Random, Large-scale Zoa Polyp Death

[ahiggins]

I fragged off a polyp that is showing signs of decline and snapped a bunch of pictures. I see some rings, but they appear to be under the skin of the zoa or maybe it is the skin? I also see some red dots too. Can I also say I love this new lens? Like LOVE it.

See the weird rings/lines?

Red dots on the left?

those are great pics!!
What lens did you get? I just got a macro that I use for ID

 

[TheEngineer]

those are great pics!!
What lens did you get? I just got a macro that I use for ID

Thanks. I'm still learning. It is a Tamron 90mm.

 

[ahiggins]

are you talking about the rings that look like nudi eggs?

if nudis can crawl inside the heads of them...why is it such a stretch to think they could lay eggs inside of them?
They look like it could be the same shape:

 

[TheEngineer]

These are at F29. Not sure it's much better...

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

if nudis can crawl inside the heads of them...why is it such a stretch to think they could lay eggs inside of them?
They look like it could be the same shape:

the dont go inside as far as i have experienced. they suck the sap from the outside.

 

[ahiggins]

I've never had them, I was just reading up on it lol
But they do look like them :/

 

[1979fishgeek]

Those little strange shaped flat worm brown smears in your photo is exactly what I found in my fire an ice after doing a dettol dip!
They were buried dead centre of a closed polyp....!
Please tell me there is no such thing as zoa eating flat worm!
Sorry best photo I could get on this crappy camera, couple of harmless snails too but they not sundials.

 

[1979fishgeek]

These are what I was referring too...

Dip complete. I see a few things that look suspicious, but I suspect them not to be any of the pests we've discussed....

Thought it was a spider, but I think it is just some bubble algae.

Same as above, different angle.

A lot of little specs here. Most look to just be sand if you zoom in. Another brown blob like above.

There are some strange things in this pic. What's that in the top left? I don't know. What are the two things on the bottom right? See next images for closer shots.

Looks like a flatworm?

I don't know what this one is. Maybe a dead aiptasia?

Close up from two angles of the frag after dipping.

 

[TheEngineer]

Whole bunch more polyps bit the dust last night

 

[jenreefer]

Whole bunch more polyps bit the dust last night

Sorry to hear that. I know you must be totally frustrated at this point.

 

[TheEngineer]

Sorry to hear that. I know you must be totally frustrated at this point.

It usually stops after a few days and things start to grow back. It is quite frustrating though.

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

I really hope you find the culprit. This is a great thread thus far.

 

[TheEngineer]

I really hope you find the culprit. This is a great thread thus far.

Thanks. Samples are on their way to Dr @twilliard as we speak should arrive on Monday for full analysis. Haha.

 

[twilliard]

Oh ya I will be waiting!

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

Awesome idea to look under the scope.

I have found when I have a colony melt (with no other changes made to the tank) it occurs in 24-48 hours, there is no saving it, it is random and I believe it cannot be prevented. I attribute it to an illness similar to any other animal. Zoa's just are little so the die quickly. Their skins starts to fall off (litterally melts) which cause rapid decline to their innards.

Is this at all happening to yours? If not - you have to have a pest. I cannot think of any other way in 1 day a whole colony could die.

Lately I have been dealing with light shock. LED's are very powerful and it took me months to realize they were the culprit. My colonies are not melting as mentioned above. They slowly shrink and die off. The mats thin out as the polyps shrink down. This can be stopped by lowering the intensity they get drastically. It takes a very long time for recovering and die off can happen in a week if measures are not taken.

 

[TheEngineer]

I've been leaning heavily towards this being bacterial versus a predator for a while. All frags have been dipped before going in this tank and it tends to happen to multiple colonies at once that are not near each other. Hence my thinking it is not a pest.

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

If that is the case then I am afraid it is the former part of my post and I have not found any way to prevent this random occurrence.

 

[TheEngineer]

If that is the case then I am afraid it is the former part of my post and I have not found any way to prevent this random occurrence.

That's my thinking too.

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

There are so many variables to understand.

How many zoa's do you have? I have 75-100 in my zoa garden (only zoas). When this happens to me it is only 1 colony at a time and it is usually the higher end zoa's. My last zoas to melt were all rare (Krak Gods, etc.).

I have told myself that these are rare because they are not meant for captivity.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Awhile back I bought a bunch of higher end zoas. I told the wife we were going to start fragging zoas and trade them to the LFS and make the tanks more self sustaining. Most of them all melted! My Utter Chaos are the only ones that didn't seem to be effected at all. I hope that we find some stuff under microscopic analysis.