Zoas and Palys are small

[kodiak]

Hi all -

I have 20-25 different Zoas and Palys, most of which have been in my tank for 6 months plus and doing great. But some of them shrunk down within a couple days of adding to my tank and always stay small, although open everyday for months. I cant figure out why some shrink down. I dose ESV 2 Part and mag and change 10 gallons of my 70 gallon total water every 2 weeks. All my water including top off is 0ppm. My lights are 6 ATI bulbs 12 inches from the water. 2 Blue+ for 12 hours, and Aquablue, purple+ and 2 more Blue+ for 6 hours. I have tried moving the small polyps into shade and different flows. Ive been thinking about dosing Lugols, but want to try to stay away from adding much to the tank. Here are a few pics to show how small they are.

My parameters I beleive are good, although my PH swings at night. I am thinking the issue is either too much light, ph swing or iodine low. Any suggestions would be great.

Alk - 8
Calc - 420
Phosphate - <.04
Mag - 1350
Nitrate - 0
Salinity - 1.026
Ph - 7.8-8.2

Here are a few pics from my phone to show how small they are.

Utter Chaos and Rastas to show you the ones I am having difficulty with.

Candy Apple Reds, very small and seem to not be doing good. Ive had them for almost a year and they have not grew a new polyp yet.

Ironman Paly, these to show some are doing good.

Blue Agave, this ones are doing ok, although I expect them to be a bit larger and not so faded.

Fruit loops doing great, but very small, but I think that is expected on these. I got these as a 4 polyp frag in November.

 

[impur]

I would say too much light. Your CAR tenticles look like a much lighter red than they normally are. Same with the iron man palys. The blue agave actually look pretty normal to me, one appears to be a relatively new polyp. The fruit loops look great, they are very slow growers. I've had 3 polyps with no babies for 3 months now on mine.

How long is your photo period?

 

[kodiak]

2 Blue+ for 12 hours, 9am-9pm.
Aquablue, purple+ and 2 more Blue+ for 6 hours. Noon-6pm.

Also to note, my tank is SPS dominant.

 

[extremehobbyist]

I would cut that to 7-8 hours

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk

 

[Ninjapotamus]

This is not a light issue... this is not a flow issue. You are lacking nitrogenous waste...things don't look too bad yet, but several you posted are on the way to full bleaching(the skirts going semi transparent is the first indicator). The WORST thing you can do is a major water change with extremely clean water or aggressive media use. You do NOT need to dose iodine or any other additive.

Let your nitrates and phosphates climb a little. Cut your media gfo/carbon back significantly and change it less frequently. Adding several fish and feeding heavier will also help. Go slow and you will see recovery in a few weeks to 2 months(dont expect overnight success....). I have bleached an entire frag tank of zoas(hundreds of frags) and brought them from the brink of death to thriving again in a few months using this method.

You can also use ammonium nitrate to kick start the process... but go slow to avoid an ammonia spike or phosphate/nitrate imbalance. If you start to have algae growth(this is a GOOD sign ... algae growth = your zoaxanthallae have FOOD as well) add trochus snails and a lawnmower blenny to help control algae while your zoas recover. If you get cyano instead of algae use chemiclean to knock it out and dose some ammonium nitrate to give algae the nitrate it needs to outcompete the cyano.

 

[kodiak]

Wow, thanks for the very informative response. Much appreciated. But it does remind me of something very important I forgot to add.

I’ve been running a very small amount of Bio pellets for almost a year now. Ive actually just added a few anthias and started feeding twice as much.
I currently have decent size clown fish pair, blue tang, yellow tang, algae blenny and a few anthias.

 

[Ninjapotamus]

That is a very important omission especially considering your symptoms! Ditch the pellets for a while. In a few weeks I bet you start to see a recovery(3-8 weeks).

 

[Soehl]

Yep. Biopellets get the water "too" clean for zoas... I have heard a bunch of mixed reactions to them. I keep them around just in case I need them but don't run them that much.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Do you have any fish in there? If you have fish that you are feeding on a regular basis, that should be enough for them.

 

[akma]

+1 system is too clean.
I had the same problem with my corals and color. They would all get light and polyps would be small. Been feeding more and thankfully because of my skimmer I haven't really had algae problems.

 

[jcdeng]

I think I have the same problem. But my AOG and Red hornets are growing and splitting while others shrink and even melt. I cut down the light period and increase feeding, but then my sps turn brown.... Is it true that you can't have great looking Z&Ps/LPS and Healthy SPS in the same tank cuz they require opposite conditions?

 

[Murfman]

I think I have the same problem. But my AOG and Red hornets are growing and splitting while others shrink and even melt. I cut down the light period and increase feeding, but then my sps turn brown.... Is it true that you can't have great looking Z&Ps/LPS and Healthy SPS in the same tank cuz they require opposite conditions?

Not true. You just have to find that balance between the two.

 

[impur]

Nope not true. Though it is difficult to find that happy medium where everything gets the right amount of light. I've had LEDs over my tank for 6 months now and I still haven't figured it out.

 

[Bubbles_B]

yes let some nutrients build up. they prefer a somewhat dirty system. and i do mean "somewhat"

 

[RacinRevo0818]

Was looking for ammonium nitrate and looked like some type of explosive? Where would you purchase this and any idea on amount to use per 50 gallons? Just curious

 

[Ninjapotamus]

cut open an instant cold pack

 

[KoleTang]

Just feed the zoas! LOL

If this is an SPS dominant tank, and your SPS are happy. Then do not start switching everything for a few zoas.

 

[Ninjapotamus]

feeding only helps if they will eat. if they are at the point of shrinking their feeding response is probably quite weak. Not to mention a lot of zoas have a weak feed response to begin with.

if the zoa/paly wont take food you have to correct your water's nutritional content... go a little dirty for a while to beef the zooxanthellae back up

 

[BBoley24]

Adding ammonia and nitrates sound wacky to me. Id say just feed more and cut down on filtration for a bit to naturally "unbalance" your current sparkling condition. "But what would I know? Im just a docta!" (Happy Gilmore)

 

[robert]

Not wacky at all although it runs a bit counter to the general consensus in the hobby. Exercise great care. very small doses. watch your pH.

"Corals are opportunists with respect to gathering nutrients from multiple sources and
taking advantage of elevated environmental ammonium illustrates the importance of dissolved
nitrogen in seawater. Unlike most animals, symbiotic corals generally do not excrete ammonia
whereas asymbiotic and aposymbiotic corals do (Burris 1983; Rahav et al. 1989). The pathway
of the incorporation of seawater ammonium into endogenous amino acids in zooxanthellae is
often overlooked as many studies focus primarily on ammonium liberated from the digestion of
prey items. Assimilating seawater ammonium into amino acids may serve as short term nitrogen
storage to efficiently capture nitrogen when available. Net ammonia uptake depends on the
concentration of ammonium in seawater (Steven and Atkinson 2003) where starved corals tend
to have higher uptake rates (Cook et al. 1994; Piniak and Lipschultz 2004). Ammonium uptake
rates in symbiosis were found to be 10-fold higher than those of nitrate suggesting ammonium is
of greater importance to the symbiotic association (Wafar et al. 1993). Rees (1987) showed
18 corals were well-adapted to take up ammonium at very low concentrations and uptake was
saturated at 0.1 μM."
(do not raise the ammonium to 1uM. - this will deregulate the delivery of nitrogen to the zox)

Another common cause of diminishing or undersized zoas is salinity flux. If the salinity of the tank is not kept stable, the zoa will release aminos and sugars to regulate internal osmotic balance.
If you want to minimize wasting and maximize growth keep the salinity constant.