Zoanthids are like that, or not?

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I don't know what to think. Tonight about 1 hour after the metal halide went off 2 other frags have shriveled. They were huge and awesome today and growing new heads. No predator on them, nothing. No starfish, or pods. There was still plenty of light with the actinic neons and LED.

One of the frag has been going through these cycles 3 times already. It usualy come back after a week or 2 of being all shriveled and close. wow this is annoying. If only they were easy like my SPS!
 
Chewy.com
There are only two scenarios that make sense with the pattern that you have described. You say that the zoanthids first shrivel, then come back after a month or more, and that the cycle periodically repeats itself.
This could be caused by:
1) An invisible predator that removes a portion of the zoanthids flesh, then dies off or goes into a hibernation state when the zoanthid is no longer healthy enough to provide enough food for the predator to avoid starvation. For this to be the cause of the ailment, the zoanthid would need to shrink rapidly then take a good amount of time to recover.
2) I find this a much more likely scenario. As the zoanthids increase the size of their colony, they absorb a certain chemical in the water that is essential to their growth and has not been observed by scientists. Once too much of the chemical has been absorbed by the zoanthids for them to extract enough to carry out their life processes, the zoanthid shrivels and releases the chemical back into the water. After a long enough period of time the zoanthid recovers until the compound is exhausted again.
 
" I bought a copperband butterfly to take care of the amphipods and I hardly see any amphipod left."

That is your problem. I got one before in a 60gal zoa frag tank and noticed the same thing happening to your. I had no other fish and inverts. I couldn't figure it out until I saw the copperband nip at them.

It might also be the two zoas are fighting for territory, so it's best to frag them and separate them.

I was gonna say that it might be your light but my tank was 12" high and the light (150w mh) was about 4" above the light.
It wont be your salinity either cause with my light setup I was getting a lot of evaporation and I would only top off when I notice. hehe
 
Deltec
Not too long ago I'd picked up a large Paly colony which eventually broke into three pieces and one out of the three pieces started melting and died after a few weeks. I didn't see any predator or the likes that would either irritate or consume the polyps ... strange!!

Many years back one of my lfs told me that activated carbon could be the cause of it and I'm not sure if this is true though. I did in fact added new activated carbon prior to it's demise.

I'm no pro when it comes to Palys and zoas yet ... just getting my hands "wet" on something "challenging" other than SPS, LPS & softies ... :wink:

HHmmmm ....

Paul
 
Nope, I am 200% sure that my copperband does not touch any of my coral. Like I said, the only thing he eats are live white worms and fresh mussle. He does not even touch the aiptasia. I watch my tank often and for long period. Even when I am not there I have a web cam to watch everything and I have never ever seen that fish pick at any coral. I know he does not. He decimated all the feather dusters and most large amphipods.

Not all copperband eat aiptasia...not all copperband are the same and not all of them touch coral or clam. Don't assume because you had one that was doing this, that mine is also doing the same. I can assure you it is not. Also the 2 zoanthids are not fighting, as this is happening all over my tank on different frags, not only that one. I only showed that one to show how selective this process is.

euphoricgear said:
" I bought a copperband butterfly to take care of the amphipods and I hardly see any amphipod left."

That is your problem. I got one before in a 60gal zoa frag tank and noticed the same thing happening to your. I had no other fish and inverts. I couldn't figure it out until I saw the copperband nip at them.

It might also be the two zoas are fighting for territory, so it's best to frag them and separate them.
Click to expand...
 
This is an interesting theory and frankly so far one of the few that make a bit of sense in my situation... Or another scenario that I tought of is that something is oxydizing the zooxanthellae inside the zoanthids colony. I was thinking about this because at some point I took a sample of the brown stuff that was covering the just shriveled polyp and looked at it under the microscope and it was zooxanthellae! It was not as if the polyp was pooping zoo but it was rather is if the zooxanthellae was going through the skin of the polyp and coming out of it, covering it with a slight brown film. So it seem that when a polyp shrivel, it also skeeze out some or a good part of it's zoo. I have read that sometime zooxanthellaw can oxydize and become unuseable for the coral...not sure what's that all about though and what can cause this oxydation. One sure thing is that only the polyps that are connected to the same mat are affected. If a polyp is right beside the affected colony but it does not share the same mat, then it is fine. That is exactly what is hapening to the frag on the pic I posted. Only those connected with the same mat have shriveled. Vitamine C is in deed an antioxydant, so it could prevent the zoo from being oxydized? Well that's another possible theory. I wish I had the resources that biologists have to study this more in deep.

Zooxanthella - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The presence of the alga results in the production of excess oxygen, which must be removed from the cell quickly in order to avoid destructive oxidation. The corals have mechanisms whereby they can kill over-oxygenated cells if necessary."

I don't run carbon nor GFO right now, so that is not the reason for this problem.

jnbrex said:
2) I find this a much more likely scenario. As the zoanthids increase the size of their colony, they absorb a certain chemical in the water that is essential to their growth and has not been observed by scientists. Once too much of the chemical has been absorbed by the zoanthids for them to extract enough to carry out their life processes, the zoanthid shrivels and releases the chemical back into the water. After a long enough period of time the zoanthid recovers until the compound is exhausted again.
Click to expand...
 
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Sea MunnKey said:
Not too long ago I'd picked up a large Paly colony which eventually broke into three pieces and one out of the three pieces started melting and died after a few weeks. I didn't see any predator or the likes that would either irritate or consume the polyps ... strange!!

Many years back one of my lfs told me that activated carbon could be the cause of it and I'm not sure if this is true though. I did in fact added new activated carbon prior to it's demise.

I'm no pro when it comes to Palys and zoas yet ... just getting my hands "wet" on something "challenging" other than SPS, LPS & softies ... :wink:

HHmmmm ....


Zoas and Palys like dirty water. Carbon might have taken out too many nutrients in your water.

Paul
Click to expand...


Palys and Zoas like dirty water. The carbon might have taken out too many nutrients in your water.
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Sea MunnKey said:
Yeah do realize that ... let's talk "dirty" here and my problem is I've got a couple of SPS as well ...

Paul
Click to expand...

I have a buddy who runs a 210gal tank with two canister filters running activated carbon 24/7, he is religious about both water chemistry and water changes, and he grows both SPS and Zoas in the same tank like no other. I can't buy the argument that carbon keeps the water too clean for zoas. Now he also has a good assortment of fish that he feeds daily, so there is plenty of fish poo nutrients in the water as well.
 
I may be speculating re: carbon issues and I hope one day, someday some smart reefer will finally be able to figure out why some specific corals from the same cluster/colony die off mysteriously.

Paul
 
His corals might be used to his tank already. My frag tank was very unstable. I have very high evapration and and my sg fluxes up and down everyday and my temp also.

Maybe some corals just have a hard time acclimating or they're just a weak strand. imo.
 

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