Throwing in the towel with zoas

Bradsreeeftank · Mar 21, 2014

These zoanthids are very very annoying, almost all colonies/frags been irretated for about 1.5 weeks and its starting to irritate me. Water change: no reaction, feeding:no, blowing them off: no reaction, changing temp of water: no reaction and moving them to diffrent area: no reaction. Theres really nothing else i can do my paremteres are Mag: 1360
Alk: 11.2 dkh
calc 425
Just about done with these zoas, because nothing gets you more frustrated then having a coral that thrives in your tank for a few weeks and then for absolute no reason completely shuts down! Heres pic of one colony, i noticed this colony that the outside of the polyp (skin) it sheds and the next day the polyp has a clean outside but still wont open. I checked for bugs only found one nudi out of 7 colonies/frags. They all been ticked of since i found the darn copopods and amphipods crawling across them! So if you have zoa tank your gonna want a wrasse to eat about all of them! This really sucks!:frusty: Sorry i cant get the pic up.

ReefMadScientist · Mar 21, 2014

I have zoos but I would rather have polys instead. Zoas are so sensitive to EVERYTHING. I have SPS and LPS of all sorts but zoas are the one finicky coral of them all.

I have some awesome Rastas growing well but I have noticed my commons seem to close up from time to time for no reason. Polys are way better looking and easier to care for IMO.

SloppyJ · Mar 21, 2014

2 things:

Has your alk always been that high?
Are you sure that the things crawling on them weren't nudis?

mrcoffee2 · Mar 21, 2014

I have 6 different kinds of zoas in my 8G tank. TBH they are easy for me. Acans I have problems with. They seem to like dirtier water.I have never had nudi' tough

Bradsreeeftank · Mar 21, 2014

Yeah im sure, they they are pretty small brown things. im 99 percent sure. And im not sure, i never tested alk

ReefMadScientist · Mar 21, 2014

I've tried as high as 12 dKh for a few months. Slowly went down to try 8.2 dKh…same results with those zoas.

Acans, they love me lol.

PRomero · Mar 21, 2014

I'm usually at 12dkh and don't have problem with zoas.

Question, Do you have cyano in your tank? Everytime I notice a problem with cyano in my system the zoas close up, I do the chemiclean treatment and within a few days they all bounce back, its wierd. Maybe something to do with the excess of the wrong type of bacteria, don't know. Also try placing the zoas in lower light/shaded area. If your water is good then they'll bounce back most of the time.

myownlife · Mar 21, 2014

I have Cyano all over my fuge but my palys thrive in my tank so I don't think its that unless the cyano is covering them. Also I have found that the smaller zoas are way Harder to grow than the larger palys

Bradsreeeftank · Mar 21, 2014

I dont have cyano

ReefMadScientist · Mar 21, 2014

No cyanobacteria here.

PRomero · Mar 21, 2014

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/zo...ep-healthy-zoas-long-run-wanted-please-3.html

According to post #51, chemiclean helps zoanthids out, I've noticed this through trial and error, I just found this thread doing a different search.

Bradsreeeftank · Mar 21, 2014

Thanks man!

PaulKreider · Mar 21, 2014

Its a brown fungal infection. Usually gotten from hawiian PE's. Dip in coral RX Its a very destructive infection

charliet21 · Mar 21, 2014

Try diping all in furan2 for infection u possmise it worjs look it up. I have over 50 different frags of palts and zoas. And i dip them all before going in my tank

Bradsreeeftank · Mar 21, 2014

Oh darn but i just bought coral revive, now i half to buy another dip? how do you guys no its a fungal infection without a pick?

-Logzor · Mar 21, 2014

Try a H2O2 dip. Saves mine every time! I usually do 25% H202 dip for about 1 minute. Sometimes even more H202 to aquarium water.

PaulKreider · Mar 21, 2014

Revive works too.

Ice · Mar 22, 2014

PRomero said:
I'm usually at 12dkh and don't have problem with zoas.

Question, Do you have cyano in your tank? Everytime I notice a problem with cyano in my system the zoas close up, I do the chemiclean treatment and within a few days they all bounce back, its wierd. Maybe something to do with the excess of the wrong type of bacteria, don't know. Also try placing the zoas in lower light/shaded area. If your water is good then they'll bounce back most of the time.

how dose the chemiclean work for you? getting annoyed at my cayno and i know it bugs my zoas. just cleaned my tank and it came back and is bugging my bloodshots and thats no good...

turbo21 · Mar 22, 2014

Brad

You hit the nail on the head in your first post

It's the zoa eating nudis. If you found one their are definitely more to be found. You need to start dipping every zoa colony every 3 days to break the life cycle. And make sure you are checking for eggs like I told you before and you will get through it

Bob

Stomp · Mar 22, 2014

week and a half and your ready to quit? sometimes they go wacky for months, and come back just fine. sounds like your changing alot of things, and perhaps irritating them more with blowing and attempted feeding. and temp changes, thats not good imo. just let them be and keep doing what youve been doing, as long as params are good etc. give them time, you need to have patience with polyps.