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Unread 12/15/2012, 02:33 PM   #1
MondoBongo
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Question Zoas won't open.

i have a colony of red people eater zoas that closed up about 8 days ago or so, and have no opened back up. i've had them for several months in the tank and never had any issues with them, all of my other zoas seem perfectly fine.

i took them out today and dipped them in Seachem Reed Dip - Coral Disinfectant and some Slime-X with tank water for about 15 minutes, gave them a quick 30 second FW dip in some RODI water, and then a bath in some more tank water before returning them to their spot in the tank. nothing that fell off after the dip jumped out at me as being overtly sinister. two small bristle worms, two other small worms that i could not identify (they were absolutely tiny and i could only tell they were worms under magnifying glass), and an assortment of very small snails and various bits of detritus.

there were a few vertimid snail tubes on the rock the colony is living on, which i sealed with superglue. i did notice what looked like a small red feather duster near one of the stalks when it was in the water, however was unable to find it while dipping to either seal or remove it. there is some brown scum on the rock, and in some cases it appears to be climbing up the stalks a bit, but i believe this is cyano since it matches the growth on the other rocks i have been battling.

parameters seem good, i am still having some cyano issues but it has been coming under control nicely with frequent water changes after i got a RODI system about two or three months ago to replace my original RO system.

i am not regularly dosing anything in the tank, however today after doing my water test i supplemented pH with Seachem Eighty Four and my Alk with some Reef Buffer since they were both a bit low. it's been a few weeks since i have supplemented anything directly to in to the tank. although i will often put some Eighty Four in with my water change water

pH: 8.1
Temp: 79.2
Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 1.5
Alkalinity: 3 meq/L
Calcium: 450 mg/L
Magnesium: 1560 mg/L

Salt mix: Seachem Reefsalt

I know my magnesium is a bit higher than is ideal, however i think that is most likely a function of the salt mix. i am not dosing anything to increase the Mg myself.

i generally do a 20 gallon water change once a week, tank is a 75G display with 25G of volume in the sump. last week after noticing the closed zoas I did a larger than normal water change, breaking down the entire sump and scrubbing it out as well as my normal vacuuming from the display tank. i was about due for this, as i try to drain and clean the sump once every 4 - 6 weeks anyways.

the lighting and flow have not changed in the last couple months. the only alterations to the setup were the original skimmer dying on me about two and a half weeks ago and being replaced with a larger one. i was without a skimmer for about 3 or 4 days total.

outside of this particular colony everyone else seems happy. my other zoas have been putting out new palys, my LPS are all fully inflated and growing, my SPS seem happy as well. other than the zoas i have a couple small tree corals that have been happily growing. i have also been experiencing good coraline algae growth the last few weeks.

any help is much appreciated. this particular colony is one of my favorites since when they're open they're a really vibrant red. so i would really like to fix whatever has them unhappy.

here are the affected zoas in the center.


tl;dr version:

these zoas have been closed for a little over a week. they shut up about a week after my skimmer died and was replaced within 3 days. parameters look good and other zoas in the tank as well as my other corals look happy. nothing else in the tank has changed in the last few weeks aside from replacing the skimmer. did a large water change last weekend to try to bring them back, dipped them today, still angry and closed.


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Unread 12/15/2012, 03:56 PM   #2
BriggsReef
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This has happened to me twice.. Suddenly my Zoas close up and stay closed for a long time. Nothing else in the tank seems to be effected and i couldn't figure out what the problem was...

Eventually over time they opened back up and i never got an answer.. but it took over a month for them to open again.

I'd say just wait them out


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Unread 12/15/2012, 04:02 PM   #3
MondoBongo
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thanks for the reply Briggs.

hopefully all will work itself out, i just started getting concerned as the days dragged on but it is nice to know that this has happened to someone else before.


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Unread 12/15/2012, 10:47 PM   #4
kevin32
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Hm.. this is a tough one. Looks like you tried everything in the books. Could it be flow related? Perhaps try lugols iodine?


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Unread 12/16/2012, 01:07 PM   #5
MondoBongo
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thanks for the response kevin!

i don't think it is flow related. they've been in the same spot since i placed them in the tank and i have not explicitly changed the flow. however i think if they don't open in a few days my next possibility is to move them temporarily to a different location to see if that has any effect.

i've tried to ensure due diligence for caring for them, at least as much as my knowledge allows. lugols would be worth a shot too thought.

thanks!


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Unread 01/21/2013, 08:49 PM   #6
MondoBongo
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so i wanted to bump this with an update.

the colony is still closed. my other zoas are still fine. i have lost about 75% of the original number of polyps.

i moved them to a quiet location in the tank with low flow and relatively low light.

tonight about an hour after lights out i took a look in the tank with my red light and noticed that there were some monster sized pods crawling all over that particular colony.

these things are about 1/4in to 3/8in long and look like translucent potato/pill bugs but with longer legs. bad description, i know, but right now i don't have a camera capable of getting a good picture of them.

i quickly snagged the frag out of the tank with my net and dipped it. this got me about 7 of these large pods which i fished out and have preserved in a small jar of rubbing alcohol. hopefully i can get access to a good macro lens or get them to my LFS for identification.

i have been googling "zoa eating pods" and run across some conflicting opinions. some people say that they're just cleaning up dead stuff, others saying they're the cause.

at any rate just wanted to give an update.


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Unread 01/21/2013, 09:14 PM   #7
MondoBongo
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http://melevsreef.com/id/pods.html

they look very much like the top left picture of an amphipod.




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Unread 02/15/2013, 05:46 PM   #8
MondoBongo
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Another update.

I moved the rock to the QT tank and they are slowly recovering and opening up again. I lost a good number of the plays, but I think the colony may be salvageable. It took them about a full week in QT before they even started to open, but now they are all consistently open.

I'm still looking for a root cause, and my other zoas are still doing great in the DT, but it looks like ultimately these guys needed a vacation to QT for a while to recover.


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Unread 02/15/2013, 06:06 PM   #9
footballdude2k3
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If you are getting cyano, you do not have enough flow or the right kind of flow, when I first started a 20L a few years back, I had a bad problem and I was running a lot of flow for that small of a tank. Had 3 koralia 400's, replaced those with a VorTech MP20, cyano was gone that same week.

I might have missed it, but what does your flow look like? Did you change bulbs at all recently?


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Unread 02/15/2013, 06:16 PM   #10
MondoBongo
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My tank is full LED for lights. Two 60w fixtures.

My flow is good I think. Hydor power heads. One 1050, one 750, and one 240 which is dedicated to hitting the surface all the time for gas exchange. In addition to that the return pump from the sump and overflow combination.

It is possible my identification was wrong on the Cyrano. It is something brown and slimy on the rocks and sand though, which has slowly been coming under control with diligent water changes.


-edit- this is in a 48" tank holding 75USG


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Unread 02/15/2013, 07:12 PM   #11
Bilk
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I don't think the amphipods are causing the zoas to close. You may find you have nudibranchs that are feasting on the zoas. The amphipods are probably just scavenging the rock for detritus. You may need to examine the zoas very closely to see if you have them. They camouflage themselves pretty well and are small to begin with.

Edit:

If you have them, it's a bummer but they can be eradicated. You'll probably have to pull each colony of zoas and fresh water dip them. You'll find the nudibranchs at the bottom of the container.


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Unread 02/15/2013, 09:03 PM   #12
krzyphsygy
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Too much light in my tank causes zoos to close. What lighting are you using?


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