Zoanthids are like that, or not?

[daniella3d]

I have been struggling with some of my zoanthids shrinking and eventually they either come back or melt away. Usualy they will come back but it can take a month or more.

What is really puzzling is that I don't see any parasites. I have dipped those affected in peroxyde and all I see coming out are small bristle worms. Some frag can have a dozen of small bristle worms. Can they be eating the zoanthids mat from underneat? or something like that?

This is even more puzzling that sometime the zoanthids right beside one shrinking is looking great. Even more, as shown in this pic, there was 2 type of zoanthids on this frag, one with a white center and one with a blue center. As you can see they are very closely interconnected but only the ones with the white center have shrileved and those with the blue center (tanks God they are my favorite) have not been affected! Sometimes the head look like a blob with melted tentacules but against all odds it start to grown new tentacules or it looks like they are growing back, maybe they just unshrink, and the polyp look great again.

What the heck is going on?? I see no fungus, no pest and the water parameters are great. All my SPS are doing wonderfull..in fact, all my corals are doing wonderfull.

Salinity is 1.025, nitrates are less than 5ppm (about 3ppm) phosphates were undetectible last time I checked, calcium 400, mag is 1350, KH is 7 (I keep mine low all the time).

I feed them with Chromaplex and they grow like weeds when they don't go into the shriveling phase. IN fact they do act as if they are constantly going through some cycle of shriveling, growing like weeds, shrinking, melting, coming back and looking great, or not. I never know what to expect and they can be growing new heads very fast and suddendly the day after they look like that. Any one have any idea what's going on? It's been like that for about 6 months now and I am just about fed up with them.

 

[Dave3112]

Following along. Same thing happens to mine. Also, Welcome to R2R!

 

[daniella3d]

Thanks! I am hoping that someone will know why this is hapening since I read about quite many people having the same problem. You know I would understand if they were doing badly from day one, but they are growing so fast with so many new heads, like 10 new heads per polyp per month..and then for no reason they crash. Why would they go from growing so fast and obviously being really healthy and the next day gone bye bye or on their way to.

 

[KLR]

I also have this problem,occasionally...very annoying

 

[daniella3d]

Other things that I have noticed is that it is usualy when the light goes out that the initial reaction take place and they seem to swell and are doing better at the end of the day after a full day of metal halide light. I am tempted to do an experiment with always leaving a light on to see if they still go through these cycles. Also when dosing alkalinity I must do it very much spread throughout the day as dosing the daily dose in one shot really don't do well with them. So I bought a dosing pump to see if it will help.

I have also started dosing vitamin C a week and half ago. I just went to a little trip out of town and did not dose for 3 days and when I came back this frag was like that. Not sure it would have been different if I had keep on dosing for those 3 days...can't tell.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

That's why I have lost my love for zoas and palys. Seems that no matter what they always die away..

Welcome to R2R!

 

[daniella3d]

sigh, I am starting as well to dislike them, although I still love them! lol! oh well. I am stobburn and I still wish to find the reason why. Big big challenge.

 

[xmetalfan99]

I have seen some zoas take over others quickly. The ones being "dominated" shrivel up and the dominant color morph take over the entire area. Since it is just the ones with the white center, I would say that is what is happening here.

 

[reefpeeper]

I have seen some zoas take over others quickly. The ones being "dominated" shrivel up and the dominant color morph take over the entire area. Since it is just the ones with the white center, I would say that is what is happening here.

that was only used as an example. i myself go through this and dont know why either.

 

[xmetalfan99]

that was only used as an example. i myself go through this and dont know why either.

The op posted:

"This is even more puzzling that sometime the zoanthids right beside one shrinking is looking great. Even more, as shown in this pic, there was 2 type of zoanthids on this frag, one with a white center and one with a blue center. As you can see they are very closely interconnected but only the ones with the white center have shrileved and those with the blue center (tanks God they are my favorite) have not been affected! Sometimes the head look like a blob with melted tentacules but against all odds it start to grown new tentacules or it looks like they are growing back, maybe they just unshrink, and the polyp look great again."

I took that as, what was happening to him/her.

 

[SD Actuary]

If i had the answer to this question, i would get MUCH better sleep at night...

One thing that has significantly helped me in this area is Vitamin C dosing. I cannot 100% say for sure that the reason my zoas seem "stronger" and less prone to this out-of-nowhere melting is because of the Vitamin C, but it seems awfully suspicious that over the past 5 months of dosing Vitamin C i have had significantly fewer Zoa casualties.

Keep up with your Vitamin C dosing over the next few months and let us know how things turn out!

Good luck with them!

 

[ficklefins]

Just my opinion:

Are there any angelfish or wrasses in your tank?

From your description and pictures it looks like something is feeding off those corals at night. I suspect some amphipods or starfish may be nibbling on the coral at night, but which one I'm not sure. Normally when I had pods attacking my zoas they would eat the skirts before moving onto the base. Starfish are different in that they don't necessarily damage the outside of the zoa, instead they pierce the stalk/head and "pull" out the nutrients. Starfish attacks normally result in a zoa that looks like your photo.

If you notice things not looking so great and before the lights come on, flip over that frag plug and see what's hiding under it.

 

[nixer]

it could be spaghetti worms. they were killing my zoas. those are usually not too hard to find

 

[daniella3d]

no unfortunatly this is not what is going on here. I am 110% sur of it. In fact I was only showing this example as to show how selective this mysterious phenomeno is.

This is hapening all over my tank with different frags here and there, not only these. If it was only that specific frag I might consider your explanation as possible but it's really not the case.

I have seen some zoas take over others quickly. The ones being "dominated" shrivel up and the dominant color morph take over the entire area. Since it is just the ones with the white center, I would say that is what is happening here.

 

[daniella3d]

No I doubt it. no angelfish and no wrasse. I bought a copperband butterfly to take care of the amphipods and I hardly see any amphipod left.

The copperband is not touching my coral either..he is only eating live white worms and fresh mussel. He does not touch any of my coral, nor may aiptasias!

I watched at night and no amphipod so the copperband keep eating them at night. It's one of the rare fish that is actively hunting at night, wether the wrasse go to sleep. I used to have a problem with amphipod but their predation on zoanthids was all too obvious. Sometime I would find a polyp half eaten. This is not the case. the polyp that shrivel sometime some back strong and they are not missing any parts.

I don't have any starfish and when I turn over those frags the only things I have underneat them are a bunch of bristleworms.

REally there is no predation on them, as I would see traces of this. Also they do this at random. Some zoanthids further away can do it while others are doing great. Even those on my clear transparent frag rack are being affected randomly and obviously if there was any parasite I would see since the frag plugs and the rack are totally transparent.

It's not predation for sure. It's something else just not sure what. The shrinking when the ligth goes out is sometime very quick, not hours after but minutes or even seconds. Sometimes they reopen but sometime they stay shriveled. Sometime they don't react at all when the light goes off. I have actinic swiching on when my MH goes out.

But I will keep dosing vitamin C. I does 1000mg for my 75 gallons tank. It's just hard to keep dosing when I leave. I was planning on putting some of my sodium ascorbic in RO water and does that when I leave with my 3 way dosing pump, but not sure how long the vitamin ramain active once diluted in RO water.

Just my opinion:

Are there any angelfish or wrasses in your tank?

From your description and pictures it looks like something is feeding off those corals at night. I suspect some amphipods or starfish may be nibbling on the coral at night, but which one I'm not sure. Normally when I had pods attacking my zoas they would eat the skirts before moving onto the base. Starfish are different in that they don't necessarily damage the outside of the zoa, instead they pierce the stalk/head and "pull" out the nutrients. Starfish attacks normally result in a zoa that looks like your photo.

If you notice things not looking so great and before the lights come on, flip over that frag plug and see what's hiding under it.

 

[xmetalfan99]

No I doubt it. no angelfish and no wrasse. I bought a copperband butterfly to take care of the amphipods and I hardly see any amphipod left.

The copperband is not touching my coral either..he is only eating live white worms and fresh mussel. He does not touch any of my coral, nor may aiptasias!

I watched at night and no amphipod so the copperband keep eating them at night. It's one of the rare fish that is actively hunting at night, wether the wrasse go to sleep. I used to have a problem with amphipod but their predation on zoanthids was all too obvious. Sometime I would find a polyp half eaten. This is not the case. the polyp that shrivel sometime some back strong and they are not missing any parts.

I don't have any starfish and when I turn over those frags the only things I have underneat them are a bunch of bristleworms.

REally there is no predation on them, as I would see traces of this. Also they do this at random. Some zoanthids further away can do it while others are doing great. Even those on my clear transparent frag rack are being affected randomly and obviously if there was any parasite I would see since the frag plugs and the rack are totally transparent.

It's not predation for sure. It's something else just not sure what. The shrinking when the ligth goes out is sometime very quick, not hours after but minutes or even seconds. Sometimes they reopen but sometime they stay shriveled. Sometime they don't react at all when the light goes off. I have actinic swiching on when my MH goes out.

But I will keep dosing vitamin C. I does 1000mg for my 75 gallons tank. It's just hard to keep dosing when I leave. I was planning on putting some of my sodium ascorbic in RO water and does that when I leave with my 3 way dosing pump, but not sure how long the vitamin ramain active once diluted in RO water.

I just asked this on another thread. I was told the VC only remains active for 8 hours. That is why we have to dose 2 times a day.

 

[ficklefins]

The angelfish and wrasse question was related to keeping the amphipods in check, but it sounds like you got that covered.

Do you think it could be zoa pox? I can't tell in your picture if the white spots on the skin are from sediment or another harmless type of thing.

 

[endlessblue]

Vitamin C solved this problem for me. But also just to cover all ur bases check out the tank at at 3am when lights are out. When ever I have issues I always try this. Once found a giant predatory flatworm eating clams! So you never know!

 

[daniella3d]

No zoa pox that I can see and if it was zoa pox they would not make random come back. as you can see on the pic, the affected polyps that are close look very healthy beside being close. There is no white spots on any of my zoanthids. I did try furan 2 on some frags but it did not change a thing. There is no sign of fungus either, and they look clean.

I will check for starfish. I do see from time to time some little starfish but they are supposed to be harmless. I never found such starfish on any of my affected frag when I dip them either. I am wondering if they are lacking light and doing this out of starvation but then they do multiply a lot so this would be a contradiction to starving.

I know vitamin C is said to last 8 hours in the tank but that's probably because the vit C is breakdown by light? How do they make this vitamin stable so that it is active in orange and fruit juice for months? I know vit C is degraded by light and by heat, as well as it is oxydized by oxygen. I am guessing it can live sometime in pure water since it does in juice and in fruit, even kept at room temperature...hmmm..

The angelfish and wrasse question was related to keeping the amphipods in check, but it sounds like you got that covered.

Do you think it could be zoa pox? I can't tell in your picture if the white spots on the skin are from sediment or another harmless type of thing.

 

[endlessblue]

Oh I also read that low salinity can cause this. Double check that with accurate tool. Fauna 2 is great way to use! You have ur based covered with the dip, vitamin c, fauna. I hate to tell you it has to be a predator then. Those little starfish can be *******s! Check a few hours after lights out.

I love Zoa an have thro all this before, together we'll figure this one out. Cheers