Oldest Zoa Colony Melting

[Fragzilla]

I reckon they're looking like that because of the vermatid snails. I have realised over the last year or so that they do more damage as the snail gets more mature.

If not that then some kind of shock, maybe from adding carbon or too much GFO.

I notice that rock looks a lot cleaner now so some drastic change to your tank has happened recently.

 

[Fragzilla]

I started a thread on this a few days ago asine have been doing this for a couple of months since the chemiclean treatment.

Touch wood, mine seem to be turning the corner. The only changes I have made recently is 10% WC every 3 days to combat low mag and calcium. More importantly IMO I took the GFO offline, ditched the chaeto and started using an algae scrubber.

After seeing your before and after photos I'm now leaning towards this being due to a lack of nutrients, and would go hand in hand with why I saw this happen after continued use of GFO (changed weekly) followed by a chemiclean treatment which as I understand removes lots of nutrients also.

 

[markak]

I had a whole colony of orange and some of the green zoes, just melt and disappear like over night. Also my prized utter caous (about 15 polys) just pop off the plug and were gone. Nothing in my tank changed. I'm now going to try Hydro Perox to see if I can save a few of the green zoes that are left. Anyone find the cause please post.

 

[Beej1254]

Again I appreciate everyone's replies and information.

Some things I have to say though are that I've never run gfo or any other phosphate remover. I also haven't run carbon in probably 10months. My maintenance consists of 10-15% water changes every Monday with instant ocean salt. I change my filter sock 1-2 times a week and clean out my skimmer collection cup on Mondays when I do my water change. Before the water change I also turn off all pumps and scrape the algae off the walls so I can manually remove it.

I will say that I thought I was doing an efficient enough job with my turkey baster and trying to clean around my corals. But then I definitely saw I wasn't. The reason why the rock looks cleaner is because when I dipped the zoas in CoralRX and sloshed it around it knocked off all the loose debris.

My nitrates according to the API test kit are 5-10 and my phosphates are reading 0.25. And I haven't had the chance to get any Chemiclean yet.

They do look better today. Although still no where close to good.

One thing I wanted to ask was if anyone thought direct sunlight coming through my front door could have done something to these zoas? My front door window has a weird pattern to it and where the zoas were ORIGINALLY caused them to get blasted with sunlight for a while each day. During the fall and winter this wasn't an issue at all. And last summer and spring I actually had something over the front door window to block the sun

 

[Beej1254]

I had a whole colony of orange and some of the green zoes, just melt and disappear like over night. Also my prized utter caous (about 15 polys) just pop off the plug and were gone. Nothing in my tank changed. I'm now going to try Hydro Perox to see if I can save a few of the green zoes that are left. Anyone find the cause please post.

I hate seeing my zoas in such bad shape. Sorry you lost some of yours.

 

[Fragzilla]

When did you dip them? Was that before the problem? I can't see how you could dip them without killing everything on the rock.

I'd say the sunlight could very possibly have fried your Zoas depending on how intense of course but I guess you should also consider the magnefying affect of the Rays when passing through your window and then subsequently your tank glass also.

The only thing we can't outright rule out so far is the vernatid snails.

 

[Beej1254]

No the problem has been going on for awhile now. Slowly. And I dipped them 2 days ago. Dipping won't kill everything on he rock. In most cases it doesn't even kill what it's intended to kill. It's used as a decent preventative measure for pests and helping to promote overall coral health. But it definitely won't kill everything on the rock.

Ever sense the weather started to get warmer the sun hits my townhouse differently. Some part of me thinks the couple hours of direct sunlight could have played a big role. I checked and checked again for vermetid snails but yeah I won't rule them out either.

 

[Fragzilla]

If you dipped your live rock in coral RX all the bacteria in the rock would have died.

 

[Beej1254]

No. Not necessarily and I only say that because it isn't proven or disproven. In some instances I'm sure the stuff could wipe out the BB IF used incorrectly. But many people including myself dip corals (frags, colonies, pieces) and rock as pest control without any real adverse effects to the things we want to keep. It would make sense for over concentrated dips or other factors but not a standard dip.

 

[TheEngineer]

If you dipped your live rock in coral RX all the bacteria in the rock would have died.

That's not how CoralRx works. Only some things are susceptible to it. You may get some die off of beneficial bacteria as a result, but you aren't sterilizing the rock by dipping it.

 

[Fragzilla]

Learn something new every day.


Out of interest what sort of lighting are you running over the tank?

 

[TheEngineer]

 

[Beej1254]

Learn something new every day.

Out of interest what sort of lighting are you running over the tank?

Currently I run 2 black box LEDs run at 40-50% power. It's been that way for quite awhile now. I'm really considering adding t5ho.

I originally thought this was due to the zoas shading themselves. Which I guess it could have been which is why I redid my aquascape to give the whole group equal light coverage.

 

[Fragzilla]

Currently I run 2 black box LEDs run at 40-50% power. It's been that way for quite awhile now. I'm really considering adding t5ho.

I originally thought this was due to the zoas shading themselves. Which I guess it could have been which is why I redid my aquascape to give the whole group equal light coverage.

What's your white / blue balance like with these lights?

 

[Beej1254]

Just a quick update on these zoas..

I went to a couple of LFS here and couldn't find Chemiclean. I was actually pretty surprised because I figured it would be in most places.

But I do have some good news as most and if not all of the polyps in this colony are open or opening back up and they are looking well again. Still have a bit of recovery to go but they have made a huge improvement! Hopefully they will continue to get better. All I did was thoroughly clear out the vermetid snails and reposition the rock to allow more direct light to my LEDs. The other possibility for their decline in health was the direct sunlight hitting them. Not sure if that was actually doing something or not but sense they have been out of it they have began to recover