Zoas closing up. Anything I can do?

Jblakeman · Dec 12, 2014

Over the last week+ my zoas have start to close up. I can't figure out what wrong with them. I have had these zoas about 6 months and they have done well.

I have a 75 gallon tank.
Current Orbit Marine 48" LED and Chinese 48" strip LED 50/50. Lights are on full from 9 AM - 7:30 PM.
I do run a skimmer.
Tested water 2 days ago:
Nitrate 0, Nitrite 0, ammonia 0, ph 8.0, phosphate 0, SG 1.026, calcium 400, magnesium 1395, alkalinity 8.45.

I do 10 gallon water change every two weeks.

I have a couple pics below. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

zesty · Dec 12, 2014

Have you tried target feeding them? Do they respond if you do?

The only thing that I could think of, is run some carbon and see if there is any improvement.

mike007 · Dec 12, 2014

Seems to me your full lighting period may to be too long. You might try cutting them down to 8 hours a day.

crayonbreaker · Dec 12, 2014

Have you changed anything recently?

Is anything else in the tank having issue?

When's the last time you added corals?

Jblakeman · Dec 12, 2014

I do target feed them, actually did so tonight. The ones that are open respond as they always have, looks like they curl a tad then back to where they were prior to the feeding after a minute or so. I do run carbon but am getting towards the end of the cycle with what's in there now so I will change it out now versus a couple of weeks from now.

I can definitely lower the photo period of the lights down.

The only thing I've added to the tank in recent months is a small rhodactis mushroom that is sitting a bit of a distance off from all the zoas. The two zoas in the two pics I posted are actually about 10" apart from each other. The big colony is up high, the small colony down low.

The rest of my coral appears fine. I don't have a lot of coral in this tank as it's my second setup.

Here is a FTS so you can see where the zoas are placed in the tank. Almost in the center towards the top and small one towards the bottom.

Thanks again!

SantaMonicaHelp · Dec 31, 2014

So sorry to hear that! Do you have any improvement since the 12th? Are they doing okay?

oh:

-Y

Jblakeman · Jan 1, 2015

They are just OK right now. I have some little brown algae that could be the problem. Looks like little brown flakes. I think that's covering the polyps.

It doesn't look like the standard diatom brown algae. These are blown easy away and float to the bottom.

With all the family here for the holidays I haven't had much time to do anything but blow the flakes off pretty much daily. When things start to slow back down I will work on correcting the issue.

Thanks for following up!

sureal00 · Jan 1, 2015

i woulld blow some air from a baster over them ?Do you dose iodine?

Jblakeman · Jan 1, 2015

I've never dosed iodine. Not real familiar with it really.

sureal00 · Jan 1, 2015

I am not a zoa guru by any means but I have seen like a drop of lugols every week does help with growth/health of zoas.I also use lugols for dipping.

Jblakeman · Jan 11, 2015

Thank you for the tip, I'll be getting me some and will give it a shot. I'll let you know how they do.

reefwars · Jan 12, 2015

Planaria flatworms?

Jblakeman · Apr 9, 2015

It's been a while since I updated. I got a new LED for the tank, for a week or two the zoa's responded really well, growing quite a bit. After those two weeks the zoas would barely come out. I decided to move them to my second tank. After a nice good coral dip I dropped them in and I am happy to say they are sprouting back nicely. Here's a follow up photo in its new home.