Grumpy Zoa help

[hockeyhead019]

Hey everybody, I'm looking to see if anybody has any ideas as to what's aggravating my zoas. I only have two "colonies" one polyp of magicians and one of red people eater (two polyps). They've looked this way for the past three weeks or so. I haven't made any major changes to the tank and completed a 20% water change on Tuesday of this week.

Parameters/System info

20g Mixed Reef, 2 O. Clowns and 1 Orchid Dottyback
WC every two weeks
Chinese black box LED light Blues 12-8, Whites 2pm-6pm both channels at 80%

RODI water used for all WC, filters checking out good with zeros across the board coming out of the filter.

Parameters
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Temp: 78
Ammonia & Trites: 0ppm
Trates: ~5ppm
Alk: 9.9
Calc: 490

Alk and Calcium seemed a little high but I'm guessing that's because of the recent water change.

I'm welcome to any thoughts. I usually spot dose reef roids once a week and all of my other corals (acans, frogspawn, duncan and birdsnest) are all really happy.

I'm kind of stumped, I let them sit and see if it would work itself out, no luck. I've checked the sweepers from the frog and they aren't there. I've moved the people eaters down to the sand and no change (that was a week and a half ago).

Photos:

Red People Eater

Zoa (1) by Jim, on Flickr

Zoa (2) by Jim, on Flickr

Magician

Magician Zoa by Jim, on Flickr

Sorry for the tough picture of the magician, it's almost the dead center of the tank. It almost looks like a plate coral at this point though, it has lost all of the flat part of the polyp.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Maybe try giving them some shade

 

[hockeyhead019]

Maybe try giving them some shade

Thanks, I'll try shuffling the people eater since the magician is attached to the rock and the RPE is on the plug.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Thanks, I'll try shuffling the people eater since the magician is attached to the rock and the RPE is on the plug.

Sometimes it’s light sometimes it’s flow. I have a frag that like shade another that like lots of light. And some in the middle it’s a guessing game.
I had a frag that took over a week to start showing signs of life while others were open within hours.

Good luck

 

[Grossman90]

Didn't post phosphates. I've had my phosphates bottom out and all zoas shrink and lose color. check into it.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Didn't post phosphates. I've had my phosphates bottom out and all zoas shrink and lose color. check into it.

I don't have a test kit for it :/ I have heard that people have issues when they bottom out. Do you think that would be effecting other corals as well though? Everything else is vibrant and happy

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Didn't post phosphates. I've had my phosphates bottom out and all zoas shrink and lose color. check into it.

100% this. I can tell when my PO4 starts to drop because Zoas start closing up. They really seem to like 0.15-0.2ppm in my tank.

 

[hockeyhead019]

100% this. I can tell when my PO4 starts to drop because Zoas start closing up. They really seem to like 0.15-0.2ppm in my tank.

Thanks! So I guess same question I posed to the last post. Did you notice any difference among other corals when it dropped? Or was it pretty specific to zoa's?

Any recommendations on what to dose with?

 

[DeniableArc]

Thanks! So I guess same question I posed to the last post. Did you notice any difference among other corals when it dropped? Or was it pretty specific to zoa's?

Any recommendations on what to dose with?

I just recently had the same experience, I pushed carbon dosing to far and my phosphates bottomed out just for 3 days and my zoas and Gonioporas were first to close up. I dose seachem flourish and test with Hanna ultra low

 

[hockeyhead019]

I just recently had the same experience, I pushed carbon dosing to far and my phosphates bottomed out just for 3 days and my zoas and Gonioporas were first to close up. I dose seachem flourish and test with Hanna ultra low

Good to know, I'm not running any other kind of filtration so I'm curious/concerned about where the phosphates went lol I'm snagging a meter for it. Thanks for the tip

 

[Conchman]

Although they are likely there, I show zero Phosphate, only trace amounts of trates. Flow, light are easy to adjust to. My Rastas receded for a while, now fragging (for me), Chaos, BEBB, all doing well, one frag of I can’t even remember has done nothing for a while. Hit and miss sometimes...