Zoas not opening and its spreading

slag009 · Mar 30, 2013

It started about 2 weeks ago with a colony of coco pinks not opening. Then it spread to 100 heads of gobstopers (there are only 25 or so now and 5 open) and now 4 other large colonies. I tested water and they all look good
Nitrates 0
phosphates 0
Alk 132 ppm
cal 440
mag 1410
ph 8.29
I dipped them last week and last night with revive. Now only a few heads are opening on some of the colonies. I am thinking of doing 5 min. fresh water dip tomorrow. I have not seen anything on them and I did the night watch with a flash light but did not see anything. I did have a sundial snail (have not seen any more) that I flushed and I had a scutus that I bannished to another tank because he was in the general area. All the other corals SPS, LPS and 4 RBTS are doing fine with no problems. I am including pics they are not the best but maybe you will see something that i missed. Any advice will be appreciated.

Forgot to mention that I have had all of these in my system for around 2 to 3 months and never had a problem with any of them opening before and have not added anything since. My lighting is LED and colony placement veries. Temp stays between 76 and 78. Thanks again

slag009 · Mar 30, 2013

Forgot SG-1.025

Mr. E Wrasse · Mar 30, 2013

Its hard to tell but kind of looks like zoo pox. Im not an expert but I had them at one time and the weird thing was they only affected one certain color. I only say that it might be zoo pox because from the pictures I can see little white specks on a lot of the ckosed polyps

slag009 · Mar 30, 2013

Mine started with the pinks first but has moved on to other. It's hard to tell by my bad pics but I am not seeing any spots on the polyps. The only ones that look bad are the wamman watermellons in the 5th and 6th pics. Threre are patches of darker polyps. This makes me think its some kind of fungus but I am not sure they might just be melting.

SamsReef · Mar 30, 2013

You are showing that your water chemistry is perfect but if all zoas are ****** at the sametime, 9 out of 10 it is your water chemistry or pests. looking at the last pictures, you seem to have algae growth on the zoas, which happens when either nitrate or phosphate or both (how are you testing for nitrate or phosphate) is too high or chemical warfare (do you have carbon running), or alkalinity too low. Also, how old is your tank.

Sam.

guichi1210 · Mar 30, 2013

Thanks for the thread. I'm having a very similar problem. I added several new zoa colonies recently which may have had a pest or something. What is best to dip zoas with?

fragmatic · Mar 30, 2013

Do you have any creatures that are crawling on them at night? ( oh, you said you did the night watch) It could be pox, or it could be lighting, chemical warfare, lack of nourishment. Did you add anything about the time it started? Any changes in lighting? Have you changes salt brands on the water changes? Any change can sometimes cause the corals to close and take from a few days to months to readjust. Has an anem died, do you have any anems, they can cause this too.?

But think back for ANY change just before the problem started.

revhtree · Mar 30, 2013

What about that flame angel. Is he picking?

kuansreef · Mar 30, 2013

Water change helps instead of looking for other issues. Do water change every 2 day for a week. They will recover,

ladyreefer1983 · Mar 30, 2013

ok..heres what u can do....do a water change...if u are running carbon when was the last time u changed it?if u dont remember changed it now,if its just changed recently then leave it be.
ok,the darker brownish polyps on the 4th and 5th colony are goner...if u smell it for sure it smells weird or it stinks...theres no more hope for those brown dark polyps and u have to scrape/rid of it before the whole colony do the same and u lose everything....any suspecting polyps just scrape it.

on to the dip....
i have not tried freshwater dips on z and p's...i think it will stressed them out even more unless u suspect that theres pests on them..
i have a colony of zoas that were not opening at one time..it start with a few polyps looking weird...i used revive and reef dip alternately but it seems that it was not working... every other day that i dipped them more polyps are not opening until none opens anymore....so i stop using revive....i gave it about a few days to rest...
then i use furan 2 eventhough i dont see any zoa pox...i dip it almost every other day...by second dip a few polyps are trying to open and polyps are starting to plump...it even look cleaner as when polyps close up they tend to develop green algae or brown algae film on them....make sure to put or give them flow...
i did about 6 dips,,,3 of them every other day and when i saw polyps looking healthier i did every 2-3 days....now they are all open and i didnt lose a single polyp...they lost some colors but its fine cause they will and can color back up...

goodluck and hth

ladyreefer1983 · Mar 30, 2013

also i notice,,your alk is 132 ppm?thats about 7 dkh?..if it is,,,,your alk is low....when my alk goes low like that some of my polyps close up...i keep my alk at least 9...even if my alk goes 8,i will notice some of my polyps especially zoas they will shrink and get skinny...i keep my alk at 9-11....alk is very important to z and p's...just my experience.

ladyreefer1983 · Mar 30, 2013

guichi1210 said:
Thanks for the thread. I'm having a very similar problem. I added several new zoa colonies recently which may have had a pest or something. What is best to dip zoas with?

if u are adding colonies at same time..best to do is to set up a small quarantine tank....its hard to spot pests on colonies with just one inspection...even one dip will not gonna work...so best is to quarantine them first...theres a lot of pests out there that even u get rid of them they leave eggs,,,,nudis,sundial etc...

hth

roblox84 · Mar 30, 2013

I've also just had this happen. I run led lighting and I was starting to suspect that leds are too much light for some corals.

I raised my fixture up to about 5-6 inches, decreased my photo period to 6 hours actinic, 4 hours white led and my zoas started to finally open after 2 months.

slag009 · Mar 30, 2013

zoa_lover the tank has been established for 2yrs with the same set up I added most of these colonies about 2-3months ago. I tested with

Nitrates 0 API
phosphates 0 API
Alk 132 ppm Lamotte
cal 440 Salifert
mag 1410 Lamotte
ph 8.29 apex and api
SG-1.025 Refractometer

I was not 100% on the phosphate test but it just so happened that I ordered a hanna checker and just tested and it shows 0.02. My alk is low but I have been dosing 1ml per gallon of b-ionic for 2 months. It was lower and I lost a lot of color in my sps but all the zoas were fine. I never had any problems with them opening until now. It has been around 132-150 for a month and now the sps and everything else looks good and colored up well. But like i said it started with one colony and slowly over the past two weeks it has spread.

revhtree the flame angle has been in he tank for a while and I have never seen him picking at anything.

ladyreefer1983 I just saw your post but too late. I just finished with a 10min fresh water dip on all of the colonies and getting ready to do a water change. You were right the dark zoas in that pic are melting and most fell of when i shook them(will have to scrape the rest) in the freshwater dip. I don't know what will happen at this point, I did the freshwater dip from a recommendation by a LFS by me. They said that if it was bacterial that it could not live in the freshwater. I hopping it will not have a reverse affect on the zoas. I have done peroxide dipps on other frags with algea problems and they came back fine. Thank you all for your feed back.

EpicWin · Mar 30, 2013

I've been doing zoos a long time. You are in a really tough spot. There are 2 avenues to take
1) if you feel like there legitimately is a chance something in your tank has changed from when they were doing well, start eliminating possible issues. Check your pumps and make sure no rust. Check all of your levels. Change carbon etc etc

2) this is far more often the avenue for me. There is something wrong but there is nothing you can do about it. Further dips and water changes only stress them more and decrease your chances. Zoos get infections. If its a large colony it will likely pull through.

Sorry I can't be more help specifically but that Is my experience.

slag009 · Mar 30, 2013

Just did a 15 gal water change plus changed the sock and carbon.

PaulKreider · Mar 31, 2013

Have the same problem, They started on my dragon eyes after I fragged a few polyps. The zoas closed up, and within a few days would just melt away, somtimes getting govered in that brownish algae like you posted a picture of. I did a coral rx dip, but it hasnt seemed to help, its moved to a few other colonies. I'd have to say its an infection of some kind, its definatly not an algae problem, and I dont beleive any of my fish are nipping. It is staying away from palys though which may help narrow it down.

So far infected:
Dragon eyes
Army men
Bam bams
Fire and Ice
Pink Pucker ups

Im loosing polpys fast and Im hopeing sombody has had experience with this before, Maybe il give a freshwater dip a chance but so far Coral RX didnt seem to do much of anything.

Tenor · Apr 1, 2013

revhtree said:
What about that flame angel. Is he picking?

+1

My Flame angle did to colonies exactly like that. He was having fun to nip at them but caused all polyps closed for days. Keep your eye on him

FishOrMan · Apr 24, 2019

Zoa eating Nudis ....arise thread

danschoenherr · Apr 24, 2019

Are these wild colonies of zoas or aquacultered? When I first started with zoas, I would try wild colonies, and most started to have issues after 2/3 months and lost most over time.