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Coral Vue Hydros

Zoas disappearing


cal1319

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I have had this colony for a few months now but lately started to notice that they where getting less in number and not opening up all the way... I looked for pox and couldn't see anything out of the norm... All my other zoas are fine... Any suggestions ?

post-83277-0-40218600-1399833820_thumb.jpg

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Roshan8768

No idea, I lose zoas like this all the time. I'll have a colony that's been doing well for 3-4 weeks and then they slowly start closing up and then they don't open fully afterwards just like in your picture. Hopefully someone will have some insight

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try watching them when the lights are off. see if anything is going on.

my rhastas frag were eaten by large pods. think they're called amphipids.

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Will do! I have pods in the tank didn't think they would bother zoas... But I'll give it a try tonight see what's up

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Roshan8768

Once they start going downhill, I have yet to bring any back. I seriously doubt that it's any kind of pest because I have not seen anything and I have a yellow coris wrasse, a lubbock's fairy wrasse, and a mandarin so there are hardly any large pods left in my tank I would imagine.

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frankdontsurf

I logged on to post this same issue. My dragon eyes went from 20+ polyps to about 10. I have massive pods all types. Not sure what to do but since I never pay more than $5-10 for a frag I'm not overly worried. Just hope it doesn't happen to all my colonies. :/

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Zoas can be finicky. Even if some are happy in your tank, others may not be. If they are removable, you could try dipping them in Lugols and then putting them back. Or you could try adjusting their location in the tank with more or less flow and more or less light. If they aren't stretching, chances are it isn't too little light. I hope it works out!

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gahumphrey

Have you adjusted your lights? I bought a colony of 23 Darth Mauls and they all melted but one before I took them out of my big tank and moved them back into my biocube with less light. The same thing happened with a mixed zoa colony. They're all slowly recovering now. After thinking it was 30 different things i finally realized my lights were to intense. I lowered the lights and moved one of the colonies back where it is now fully recovering and sprouting new zoa.

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Looks like ZOA eating nudis and some egg clusters on a few closed polyps. They take on the same coloration and are hard to spot. Dip the rock in tank water plus flkatworm exit and see if any fall off. Eggs are the difficult part of this problem.

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Would peroxide work?

 

And the lighting hasn't changed... Plus if anything I'm under lighted... They aren't stretching though...

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Ok I just did a peroxide dip... After two min I gave the frag and shack and there pop of three white things... Swam for a bit and died they like like the damn nudis... So my next questions is what do I do now? Not all of my zoas can be removed and dipped?! Help haha!

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I just bought some flatworm exit... Can I treat the whole tank with that? Sorry for all the questions! Shocked at how fast they ate the colony don't want my others to have same outcome!

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No dip....you don't need it as your colony stretch for light. Zoa don't normally stretch their body like that if it has enough light. Zoa will melt by itself for no reason if you place them on the wrong lighting.

 

Move them up few inches will see if you are not loose any of them anymore.

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Hey tenor thanks for the heads up... It doesn't seem to be light but nudis

 

Not necessarily. Zoa nudis take on the color of the coral, not just plain white. You need to do some more research, seems like you are stabbing in the dark.

 

So lets start over. It's very difficult to give advice if we don;t know your experience and what assumptions you may or may not have made.

 

Size of Tank.

Lighting over the tank.

KH

Calcium

SG (Salinity and how you measure it)

Water Source (RO/DI? What Salt?)

 

Have you tried to google zoanthid eating nudibranchs to see if they look like what fell off?

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When I get some zoa's that start melting, I usually do an iodine dip and move them to lower light and that seems to bring them back most of the time.

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Hey markalot... right after they feel off I googled and what I had was what looked like in the photos, so I am fairly confident that they are in fact nudis... and other specs are

 

Size of Tank. 15G column

Lighting over the tank. 6w T5 plus 5 12'' stunner strips 10K-12K blue violet

KH- 8-9

Calcium- 42-440

SG (Salinity and how you measure it) 1.025 (cheap way... but measured it against some purified ocean water and it was about the same)

Water Source (RO/DI? What Salt?) Water source is ultra pure RO/DI lab grade.... salt I have been using is reef crystals....

 

all other zoas in tank and rest of corals are happy... After the soak.. they got really pissed but this mornign more of the have opened then previous...

 

Do you think it would be wise to treat the tank with Flatworm exit? I can not remove all of my zoas... or else I would just soak them all...

 

cheers

Chris

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Not sure on FWE. As long as you don't have flatworms it should be safe, but it can kill Cerith snails and brittle stars, sometimes. If you have brown flatworms then the flatworm dieoff will nuke the tank.

 

Eggs will be the problem now. You will need to treat once eggs hatch (not sure on time frame). If only effecting one colony then the question is; how did they get into the tank? What was added recently?

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Yea, that was my concern too.. Looking around on the web people have treated the nudis by treating the tank 4 days apart for three times. Apprently the life cycle from egg to hatch is around 11 days or so. The zoas that were attacked were actually the first that I put in. So, I am confused too.... but nonetheless I dont want my other more costly zoas to go the same way. As for the worms, I have never seen a single worm in my tank... I havent looked hard for them, but never did notice one either...

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So a day after sipping the zoas almost all of them opened up... I'm hopeful I can get the rest out of the tank with fwe...

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Treated with fwe today... A few minutes later I saw two flatworms float up and got a little scared that I had a whole bunch of them so used the powerhead a and baster to get into all the crevices but no more showed up... Let the reaction go for 45min and slowly started to see some nudis in the water column... Added some carbon back and did a 30% water change... I did take out the snails and conch... Everything else was fine... I did see a few snails I couldn't find that made it through as well as hermits feather duster and all corals... Only things that seamed upset where yellow polyps...

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