zoa frag melting help

[Oliver]

i have a small frag of pink zippers and for some reasom they are melting. my water is good i tested it and got this ph is 8.1, alk 10, cal is 450, mag is 1329, nitrate and nitrite is 0. all my other zoas colony and frags are doing good. do you guys think they are going to make it? here are some pics

before 2 weeks ago

and today

 

[cparka23]

Do you run carbon? I had the same thing going on the, some carbon and phosguard helped everything open up full force in a couple days.

 

[Briney Dave]

I have asked before but not really gotten a straight answer. When you say "run carbon" are you meaning using a carbon reactor? If so how are you sizing it to match the size of the tank???
For example on my 240 system a single one of those reactors would take hours just to see all the water once.

Has anyone hypothesized as to the cause of "melting" I am guessing that there may be a number of factors involved.

 

[ktran]

iodide dip them and see how they do..

 

[paintballer768]

Has anyone hypothesized as to the cause of "melting" I am guessing that there may be a number of factors involved.

Yea, technically speaking it could be a whole lotta different things. Carbon just helps remove various impurities from the water, hopefully the irritant will be removed as well.

 

[seafansar]

+1 on the iodine dip. That helped some of my palys get better.

 

[Oliver]

how do i do a iodine dip? and could i use kent marine iodine?

 

[flricordia]

I dip any I frag and any sickies I might have purchase in Kent's Iodine. I use it full strength. I pour some ina plastic cup, dip the zoa, set it int he dry for 30 seconds and place it in good flow. Works wonders.

 

[cparka23]

...When you say "run carbon" are you meaning using a carbon reactor?...

In my case, I've just been placing them in a mesh media bag and tossing it into a flow-thru area of the sump. This was on my nano aquarium.

High flow through a reactor isn't necessary for carbon filtration to be effective. I used to run a canister filter with a refillable carbon cartridge on my 120 gallon. Wasn't terribly high flow going through it, but it worked quite well because water was pumped through the carbon. It's more important to be sure that your flow is enough to go through the media, rather than simply run over the outer edges of it.

 

[Briney Dave]

Thanks for the info on the carbon and sorry for the mini hi-jack. I certainly agree with the iodine dip. I hit all my zoas before entering a show tank or research. I have not had melting issues. (take that with a grain of salt though because I do not keep many of what some consider the more difficult or demanding to raise types.)

 

[seafansar]

I use the dip/bath instructions on the back of the Kent's iodine bottle.