Zoa Pox/Lesions... A zoa lovers log

[twon8]

I have a 55g frag tank set up with only zoas, xenia and a few stonies, and the zoas seem to be growing better and healing quicker. I have always heard that to get the quickest growth one should set up a tank for that type of coral only. So it does make sense that a tank by themselves helps zoas thrive/recover

 

[Pazazz]

Is there any reason to think this is not some type of Bacterial infection that may be resistant to iodine and what you are seing may be the reaction on the zoa tissue Maybe like a people get a callis. Its just a thought.... Is the temp in the qt tank higher than the affected tank? could this have subsided the pox?... MMMMmmm Come all make this a think tank!!!!

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Well, for the "Hmmm factor":

It's always been well known that in a mixed reef tank there is quite a bit of chemical warfare (toxins released in to the water for competition for real estate). It would make sense to me that removing only one type of inhabitant to a QT would immediately destress them as far as the usual reef toxins in play, allowing them to focus on fighting off diease? Flow would also help this in the tank, as it would cause sress to anything trying to hold on to the zoas...

:wave:
Laurie

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Hey,

I found this on WetWebMedia.com and thought you might like to see it:

"One other "environmental disease" should be mentioned. For folks using metal halide lighting in shallow water, a white bumpy condition on zoanthid oral disks has been linked with excessive light. Affected specimens need to be relocated to less bright, deeper conditions."

http://wetwebmedia.com/zoanthid.htm

It's almost at the end of the page. I was thinking, maybe you could submit your pics and ask him if they know anything else?

Laurie

 

[ficklefins]

An update is well overdue.

The frags in my QT tank are actually doing well. The pox has gone from a 80% outbreak to a 25% outbreak. There are still a few zoas with the pox but I have been very lazy with upkeep in this tank. I must admit, that someone with better husbandry skills would have gotten rid of this problem earlier, but my issue is still there.

Recently I did a big water change in my QT tank along with some removal of the infected area. I have a feeling that this pox has two types downfalls. One is spread: As long as it can't spread it dies off. The other is upkeep: If you extract the large colonies that seem to be egg sacks then you remove the potential for future spread (in the form of water changes, as the spead seems to be aloft in the water).

I hope that in the next month or so things will be pox free. If anyone has any issues with this parasite feel free to contact me with questions.

My suggestions are:

QT the bad ones and in this QT tank:
- Increase flow to keep the pox from easily spreading
- Increase water canges to remove the water borne parasites
- Manual removal of large white lesions to decrease the spread of possible "egg sacks" or whatever you may call it.

In my QT tank most colonies are doing great and I really believe that this 2.5g tank may have saved my whole tank.

Good luck to all!

 

[Shultz]

Glad to hear to seem to be winning now & an educational thread for the rest of us!

Cheers Shelton.

 

[jessiesgrrl]

In my QT tank most colonies are doing great and I really believe that this 2.5g tank may have saved my whole tank.

Good luck to all!

That's great, FIcklefins! I am so glad to hear you didn't lose the whole tank, like some others have.


Laurie

 

[Reef Junkie]

Ficklefins,

I went through the same madness you're experiencing. I scraped them, dipped them, shouted at them, but they stuck around.

I eventually got rid of them with water changes, higher flow and changing the position of the afflicted zoas in the tank.

Yet, I keep wondering about a couple of things.

1. Light. Like Laurie mentioned, it does seem to play a huge part of our tanks. You also mentioned when you moved the corals, they got better. Probably one of the first major elements to change from switching tanks is light.

2. Julian Sprung mentioned how certain soft corals sometimes cannot process some of the oxygen produced within their tissues during normal photosynthesis. That this can become a super-oxide. Sort of like peroxide. Maybe the white bumps are the corals way of containing the poison?
He also mentioned how Iodine can reverse this condition.
Maybe you should start dosing iodine?

Sorry for the long reply and I'd like to know when you're slain the beast.

Bill

 

[ficklefins]

The toughest thing about the pox is pin pointing the treatment that helped. After reading through that great thread you kept going on RC I decided to pull a few ideas from it and apply them all. While it has almost solved the problem the "silver bullet" treatment is still unknown, at least to me.

The reason that this pox seems to defy a lot of the possible explanations is because it doesn't affect palys or have a clear source. I believe that my source was a trade with a local reefer. Perhaps his tank had the necessary chems, fish, inverts or parameters to fight this but mine clearly didn't.

Here are things that I did, followed by my idea of the best technique.

Higher flow
Less light
Cleaner Water
Water Changes

Last but not least the IMO section:

I feel like all the above helped to keep the spread down, but IMO time was the real cure. Whatever I introduced into my tank went through a few cycles, used up all its resources and (keep your fingers crossed) started to die off.

The one thing I know for sure is that removing the infected zoas from your main tank is a good idea! QT once you start to notice something wrong and hopefully you catch it early enough not to spread.

- Luciano

 

[gflat65]

Has anyone thoguth to include temperature in the equation? I have noticed my short bouts with the pox come during the armer parts of the year when my tank may not be as cool as I would like. Water changes are right on target, too, but anecdotally, I'm conviced higher temps have something to do with it, too.

 

[Reef Junkie]

I know Luciano, it is maddening. That's why even after my pox left, I kept at that thread. This really ticked me off more then anything.

I am still searching for that silver bullet, but I might just have to settle on lead for now.

So far (crossed fingers) the newest additions to my tank have been spared and it was a year ago this month that the pox reared it's ugly head on a lot of us.

I'll stick with this thread if you will.

Can a mod sticky this one?


Flats,
Sure, temp was a big part of the original discussion and hasn't been ruled out. What are your thoughts?

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Well, if it is bacterial that would make alot of sense (temps) because bacteria breed MUCH faster at warmer temps. However, this is usually from 80-120 degrees, and small spreads like 78-84 may not be as noticable as the original growth curve at 78.

Maybe if they really are snail eggs, the temp isn't making a noticable shift in growth curve as much as it is signaling to whatever lays the eggs and causes the outbreak? Like, summer fever instead of 'spring fever'?

???
Laurie

 

[ficklefins]

Has anyone thoguth to include temperature in the equation? I have noticed my short bouts with the pox come during the armer parts of the year when my tank may not be as cool as I would like. Water changes are right on target, too, but anecdotally, I'm conviced higher temps have something to do with it, too.

glfat65,

You bring up a very good point. From the RC thread you would notice that this pox appears mostly during the summer time. Could it be a temp thing? I'm not sure. But if you consider that fact that most zoa trades accur during the summer time then it just starts to complicate the issue. I got my trade about 3 months ago, the start of May just about. Who knows if the temp could have been an issue, but please keep the ideas coming. If we can come up with a good anti-pox remedy then I'm sure all zoa keepers will appreciate it.

 

[Reefwifey]

I may have posted this before, or it may have been at RC. I had a discussion about pox with Nick over at Zomania, and he suggested that they may be something like a zoa sunburn. Either too bright of lights, too close to lights, or too long of a light cycle. This made sense to me at the time that I had some pox on a colony because the timer had busted on my nano, and I was often leaving the lights on for like 16 hours a day.

Is it possible that whatever 'stuff' the zoas produce from the light gets backed up in them, causing them to blister kind of?

Also, I'm just throwing this out there, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the newness of the lighting. Is it possible that as a light starts going bad, it loses part of spectrum or something that isn't good for the zoas? Or possibly that new lighting is stronger in certain areas?

You can tell I don't know very much about the mechanics of lighting and its effects, but I've seen more than one mention of a sunburn type of thing on corals so I thought I'd add it.

Kam

 

[ficklefins]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the problem is 99% gone. The 1% is my cautious side. But if things hold well I may be back into trading soon.

In reality my display tank has been pox free now for 2 months, but my QT does not show any signs.

 

[vetteman]

Has anyone looked at these under a microscope?

 

[ficklefins]

Has anyone looked at these under a microscope?

Yes,

I mean no, I don't have one.

 

[gflat65]

Gnice gnome. Is that the Bringer of Zoa Death gnome?

 

[vetteman]

so it is heat related......... looks like he's hot under the collar

 

[Nomadic1]

Has anyone looked at these under a microscope?

This is the most important thing...I am baffled why no one has done so yet. Anyone can postulate what it is, but until it's actually observed with the scope by someone who knows what they are looking at (there has to be SOMEONE out there who's a microbiologist and keeps a reef tank), we'll never know for sure and never know exactly how to treat it (if it's possible).

-Kirk