what is causing this kind of destruction?

[surfn]

its headaches like this which are causing me to get out of the paly collecting. i haven't had this happen since i moved, but in my old tanks i would have this happen to a zoa colony ever now and then.

i've dipped in FW, SW, lugols, and TMPCC.......etc. I've considered nudi's (never found any), bristle worms (killed with dips), aserina stars (whiped out with harlequin), and pods (non existant due to a mandarin and six-line).

i've never see anything munch on them, and whenever this happens, it ALWAYS happens in mass destruction all of a sudden one night.....its NEVER 1 or 2 polyps here or there, and gets worse day by day.

i'm completely stumped. although this time, there seems to be an aweful lot of debris and junk in b/w all of the injured/shrunken polyps.

 

[mfinn]

Got any fish in this system?

 

[Reef Goddess]

Have you checked them at night? Looks like something is munching down. Are the polyps actually injured? They look more irritated than damaged. Are all your fish reef-safe?

Do you have another tank you could put them in to isolate them to see if its a critter or just a problem with those zoos.

 

[mfinn]

Besides the ones already listed

 

[mfinn]

I've had terrible like with a couple types of tangs.

i've never see anything munch on them, and whenever this happens, it ALWAYS happens in mass destruction all of a sudden one night.....its NEVER 1 or 2 polyps here or there, and gets worse day by day.

 

[msman825]

the last 2 pics looks like the debris is in there mouths

 

[surfn]

in my old system, i had 2 tanks plumbed together into 1 sump. 1 tank was mainly sps, and other was mainly zoas. yet, i had this going on in BOTH tanks....which lead me to believe it had to be chemical....

although this happened much more in the smaller zoa tank than it did in the sps tank.

the polyps look beat up, and shrunk......almost like something has sucked them dry. in the past, they would look like this, and slowly die over the next couple of days. sometimes they live, and just take a week or two to recover, but sometimes the polyps do die. i lost an entire colony of bright blue zoas with green skirts due to this.

i've been looking into the tank late at night with a red flashlight since march, and have never seen anything in the zoas, not even pods.

everything in my tank is reef safe....
-purple tang
-sixline wrasse
-mandarin
-bangaii cardinal
-clown
-neon blue goby
-coral banded shrimp
-skunk cleaner shrimp
-fire/red blood shrimp
-random snails and small hermits

 

[surfn]

I've had terrible like with a couple types of tangs.

i've had this going on well before i added the purple tang, and was happening in a tank with only the madarin/sixline/clown/red blood shrimp

the last 2 pics looks like the debris is in there mouths

yeah, almost looks like they are puking it up.....not eating it.

 

[msman825]

looks like too me there being aggravated instead of eatten, I had those tub worms are spaghetti worms on colonys before that shot a web all over the place

 

[surfn]

the polyps are definitely shrunken, not just closed up.......i can take a picture of the polyps that are currently open.....but instead closed up (i'll blow on them with a turkey baster).

the polys are twice as large as the ones that have been injured.

in the very first picture, look at the normal size of the polyps on the left......then all the way over on the right, look at the tiny polyp that is completely open. thats not a baby polyp, baby polyps dont look like that.

 

[Reef Goddess]

Well, while we're at it, what are your tank parameters and chemicals you're using?

 

[surfn]

also, no worms have been found any where near this colony. i've seen splenoid and spaghetti worms on other zoas, and yes zoas look irritated and closed up, but they dont actually shrink in size.

 

[surfn]

Well, while we're at it, what are your tank parameters and chemicals you're using?

salinity: 1.024-1.025
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 0
PO4: 0
KH: 10 dkH
Calcium: 400ppm
Mg: 1300ppm

i dont think this is chemical anymore, otherwise i'd see this happening to all the zoas......and it wouldn't look like "patterns". chemical problems aren't indifferent to certain areas of certain colonies.

you can clearly see compeltely healthy zoas to the left, at the very top, and to the bottom right of this colony. it just looks like a clear path of destruction caused by some sort of animal.

also, no other problems on any other zoas in the tank.

i dont use any chemicals in the tank, only IO salt, DIY-2part dosing, and feeding frozen foods.

 

[msman825]

I'd dig these little antanner's out with a knive, and the tube sticking out right above

 

[surfn]

that hard tube is just those stupid vermitid snails.....they aren't causing this.

sometimes they send out long streams of slime to catch food and stuff, and they will irritate things some times, but much less than splenoid or spaghetti worms.

not sure what antlers you are talking about......can you circle them?

 

[anomie]

An interesting clue might be that the polyps that are more vertically orientated are still open while the more horizontal ones are irritated. Did you change your lighting recently? Maybe there was a spectrum shift? Could something have percipated out? Do you dose your chemicals above this colony? I dunno, but thought I would throw this out there.

 

[surfn]

An interesting clue might be that the polyps that are more vertically orientated are still open while the more horizontal ones are irritated. Did you change your lighting recently? Maybe there was a spectrum shift? Could something have percipated out? Do you dose your chemicals above this colony? I dunno, but thought I would throw this out there.

nope, lighting hasn't changed recently. if it was a spectrum shift other corals *should* have been effected.

chemicals are dosed into the sump, and the return is on the opposite side of the tank than where this zoa colony is located.

 

[anomie]

It's far out there but...

Has anything spawned in your tank recently? I ask because I had a encrusting gorgonian spawn and it only effected my turbo snails and nothing else. (they all died) I have no idea if spawning can affect zoas that way, but that could be happening since you notice a change in your zoas in the morning...maybe a nocturnal spawning event close by irritated them.

 

[surfn]

no idea about the spawning....

but aside from being irritated, i really believe due to the size of the polyps.....they have been physically injured. not just closed up b/c of an irritation

 

[surfn]

here is a closeup of what i'm talking about. i blew on the polyps with a turkey baster to get them to close up.

the normal polyps are on the left, abnormal on the right