Zoas looking pale

[Thewatchmangoby]

So my 25g tank is fairly new. 2.5 months. It's still in the ugly stages (diatom heaven).

Few weeks ago I added some zoas. They were doing good. Hallucinations popped out 3 babies, as well as my other high end palys had babies. Past few days my electric oompa loompas are going pale and my bowsers arent opening. I checked my parameters and I have 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. A couple weeks ago I had 5ppm nitrates.

The question is, is my skimmer and daily ultra small water changes starving my zoas? Or is the diatoms eating up the nutrients before I can test them making it incorrect reading. also could the diatoms outcompete the zoas for food?
So my conundrum is if the diatoms are causing the nitrates to not show up on test and i shut off the skimmer I'm just adding more nitrates to feed the diatoms and making my tank more dirtier than it is.
But if that's not the case and my water is **indeed too clean** than shutting off the skimmer will allow more nutrients for zoas.

I'm also running a carbon/gfo reactor.

What would you do?

 

[James M]

Pics?

 

[Thewatchmangoby]

Pics?

As you can see the oompas dont look so bad in pic but they are easily duller than what they were and the bowsers not opening. Bubbles arent the issue as none of my other zoas are bother by the bubbles. You can the seduction palys look pretty good.

 

[James M]

Hard to tell with the blues

 

[Michael Naegeli]

I never run carbon nor gfo in a tank filled with thousands of Zoa’s. Carbon isn’t a thriving Zoa Tanks best friend that’s for sure. I run a Skimmer and a refugium, sometimes having to shut down Skimmer. More so to help out refugium than feeding Zoa’s. Zoa’s do not need a dirtier tank to thrive. They do fine for the most part in most conditions with just a stable Alk and some light. They do obviously need some food source so you may be running too clean. What else u got in tank? Are they having issues too?

 

[Thewatchmangoby]

I never run carbon nor gfo in a tank filled with thousands of Zoa’s. Carbon isn’t a thriving Zoa Tanks best friend that’s for sure. I run a Skimmer and a refugium, sometimes having to shut down Skimmer. More so to help out refugium than feeding Zoa’s. Zoa’s do not need a dirtier tank to thrive. They do fine for the most part in most conditions with just a stable Alk and some light. They do obviously need some food source so you may be running too clean. What else u got in tank? Are they having issues too?

I have a watermelon chalice that is doing good, maybe even some growth for how slow they grow. My other corals (jf lepto, space invader) are doin alright, neither dying nor thriving. My acan oddly enough when I first introduced it for the first week was in love with my tank, but lately has just been less inflated and not as happy. I tried to figure out what's different but cant other than 0 nitrates. My gfo and carbon reactor I only setup a couple days ago. As for running carbon and gfo is there a reason you dont? Man this hobby drives me crazy,too many variables.

 

[Michael Naegeli]

I have a watermelon chalice that is doing good, maybe even some growth for how slow they grow. My other corals (jf lepto, space invader) are doin alright, neither dying nor thriving. My acan oddly enough when I first introduced it for the first week was in love with my tank, but lately has just been less inflated and not as happy. I tried to figure out what's different but cant other than 0 nitrates. My gfo and carbon reactor I only setup a couple days ago. As for running carbon and gfo is there a reason you dont? Man this hobby drives me crazy,too many variables.

Ya Bro. For sure. I’ve been at it many years and I’d say I have only moderate level of knowledge comparatively to a lot of peeps on here. Everyone gonna have an opinion and most may differ drastically on many parts of hobby. If it’s a newer tank I’d say you should just keep it simple. In my opinion I wouldn’t run those reactors if it’s a newer setup. Let tank mature and go thru it’s cycles. There’s many! Keep up on water changes and keep that Alk as stable as u can. Most other chems should stay ok if tank doesn’t have a bunch of acros or any calcium sucking Corals with just your regular water changes. Confirm your Salinity is good, change filter pads and make sure you have good flow. Feed your acan, Chalice, and pectinia a couple times a week. Find out what like what lighting and take it slow. I have Oompa Loompa colonies in several different flows and Par and they do really well in all locations. They will color up a lil deeper and brighter in a lil lower par but will also handle very high par w good color. Just don’t keep it too clean man. They like a little poop

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

I have personally never experienced that zoas need "dirty" water to thrive and be colorful. That could be me though since I run zeovit and have practically 0 nitrates and phosphates. But I would definitely get rid of the GFO, that will only cause more problems IMO. I run carbon (per zeovit rules), but very little and at a very slow flow rate for my tank size (100 gallons and basically a trickle).

I have electric oompa loompas too, mine were extremely colorful for 8+ months, but then I moved and they lost a good amount of their color too. I'm chalking that up to the stress due to the move and the drastic change in water parameters.

If they were doing well before you added the carbon and GFO, I would start by removing those and see if they are doing better in a week or so. Zoas color up pretty quickly compared to SPS.

 

[Thewatchmangoby]

its been a couple weeks since I made this thread. I've taken my skimmer and gfo/carbon reactor offline, as well as my zeomix out, just after I made this thread.
Literally just filter floss and small auto water change every 2 days for export.
Nitrate went from 0 to 3ppm.

Seductions made 2 babies. Speckled kraks got better colour and made 2 babies, pink hippos better colour no babies, hallucinations better colour made 4 babies, bowser's made one baby but still closed and streched out, oompa loompas made 2 babies but still dull colour, my shroom got wicked huge and richer colour.

My alk is only at 6-6.5, my space invader frag looks like ****, so tonight I raised albeit too quick to 8, I've also read that zoas like 7-9. The jump ticked off my corals but im sure tomorrow they will come back around.

Thing is, the flow for the pump to the gfo and carbon reactor wasnt even open so I dont know if any water was going through the reactor and if gfo/carbon played any role in the positive outcome.

I've moved the oompa loompas and bowser to shaded area to see if that makes any difference.