Is something eating my zoas?

[KonradTO]

Hi all!
I noticed that one of my zoa heads slowly lost its tentacles over the past 3-4 days. Was dipped for 5 minutes 2 weeks ago when I got it.

All the remaining heads seems doing fine.
Do you think is predation or something else?

 

[KonradTO]

Bump

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

It is possible, that something is munching on the zoa's. Its also possible, they might just be upset at something, zoa's are pretty moody.

If you give a better idea of your tank overall condition (are other corals ok? parameters?) and advise what kind of tank mates you have, someone might be able to give a more accurate reply.

 

[ying yang]

I know my bi colour blenny likes to nibble on my magician palys and maybe that's what's in the picture above as look same as mine except mine got white speckles in centre but can't see on your camera angle.
For me I didnt notice bi colour blenny nibbling as they on rock close to sandbed but when moved up to half way in tank after 2 weeks,the bi colour started nibbling, not sure if its close to where he hangs out and urge just to much for him or if just simply they taste delicious lol.im keeping eye on him but if decide to take him back to lfs ,I'm not looking forward to trying catch the little bugger as I've got 2 large rock structures glued and mortared together and a ywg and pistol shrimp live under one of them pffft.
As my bi colour nibbled on them,it either ate a polyp each time or just 1- 2 polyps stayed retracted but rest polyps stayed out,but looked darker around the polyps that I seen him dart at and nibble.

I guess all you can do is watch the tank and see if you can catch any fish/cuc member or some kind of pest munching on them or set up a camera to record it happenning.good luck ^_^

 

[madlos123]

I had same exact thing happen to me recently. An amphipod was munching the tentacles to the polyp during night time on a very healthy paly/zoa. So check at night when lights are out if you have an amphipod eating them. Heres my example.

 

[G Santana]

I'd say do a lights off drive by. If anything is eating them it will most likely be at night. Get a flashlight with a red filter and put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and wait.
Good luck, hopefully it's just closed up.

 

[G Santana]

BTW, is that a Sunny D zoa?

 

[KonradTO]

As some are suggesting I checked for 10 minutes (here is night now). Definitely there is tons of amphipods crawling around (despite I have a sixline). I also have a bicolor blenny perching near the zoa but I never noticed him feeding on the zoa for now. But I had the zoas for less than 10 days so who can tell..
I might dip the zoa again and place it on a rack where amphipods should not easily reach and see what happen. Tonight there was another head munched on one side, it's definitely predation because I can see the white flesh where the tentacles were. It starts from the margin and slowly goes until only the mouth remains. Dang.

 

[KonradTO]

BTW, is that a Sunny D zoa?

No its supposed to be a people eater red zoa. Not for long apparently

 

[G Santana]

No its supposed to be a people eater red zoa. Not for long apparently

Try moving it to a frag rack off the substrate to give it time to recover.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all!
I noticed that one of my zoa heads slowly lost its tentacles over the past 3-4 days. Was dipped for 5 minutes 2 weeks ago when I got it.

All the remaining heads seems doing fine.
Do you think is predation or something else?

For starters- get it off sand bedding .
It looks closed up than melting.
There are a number of factors why zoas close up. Some are water movement/flow as zoas do not require the consistent high flow conditions that SPS corals do. I would consider a moderate flow environment ideal but Zoanthids, like most corals, can adapt to low or high flow. In high flow, you will typically see polyps grow closer to the rock with shorter stalks. Another is lack of feeding and food as infrequent feeding and ultra low nutrient conditions can lead to entire colony meltdowns. Target feeding is not a requirement as Zoanthids are photosynthetic. I have found that target feeding Zoanthids always provides mixed results, when a food particle falls onto the polyps.

Back to parameters, good water quality is a must.
dKH: 8.0 - 10.0
Calcium: 420 - 440
Magnesium: 1300 - 1350
Iodine: Maintained via regular water changes or manually at small dosages
Temperature: 78-79 degrees
pH: 8.1-8.3
Phosphates: .02 - .03
Nitrates < 5

Asterina stars, little tiny tiny spiders and nudibranchs also will make them miserable to point of death as will aptasia, worms like spinoids or vermetid snails. A few things to look for. Hope this helps

 

[KonradTO]

It is possible, that something is munching on the zoa's. Its also possible, they might just be upset at something, zoa's are pretty moody.

If you give a better idea of your tank overall condition (are other corals ok? parameters?) and advise what kind of tank mates you have, someone might be able to give a more accurate reply.

Parameters are OK in the normal ranges. Tank is quite new (6 months) but I test constantly and there should be nothing strange with the water. I am quite sure it's predation because it happens within few hours and the rest of the corals are fine. I have leptastrea goniastrea torch and hammer which look OK.
The stock is:
Hermit crab (!)
Clowns
Sixline
Ywg
Chromis
Bicolor blenny(!)
Tons of amphipods. Everywhere. Also big ones.
Not sure if it's them, but I am reading far too many stories about amphi and zoas.

The problem is that my sixline befriend them instead of hunting.

 

[KonradTO]

It is possible, that something is munching on the zoa's. Its also possible, they might just be upset at something, zoa's are pretty moody.

If you give a better idea of your tank overall condition (are other corals ok? parameters?) and advise what kind of tank mates you have, someone might be able to give a more accurate reply.

Parameters are OK in the normal ranges. Tank is quite new (6 months) but I test constantly and there should be nothing strange with the water. I am quite sure it's predation because it happens within few hours and the rest of the corals are fine. I have leptastrea goniastrea torch and hammer which look OK.
The stock is:
Hermit crab (!)
Clowns
Sixline
Ywg
Chromis
Bicolor blenny(!)
Tons of amphipods. Everywhere. Also big ones.
Not sure if it's them, but I am reading far too many stories about amphi and zoas.

The problem is that my sixline befriend them instead of hunting

For starters- get it off sand bedding .
It looks closed up than melting.
There are a number of factors why zoas close up. Some are water movement/flow as zoas do not require the consistent high flow conditions that SPS corals do. I would consider a moderate flow environment ideal but Zoanthids, like most corals, can adapt to low or high flow. In high flow, you will typically see polyps grow closer to the rock with shorter stalks. Another is lack of feeding and food as infrequent feeding and ultra low nutrient conditions can lead to entire colony meltdowns. Target feeding is not a requirement as Zoanthids are photosynthetic. I have found that target feeding Zoanthids always provides mixed results, when a food particle falls onto the polyps.

Back to parameters, good water quality is a must.
dKH: 8.0 - 10.0
Calcium: 420 - 440
Magnesium: 1300 - 1350
Iodine: Maintained via regular water changes or manually at small dosages
Temperature: 78-79 degrees
pH: 8.1-8.3
Phosphates: .02 - .03
Nitrates < 5

Asterina stars, little tiny tiny spiders and nudibranchs also will make them miserable to point of death as will aptasia, worms like spinoids or vermetid snails. A few things to look for. Hope this helps

Water is OK. Water movement hard to judge, I am quite inexperienced with reefing.. its nearby an hammer coral and the movement is not intense enough to push the hammer on one side only but rather in "random" directions, not sure if I explained myself. Also I had it for few days only so its still on its plug.
The head was fully open and healthy 3 days ago
I definitely have astarinas but I would see them feeding. There are some tubeworms growing on the zoa for sure but I did not consider them dangerous. Maybe tomorrow I clean the remaining heads for good and move them somewhere else.

 

[KonradTO]

One more head gone..

 

[Aqua Man]

Tons of amphipods. Everywhere. Also big ones.
Not sure if it's them, but I am reading far too many stories about amphi and zoas.

I’ve seen these rogue Pods eat Zoas in my tank. I’m not the only one either. Not a fan of asterina star fish, they stress/eat Zoa too.

 

[G Santana]

One more head gone..

Put them up on the glass in a frag rack until they recover.

 

[KonradTO]

Just a short update.
I raised my zoa to a rack a bit above sand level, but I noticed that they were stretching for light and kept losing heads one after the other. Then I raised them a bit higher. Long story short, now all the heads are "gone". They are still there but show no color and no polyps. I was scared they would melt and poison the water so I confined them in my pico with LR for now, but I doubt they will survive. RIP

 

[chipchipbro]

I do have the same problem with some of my Zoas..
Well, the predators and the blue hornets are open.. my watermeldons and my sunny'Ds just are closed and look weird..
I am fallow and I guess that amphipods are eating it..

 

[KonradTO]

In my case I am sure its not them because the rack was impossible to reach by the amphipods.
Who knows what happened.
Maybe some types of Zoas are less palatable then others?