Zoanthid Problems

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Hi everyone! I have a semi-new (or restarted, to be more accurate) 14 gallon Biocube tank. I'm probably three months into it at this point, and everything is looking really good, except for my zoas. In my tank I currently have:

 

1x colony of green/orange zoanthids

1x 2-headed blasto

1x 5-headed Duncan coral

1x 7-headed acan

1x small Xenia frag

2x false percolate clownfish

1x yellow watchman goby

1x pistol shrimp

10+ snails (astrea, nassarius, and I can't remember)

1x absolutely giant blue legged hermit crab (longtime survivor of the previous tank)

 

I'm running a media basket with filter floss, purigen, siporax, activated carbon and phosguard. I have a maxi jet 1200 for water flow and run my temp at 78, which after purchasing a new heater a few days ago is very consistent. I dose alkalinity, calcium and magnesium, and do about 15-25% water change every week, religiously.

 

For lighting I upgraded to steve's LED conversion, which is a 42w LED system, 14,000K full spectrum. Both white and blue lights are at about 60%. I got this setup about a month ago, ran everything at 50% for a week, and gradually increased no more than a percent per day to where it currently is.

 

Like I said before, everything except the zoas are looking awesome. I target feed all the corals twice a week with a high quality minced, meaty food that has phytoplankton and zooplankton in it and everything seems to take it well.

 

I got the zoanthid colony three weeks ago at my LFS, and they looked quite healthy. Ever since I have seen a handful of the green polyps open up and look alright, maybe one or two of the orange zoas open up for a few hours during the day, and the rest are closed but look pretty healthy otherwise (not shriveled up or discolored).

 

I also saw some some of algae growing on them, looked like diatoms and maybe a bit of hair algae starting to grow, so I took out the colony and performed a 50/50 hydrogen peroxide dip for about 10 minute dip on them, rinsed it off really well and stuck it back in. I did this yesterday. Some bristleworms died off and floated to the surface and it bubbled a lot...seems to already be helping with the algae.

 

I don't understand why they're still closed, and am getting a little frustrated with them. Could it be too much light? Too much flow? It's pretty low in the tank (about 10 inches below the surface) and I would describe the flow as moderate. I attached a picture if that helps.

 

Can somebody please help me out here?

 

Thank you!

[reefercorey]

Peroxide worked well to get rid of algae around my zoas but it also ticked a lot of them off. Some of the turned a pastel color and some of them still barely open. Some are open but the little tentacles around the rims are shriveled up. I used 50/50 3% h2o2 and tank water.

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Bummer! The hydrogen peroxide dip seemed to have help me out - the zoa polyps are starting to open up a little bit more, and they have a very brilliant color to them too! A lot of the polyps are still closed though.

 

Anybody have any advice?

[L.bacchus88]

I had the same problem with my zoas. Everything looked good except for them. They had a little algae on them, but not too bad. I think my blue leg crabs may have been eating at them. One day they were just gone. Have you noticed your crab messing around them? Lol

[reefernanoman]

Bummer! The hydrogen peroxide dip seemed to have help me out - the zoa polyps are starting to open up a little bit more, and they have a very brilliant color to them too! A lot of the polyps are still closed though.

Anybody have any advice?

Usually a really big water change can be beneficial to zoas when they are not doing well (just leave enough water to cover your coral.

[Clown79]

For me zoas just don't do well. Everything else is good but zoas. I've lost so many of them for no known reason.

 

Sometimes its too much light, too little light, to little nutrient.

 

Personally, i stopped buying them.