and or a interceptor treatment but glad i didn't. What really got me thinking was when I took my mp40 out to clean for the night came back the next morning and things had gotten really bad.. So I kinda new it had to do something with flow... So then then I increased flow, moved my affected stuff closer to the flow and things got looked stable at least in the high flow.. But things outside the high flow still were getting affected so thats when I started everything above!!

 

[drainbamage]

sounds like zoa eating nudi's to me- especially the disappearing skirts. Adults can be ridiculously hard to spot, so not surprising if you haven't been able to find them. Look starting 30 minutes prior to lights on for ANYTHING that somewhat resembles a zoa skirt, and chances are it'll be a nudi.

 

[PR_Reefers]

I saw some of my zoas not thriving also a while ago everything was in params and I could not spot any pests, however I assumed it was some kind of bacterial infection or microscopic pest so I prepared 4 bowls with strong dose of ,freshwater, revive, h202 and SW respectively. I dipped each frag for a 1-2 minutes in each in that same order and then back to the tank... I saw couple tiny worms and many copepods/amphipods but nothing definitive. I can honestly say the frags looked much better the next day and have been doing fine. Not sure what you can make of this but when unsure nuke!! I also removed a gorilla crab which could have been the cause but anyways... hehe
fwiw many z/p benefit from strong good flow at least in my experience

 

[bangoo]

I had similar experience. Those ones with missing skirts, are they bigger palys or people eater palys? I had amphipods eating the skirts off of them. At night time when lights are off, use a flash light and see if you could see any big ones hanging around polyps. Good luck

 

[reefpeeper]

I think i may have started to win the battle. I have dipped all zoas the last two days and also done water changes. From what it looks like the zoas are starting to stop the decline in health. They still look not to good, but are not getting worse. Thanx for everybodys input and i wish i knew what caused this whole thing. After 10yrs of reefkeeping i never had to deal with something like this. Thanx again

 

[PR_Reefers]

What did you dip in??

 

[reefpeeper]

What did you dip in??

I was dipping them in coral rx and furan2. Made the rx dip a little more stronger. I used half a packet of furan2 in about 3-4 cups water.