Need Help With A Zoa Pest

kdogginz · Jan 13, 2019

Hello,

I was having an issue with a Zoa pest a few months back and used Bayer, CoralRX and Lugols to dip all of my Zoas. The pests seem to still be gone but I am still curious if anyone has had this issue or has seen these pests before.

Overall, my Zoas would closing up, grow some type of film/algae over the top then melt away. I took a magnifying glass to my Zoas and saw these little bugs crawling around on them. Under a microscope they look and move like a spider.

In the attached image you can see the bug in the lower left with hair algae behind it. It's hard to see the legs because they are translucent.

Also, the info in the following thread seems to be similar to what I experienced:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/need-help-identifying-zoa-problem.259855/

Thank you

Reefer5640 · Jan 14, 2019

Hard to tell with that pic but I’ve dealt with zoa eating spiders and they aren’t easy to get rid of. Does it look anything like this? If not could it be a copepod you’re seeing? If you have Zoa Pox your zoas will do exactly what you discribed and you will see copepods and amphioids eating the decaying Zoa. Close, grow a film or algae and they shrink to nothing and disappear. Look around on the stock and mat or base for little white/yellow spots (see second pic)
**Zoa eating spider**

**Zoa Pox**

kdogginz · Jan 18, 2019

Thank you for your reply.

It seems like it is much smaller than a zoa eating spider. I can’t rule out that they aren’t baby ones though, since I haven’t seen a small one before.

I have had some zoa pox before that I treated with furan-2. It helped and the pox went away for the most part. Some were too far gone though so they didn’t make it.

Thankfully the dip sequence I used ended up working and I no longer have these, as far as I know...

I thought it was just weird since I haven’t seen something that looks like this before. I’ll did through my videos and see if I can find a clear section that I can post.