Zoas and green hair algae

[chris fullwood]

So, i got 3 frag rocks with new zoas on them. for the first 2 weeks they were great. but, they have recently closed themselves up, and now are suffering with green hair algae on them. all the other corals are doing great, i have no hair algae anywhere else in the tank. It is however present in my sump, along with the chaeto and some red macro algae as part of the nutrient control.

i have ran into this before in another tank and the algae i guess overpowered the zoas.

Any ideas on how to stop this, or fix the issue. I can add pictures if needed.
i treat the tank, with seachems phytoplankton supplement, and the zooplankton supplement, reef roids and trace elements. I have a 75 gallon tank. with skimmer, marinepure spheres, chaeto/red algae.

feel free to shoot questions.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!
if you can take the rock out, a simple scrub might do it. you can also use a light peroxide tank water rinse too.
check that you have enough cuc. my hermits and snails are usually all over any new frag looking for food.

 

[chris fullwood]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!
if you can take the rock out, a simple scrub might do it. you can also use a light peroxide tank water rinse too.
check that you have enough cuc. my hermits and snails are usually all over any new frag looking for food.

i tried peroxide once, it was diluted lowest amount i could find, and it completely killed my zoa colony. Ill have to move the rack down lower, they were still in my frag rack holder.
thanks

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

i tried peroxide once, it was diluted lowest amount i could find, and it completely killed my zoa colony. Ill have to move the rack down lower, they were still in my frag rack holder.
thanks

I use a ten to one ratio and haven't had probs.

 

[chris fullwood]

I use a ten to one ratio and haven't had probs.

you know i took a good look around my tank, and it does seem like my crab population has dwindled significantly.. i found 2 hiding out being lazy bums. so i put them to work, but i guess its time for a trip to the LFS to get some more. and see if they will handle it. i have 1 giant emerald crab, but he's lazy too

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

hahah. Nice. Dont let em get complacent. (and be careful at the $5 frag rack)

 

[chris fullwood]

oh i didn't get those at $5 a frag that's for sure. but the crabs have got lazy... and disappeared. the big crab probably tore them out of there shells and ate them. i can find shells, and no crabs. So i'm going crab shopping it looks like.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Lol, I've had my cuc shopping go terribly wrong. I avoid any tank that says "Frag Sale!" now.

 

[Bowlopho]

Just take the frag of and scrape it with a razor blade or pluck it out.

 

[danschoenherr]

I've done the peroxide dip before with success and never lost a frag. I have also moved the frag off of the rack and set it on the bottom of the tank for a day so the hermits could get at it easier

 

[chris fullwood]

I've done the peroxide dip before with success and never lost a frag. I have also moved the frag off of the rack and set it on the bottom of the tank for a day so the hermits could get at it easier

yea im going to do that tomorrow after i got replenish my hermits. apparently they "vanished".

 

[brandon429]

I would modify your approach in this way

don't dip

the algae isn't growing off the sides of the zos typically, or off the disc area at the top. its typically on that thick skin base, sometimes contains sand particles and what not, as mini substrate tufts can grab onto. that locus says we don't have to dip the full polyp, we can work and only contact the anchor points

any loss to zoanthids with peroxide use is a full statistical outlier. we claim they're the most resilient of all corals to peroxide, the number one toughest organism we keep just this side of bacteria who are toughest in our tanks as a true community.

I have seen zo losses though when they were already stressed, they tended to be tall thin and lanky indicating some history in that state. if a low dynamic profile/tight group colony was lost to peroxide its among 2 or 3 reported cases among ten thousands no joke, that strong of stats. I simply take that to mean lets be more careful with your zoas and use that strength again but not subject the nontarget areas to a full dip/

work outside of tank, on target, w tweezers and peroxide. I never apply peroxide to a tuft of algae...too much challenge mass. I clean off, scrape off, tweeze off, all the algae till its totally clean. then peroxide is the cleanup only

that's a massive trick to help out. use in all peroxide situations. get surgical, not dose oriented. work on the zo colonies outside of tank I think its ideal

 

[Peanut]

I've done the peroxide dip before with success and never lost a frag. I have also moved the frag off of the rack and set it on the bottom of the tank for a day so the hermits could get at it easier

+1 on the putting it on the bottom so the hermits can get to it easier