Zoa pox and bristleworms

[ChrisP]

I had a a zoa colony that developed what has been described as "zoa pox":

I did the 3 day Furna-2 treatment as described in the article on zoaid.com. The "pox" seemed unaffected. I placed it in my (well-established) 34 gallon display tank (had been in a newly established 12 gallon) and noticed that large bristle worms (8-10") were all over it immediately (at night). Within 24 hours, the pox disappeared and the colony began to re-open after nearly a month. It's now full recovered.

I posted this on Eric Borneman's forum at marinedepot.com. One of the educated guesses by Eric and another reef guru (since I did nothing to control this "experiment") was that the Furan might have somehow softened the "pox" or uncovered some tissue layers over them, allowing the bristleworms to eradicate them. Other possibilities are: 1.The colony would have recovered without any intervention2.Bristleworms alone might have done this.

Any thoughts or personal experiences?

Chris

 

[NeveSSL]

Wow... thats very interesting... maybe someone else will have had an experience with this.

Brandon

 

[Hypertek99]

Dang i just killed like 50 bristleworms the other day when i redid my refugium. I have a zoa colony that's going downhill should of saved the bristleworms for a test.

 

[fishes2889]

Wow, and i thought all these years bristleworms were bad, very interesting. I've never have had zoa pox so i would'nt now how to eradicate it. Though i am still having trouble with random colonies developing fungus and melting....

 

[ChrisP]

I'm a PSU grad myself so I won't mince words (!!!) - describe what you mean by " developing fungus and melting." As a zoa newbie myself, I know that "melting" = dead, but I'm not sure how to recognize a fungus on a zoa.

 

[fishes2889]

Fungus, to me, looks like a brown algae on the polyps.

 

[Swine]

Bump, because its a cool theory

 

[D Hwin]

I am facing zoa pox now but I treated my 2 colonies yesterday with coral rx and peroxide and popped them like zits and they appear to be doing fine today.

 

[Swine]

Throw some bristle worms on there! I want to know if its true! haha

 

[Newfishgirl]

I have had the brown algae stuff on my zoas as well and what I thought was zoa pox. When I find a frag with this on it, I take the frag out and put it in an iodine bath. While in there I blow the loose algae off with a syringe and gently scrape the pox and other algae off with the tip of a bamboo skewer used for kabobs. This has worked for me for months and the zoas come back strong and healthy.