Don't Know What Else Could Be Wrong.... :(

[Dreichler]

So i have a JBJ 45 with 2 AI Primes.  Its a mixed reef but mostly dominated my LPS/Softies/Zoas and only maybe 20%-30% SPS.  The tank has been up and running for about 2 years now, but everything inside came from my old tank that is now about 6 years old.  So about 2 months ago, i started to notice my colonies of zoas were getting skinnier, stretching for light, and not closing up properly.  So i went and got my water tested.  Everything turned out to be pretty spot on except alk was a little low (maybe 7.5) but now I've gotten it up to about 9.  That didn't seem to fix the problem, so for days on end i inspected for pests, and saw that asterina stars were irritating my zoa colonies, but nothing else.  BTW, everything else in the tank is thriving, but my zoas are not, which is why this is weird.  The lighting hasn't changed in 2 years.  I do 20% water changes every week.  I dose alk, calcium, and NO3PO4, everything else is naturally maintained and balanced.  I can't dip any of the colonies because they are attached to large rocks under more rocks.

 

Overall, i feel like I'm doing everything right.  My parameters aren't out of the ordinary, i do my weekly water change, good CUC, dosing properly, feeding properly, lighting properly.

What i plan to change a little bit is maybe adding a little stronger flow towards my zoas and reducing peak light power because I've also noticed that some of the zoas have disappeared or maybe "melted"

Ive checked for nudis and its not them.

 

Parameters as of today (April 14th, 2017)

Salinity- 1.023

Nitrate- 0 (+/- 0.01)

Nitrite- 0 (+/- 0.01)

Phosphate- 0.12 (+/- 0.02)

Calcium- 440 (+/- 5)

Alkalinity- 9 (+/- 0.1)

Magnesium- 1400 (+/- 20)

PH- 8.0 (+/- 0.1)

 

Pictures:  The zoas/palys circled in RED are the effected ones while the GREEN are thriving.  The blondies, rastas, gatorades, fire&ice, and valentines massacre are all stretched and unopened while the JF Bloodshots, pandoras, and a few other colonies not pictured are thriving.

 

 

 

 

[Weetabix7]

You're clearly doing all the right stuff. 

Do you have any supersized Pods that might be nibbling on them?

Do you have any Spaghetti worms that might be irritating them?

As much as I hate to say it, sometimes Zoas are weird and act unhappy for no discernible reason. 

[Simulated Fish]

1 minute ago, Weetabix7 said:

You're clearly doing all the right stuff. 

Do you have any supersized Pods that might be nibbling on them?

Do you have any Spaghetti worms that might be irritating them?

As much as I hate to say it, sometimes Zoas are weird and act unhappy for no discernible reason. 

+1 this I had zoas in my 8g that just loved to stretch and refused to stay low some times they are just unhappy. 

 

You said you were running two AIs but what is your schedule/intensity?

[Dreichler]

11 minutes ago, Hippieheadshot said:

+1 this I had zoas in my 8g that just loved to stretch and refused to stay low some times they are just unhappy. 

 

You said you were running two AIs but what is your schedule/intensity?

Heres the schedule, the peak is blues at 90% and whites peak 75% and both lights are about 7-9 inches above the water.

16 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

You're clearly doing all the right stuff. 

Do you have any supersized Pods that might be nibbling on them?

Do you have any Spaghetti worms that might be irritating them?

As much as I hate to say it, sometimes Zoas are weird and act unhappy for no discernible reason. 

i do have a bunch of spaghetti worms throughout the tank, and i mean a bunch.  I never thought these would be bothering the zoas because they touch the plays and other corals as well but don't seem to bother them at all.  Do you know of any natural predators to the spaghetti worms?  Mine look like the "arms" are yellow and [maybe] have black stripes, can't tell that good.  I do have pods because i have a leopard wrasse and mandarin so my pod population must be high, but none are bigger than 1mm pellets.  

[Nano sapiens]

This is not unusal, unfortunately.  I have the same thing with most Zoa colonies that look great and a few that are struggling a bit.

 

The difficulty is that there could be a number of different causes that may not be directly related to parameters that we can test for.  Could be something very subtle that just bothers certain types and not others.  I noticed my issues at a time roughly coinciding with a change in my salt blend and after added a pair of Peterson's Cleaner Shrimp.  From one week to the next healthy, fully open colonies wouldn't extend their tentacles at all.  After a few months of this, I am just now starting to see some improvement in one of the effected colonies, but I don't have a good explanation as to why there is improvement.

[Weetabix7]

50 minutes ago, Dreichler said:

Heres the schedule, the peak is blues at 90% and whites peak 75% and both lights are about 7-9 inches above the water.

i do have a bunch of spaghetti worms throughout the tank, and i mean a bunch.  I never thought these would be bothering the zoas because they touch the plays and other corals as well but don't seem to bother them at all.  Do you know of any natural predators to the spaghetti worms?  Mine look like the "arms" are yellow and [maybe] have black stripes, can't tell that good.  I do have pods because i have a leopard wrasse and mandarin so my pod population must be high, but none are bigger than 1mm pellets.  

 

If the pods aren't big, I wouldn't worry about them, it's only the big ones that I've seen go after Z's & P's occasionally. 

I'm pretty sure @teenyreef is the one that I saw recently have a problem with spaghetti worms irritating the Zoas in his tank so they weren't always opening. From your description, yours sound the same as his, same coloring, etc. I think he mostly pulled his out manually and also got a Sixline Wrasse or something to go after them. 

 

[Dreichler]

1 hour ago, Nano sapiens said:

This is not unusal, unfortunately.  I have the same thing with most Zoa colonies that look great and a few that are struggling a bit.

 

The difficulty is that there could be a number of different causes that may not be directly related to parameters that we can test for.  Could be something very subtle that just bothers certain types and not others.  I noticed my issues at a time roughly coinciding with a change in my salt blend and after added a pair of Peterson's Cleaner Shrimp.  From one week to the next healthy, fully open colonies wouldn't extend their tentacles at all.  After a few months of this, I am just now starting to see some improvement in one of the effected colonies, but I don't have a good explanation as to why there is improvement.

Thanks for the reply!  Did all your effected colonies make it?  Was there any die off?  How are they now (stretched/normal)?

1 hour ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

If the pods aren't big, I wouldn't worry about them, it's only the big ones that I've seen go after Z's & P's occasionally. 

I'm pretty sure @teenyreef is the one that I saw recently have a problem with spaghetti worms irritating the Zoas in his tank so they weren't always opening. From your description, yours sound the same as his, same coloring, etc. I think he mostly pulled his out manually and also got a Sixline Wrasse or something to go after them. 

 

Thanks for the reply!  Will check out teenyreef to see his method.

[Nano sapiens]

51 minutes ago, Dreichler said:

Thanks for the reply!  Did all your effected colonies make it?  Was there any die off?  How are they now (stretched/normal)?

Thanks for the reply!  Will check out teenyreef to see his method.

 

I only lost 2-3 polyps from one colony and none from the other.  The polyps have just become smaller oral disks without any 'skirts' to speak of.  They did 'stretch' for a while and also expelled their zooxanthellae even though there were no changes to the lighting at the time.  They can be odd little beasties and can rebound unexpectedly when conditions return to their liking.  Best advise I can give is to first look at physcial stressors (pods, worms, etc.), and if not those, then try to think back if you had made any changes to the system that roughly correspond to the zoa issue and address.

[teenyreef]

3 hours ago, Dreichler said:

Thanks for the reply!  Did all your effected colonies make it?  Was there any die off?  How are they now (stretched/normal)?

Thanks for the reply!  Will check out teenyreef to see his method.

I posted some pictures of the zoas that were affected in my 40g tank thread. It was quite obvious when I looked really closely with the zoom lens. Any sections of the zoa colony that the worms were touching were completely closed up.

 

I've been removing them manually from the sandbed by digging them out with my fingers. After three or fours days since I removed the last one I could find, all the zoas are much happier and are opening again.

 

They didn't affect the palys at all, I guess just because they are bigger and less sensitive. Good luck!

[Dreichler]

2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I posted some pictures of the zoas that were affected in my 40g tank thread. It was quite obvious when I looked really closely with the zoom lens. Any sections of the zoa colony that the worms were touching were completely closed up.

 

I've been removing them manually from the sandbed by digging them out with my fingers. After three or fours days since I removed the last one I could find, all the zoas are much happier and are opening again.

 

They didn't affect the palys at all, I guess just because they are bigger and less sensitive. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice!  Definitely gonna give manual removal a try.  Did you have yours only in the sandbed?  Because mine are mostly in the finest holes in rocks, some are in the sandbed but I always suck them out with the weekly water changer. 

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, Dreichler said:

Thanks for the advice!  Definitely gonna give manual removal a try.  Did you have yours only in the sandbed?  Because mine are mostly in the finest holes in rocks, some are in the sandbed but I always suck them out with the weekly water changer. 

I guess I'm just lucky because mine are all in the sand bed. Mine could be different from yours, though. Mine are hard to suck out, they tend to retract and clump up so that they don't float easily and so they stay in the sand bed unless I just grab them with my fingers.

[Dreichler]

45 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I guess I'm just lucky because mine are all in the sand bed. Mine could be different from yours, though. Mine are hard to suck out, they tend to retract and clump up so that they don't float easily and so they stay in the sand bed unless I just grab them with my fingers.

Ya they sound a little different than mine.  Mine put their bodies in the tiniest holes ever and just spread their arms everywhere.  And usually there's like 40% of the rock work is just covered by their arms.  I'm not sure if manual removal is the best for me because they sit in the tiniest holes and there's so many of them.  Do you know of any natural predators?

[graftobny142]

I found this about the worms in regard to predators,

 

"Gaston and Slattery (2002) conducted an experiment on E. crassicornis in Belize to test for the presence of deterrent chemicals in the species. Bluehead wrasses and green clinging crabs both refused offerings of tentacles from the worm as well as food pellets treated with worm extract. This result was significant when compared to controls. The authors subscribe to the theory that the extracts are produced by the polychaetes as defense against predation, although a number of other possibilities were also mentioned."

[jambon]

Hi... I noticed your salinity is 1.023. Could that be a little low for a reef tank? Just something else to consider. 

   I don't use AI prime lighting, I use maxpect my white is at 35 or 40 % max with a 120 watt. My sps thrive under this and favias grow away from it.

[teenyreef]

11 hours ago, Dreichler said:

Ya they sound a little different than mine.  Mine put their bodies in the tiniest holes ever and just spread their arms everywhere.  And usually there's like 40% of the rock work is just covered by their arms.  I'm not sure if manual removal is the best for me because they sit in the tiniest holes and there's so many of them.  Do you know of any natural predators?

Unfortunately, the only thing I could find that seemed consistent was that at least two or three people said their copperband butterfly are hair worms. A few reported various wrasses including yellow coris, which is why I got mine. But he didn't make it past the first week or so, and I can't say whether he would have eaten them or not.

[Simulated Fish]

I don't have any in my tank thanks to my sixline. He eats pods and flatworms all day, I had a few spaghetti worms before I got him but none since. I feed heavy but he rarely eats it due to being so fat from hunting the shift eyed killer, but I know that's not as common.

[Dreichler]

2 hours ago, Hippieheadshot said:

I don't have any in my tank thanks to my sixline. He eats pods and flatworms all day, I had a few spaghetti worms before I got him but none since. I feed heavy but he rarely eats it due to being so fat from hunting the shift eyed killer, but I know that's not as common.

The only reason I don't wanna get a 6 line to get rid of them is because I already have a leopard wrasse, potters angel, and a mandarin.  Can't really afford the extra bioload of another fish and then him maybe not getting along with the others.  How easy would you say (1-10) it is to get a 6-line wrasse out of a rocky reef tank.  1 being as easy as a goldfish and 10 being you have to tear the whole rock work apart. 

[Simulated Fish]

1 hour ago, Dreichler said:

The only reason I don't wanna get a 6 line to get rid of them is because I already have a leopard wrasse, potters angel, and a mandarin.  Can't really afford the extra bioload of another fish and then him maybe not getting along with the others.  How easy would you say (1-10) it is to get a 6-line wrasse out of a rocky reef tank.  1 being as easy as a goldfish and 10 being you have to tear the whole rock work apart. 

8... Maybe a 9 lol they are fast and love to fast in and out of rockwork. With that stock I think your right to avoid getting one, 6 lines can be mean with other wrasse

[Clown79]

Have you checked for zoa pox?

 

If your nitrates are very low, this could be an issue for the zoas.

[Dreichler]

On 4/16/2017 at 0:05 PM, Clown79 said:

Have you checked for zoa pox?

 

If your nitrates are very low, this could be an issue for the zoas.

No zoa pox for sure, how could i bring my nitrates up a little without effecting my phosphates?

[SaltyBuddha]

3 hours ago, Dreichler said:

No zoa pox for sure, how could i bring my nitrates up a little without effecting my phosphates?

To bring Nitrates up without phosphates as well, I'd think straight ammonia would do it. Obviously you would have to be very careful about introducing that to the tank. One thought would be to take a small piece of liverock, put it in a small container, put ammonia in and you would have saltwater with only nitrates after it cycles through. 

 

Disclaimer: I am very new and do not have experience. This is my first thought if you want only nitrates though.

[Clown79]

Don't add ammonia.

 

If you want nutrients in your tank, which a bit is good to have for corals, feed your corals twice a week.

 

 reef roids is a good food.