Could this be my zoa killer?

[Dreichler]

So I've had this tank up and running for a couple years now.  Chemistry always good, feeding consistent and varied food, weekly water changes, etc.  But all of the sudden, all of my zoas, and only my zoas, haven't opened since maybe the end of January.  There's maybe about 100 polyps on this one rock that refuse to open.  They will maybe open 20% when the lights are at their peak.  No other coral is effected.  The colonies all have stretched out like they're reaching for light but won't open more than maybe a tiny bit, you can only see their colors if your looking down at them.  I thought it was spaghetti worms irritating them but I guess I've ruled that out.  I dipped just some frags to see if it'll open them up and it did nothing, so I decided to dip the entire zoa rock, every single polyp effected was dipped.  This shrunk them back to normal a little, but not opened at all.  It's not the lighting because more than half of the polyps have been under this lighting for 2 years unchanged.  Tonight though, I found these tiny "pods" (idk what they are) running around on the rock, on some frags, and in between zoas.  I'm not sure what they are but this is the only other thing that could possibly be messing with my zoas.  Any other ideas as to why they won't open are appreciated and any help on ID'ing these pods and putting a stop to them would be awesome.  Thanks.  Any further info needed can be provided.  Also I have a mandarin and a leopard wrasse so my pod population should be pretty controlled.

[RayWhisperer]

Hard to tell, really. They look like normal amphipods to me. Then again, so did the ones folks were claiming were eating all their zoas, a few years back. I suppose, an amphipods starved could resort to eating corals. Thoiugh, I've never had that happen, myself.

 

post up your parameters, just for shits and giggles. I like to see everything before I rule anything out.

[Dreichler]

6 hours ago, RayWhisperer said:

Hard to tell, really. They look like normal amphipods to me. Then again, so did the ones folks were claiming were eating all their zoas, a few years back. I suppose, an amphipods starved could resort to eating corals. Thoiugh, I've never had that happen, myself.

 

post up your parameters, just for shits and giggles. I like to see everything before I rule anything out.

Calcium- 420-430
KH- 8
Phosphate- 0-0.25
Nitrate- 0.1-0.15
PH- 8.1
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Salinity- 1.023-1.024
Magnesium- 1400

[RayWhisperer]

Well, that's all seemingly in order.

 

not that I see anything in the pic. But, any chance you've got hydroids, vermatid snails, excessive spaghetti worm population, anything of the like? Reason I ask, those zoas look relatively undamaged. I would think if they were being eaten, you be able to see polyps damaged.

[Dreichler]

1 hour ago, RayWhisperer said:

Well, that's all seemingly in order.

 

not that I see anything in the pic. But, any chance you've got hydroids, vermatid snails, excessive spaghetti worm population, anything of the like? Reason I ask, those zoas look relatively undamaged. I would think if they were being eaten, you be able to see polyps damaged.

I do have an abnormal amount of spaghetti worms that I've been trying to manually remove them and feed less and dipped the rocks that zoas are on.  I've also tried killing them with AiptasiaX and doesn't do that job too well.  I haven't noticed any of the other pests that you've mentioned.  Would they be visible at day or night so I can look?  Also, as for spaghetti worms, any remedy?

[RayWhisperer]

Spaghetti worms? I don't know of any. I would think you'd need a metric shit ton of them to irritate zoas enough to keep them constantly closed. I'm not too certain, though.

 

just google vermatid snails and hydroids. You'll see what to look for. You'd be able to see than night and day.

 

When you say you dipped the rock. Dipped with what? Also, have you added any new zoas recently? 

[ninjamyst]

maybe you have zoa eating nudibranch.  they cameo themselves so it's hard to find them.  what kind of dip did you use?  

[Dreichler]

3 hours ago, RayWhisperer said:

Spaghetti worms? I don't know of any. I would think you'd need a metric shit ton of them to irritate zoas enough to keep them constantly closed. I'm not too certain, though.

 

just google vermatid snails and hydroids. You'll see what to look for. You'd be able to see than night and day.

 

When you say you dipped the rock. Dipped with what? Also, have you added any new zoas recently? 

 

2 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

maybe you have zoa eating nudibranch.  they cameo themselves so it's hard to find them.  what kind of dip did you use?  

I use the ME Dip 4X.  I did add some new zoas yesterday and today they all open just fine.  I will research the hydroids and vermatids.  I'm certain it's not nudis because I've had them before (2 years ago) and I can identify them pretty easily.  To give you an idea of how many spaghetti worms I have, pretty much anywhere on a rock that you look, you can gaurantee to see a spaghetti worm arm stretching somewhere.  It's very very very easy to pull out 15 spaghetti worms from the sand bed within 10 minutes or so.  And I can probably spot about 15-20 sets of arms on a single rock the size of a softball.  

[Dreichler]

So I took out two frags that I was able to pull off the rock to further inspect.  These are the two that I first notice close up.  I put them in small 4OZ cups that a frag would normally go in for about 3 hours (with my tank water of course) and prior to inspecting them, I saw nothing more on them than the spaghetti worm that I already knew was inhabiting within the tiny rock each frag is on.  When I came back 3 hours later, I notice a worm and a nice chunk of my zoas eaten.  I then performed a dip on both frags using the ME Coral Wash 4X and nothing else came off.  Any suggestions?  Also, I've began manually removing the vermetid snails since I recognized them now.  Could be what's bothering them.  I'm ruling out hydroids because I've never seen them in my tank before.  But spaghetti worms and vermetids are probably a result of overfeeding.  I go to college away from my tank and I leave feeding and water changes to my dad.  He seems to keep parameters good but just overfeeding.  Hopefully a good tank starve will do the trick along with manual removal.  If I starve the tank properly and manually remove them, how long do you think it could take for the polyps to open back up and recover or for the population to get low enough to not irritate the polyps anymore?

[Clown79]

Thats a bristle worm. It will eat decaying matter. The zoas may have been dead or dying if it was eating them.

 

Are there white spots on the zoas? Zoa pox needs specific treatment.

 

Another thought is low nutrients or high nutrients. 

 

Are you using api phosphate test? Its a high range kit which you need low range like salifert.

 

Out of everything i have trief keeping, zoas give me the hardest time. Its all i have lost without a known reason. 

 

They just close up after mnths and slowly fade away.

[Dreichler]

19 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Thats a bristle worm. It will eat decaying matter. The zoas may have been dead or dying if it was eating them.

 

Are there white spots on the zoas? Zoa pox needs specific treatment.

 

Another thought is low nutrients or high nutrients. 

 

Are you using api phosphate test? Its a high range kit which you need low range like salifert.

 

Out of everything i have trief keeping, zoas give me the hardest time. Its all i have lost without a known reason. 

 

They just close up after mnths and slowly fade away.

There's no white spots on any of my zoas.  All of my zoas have no markings at all that show damage or being eaten, they are just being annoyed and irritated and closing up and stretching.  I use the API to test and have never had anything over the 0.25 and have had 2 different stores do 5-6 tests using Red Sea tests, Hanna, and Salifert but all parameters come back stable.

[Clown79]

0.25 for phos is too high.

 

No more tha 0.03 and the api can't tell you that. 

[ReefWeeds]

Your nitrates seem pretty low in comparison to your level of phosphates. What test are you using for nitrates? In my experience, zoas seem to do better when nitrates hover around 5. 

[Nano sapiens]

IME, when the amphipods grow up in a tank to around the 3/8" or larger size, they can turn to predation of zoanthids.  I've caught them at night literally pulling a zoa's tentacles out of the 'bulb' one by one and then munching away.  Once I elimated the population, I was able to keep zoas properly again.  

 

Zoanthids semi closing up for extended periods is something I'm dealing with on some colonies, too.  In my case, irritation from various animals seems to be the issue (a 2-spot blenny has taken to regularly perching on top of the effected colonies and my Pederson's Shrimp likes to grab onto them at night to avoid being blown around in the current...as well as the usual hermit crab blundering about).

 

I would suggest to keep observing both day, and especially at night, until you find the culprit(s).

[Dreichler]

5 hours ago, Clown79 said:

0.25 for phos is too high.

 

No more tha 0.03 and the api can't tell you that. 

I'm working on lowering he phosphates.  How can I lower phosphates but keep my nitrates up to kee the water a little dirty for them.  Currently I'm using the Red Sea NO3:PO4-X to control nitrates and phosphates.   Should my nitrates be higher while phosphates much much lower (below 0.03)?  What can I do to achieve those levels? 

 

4 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

IME, when the amphipods grow up in a tank to around the 3/8" or larger size, they can turn to predation of zoanthids.  I've caught them at night literally pulling a zoa's tentacles out of the 'bulb' one by one and then munching away.  Once I elimated the population, I was able to keep zoas properly again.  

 

Zoanthids semi closing up for extended periods is something I'm dealing with on some colonies, too.  In my case, irritation from various animals seems to be the issue (a 2-spot blenny has taken to regularly perching on top of the effected colonies and my Pederson's Shrimp likes to grab onto them at night to avoid being blown around in the current...as well as the usual hermit crab blundering about).

 

I would suggest to keep observing both day, and especially at night, until you find the culprit(s).

I don't think I've seen any that are 3/8" or above yet and I know that they're definitely not eating the zoas.  I believe it's either vermetid snails, spaghetti worms, or my water chemistry isn't dirty enough for my zoa colonies.  

 

5 hours ago, stellablue said:

Your nitrates seem pretty low in comparison to your level of phosphates. What test are you using for nitrates? In my experience, zoas seem to do better when nitrates hover around 5. 

I'm using API, and my stores use Henna and Red Sea and I get the very close to the same results.  I will do each try about 3 times and take the best average of the 3 readings. 

[ReefWeeds]

1 minute ago, Dreichler said:

I'm working on lowering he phosphates.  How can I lower phosphates but keep my nitrates up to kee the water a little dirty for them.  Currently I'm using the Red Sea NO3:PO4-X to control nitrates and phosphates.   Should my nitrates be higher while phosphates much much lower (below 0.03)?  What can I do to achieve those levels? 

 

I don't think I've seen any that are 3/8" or above yet and I know that they're definitely not eating the zoas.  I believe it's either vermetid snails, spaghetti worms, or my water chemistry isn't dirty enough for my zoa colonies.  

 

I'm using API, and my stores use Henna and Red Sea and I get the very close to the same results.  I will do each try about 3 times and take the best average of the 3 readings. 

How are you getting readings below 1 on an API kit? Reading levels are 0-5, 5-10 etc. are you certain your nitrates are under 1? 

[Dreichler]

So I've basically come to the conclusion that it's either vermetid snails, spaghetti worms, or my water chemistry.  I don't really think it's the snails because I don't see any near my zoa colonies, I see them throughout the tank, but not in numbers like the huge population of spaghetti worms.  The main thing is a little confusing is that my zoas haven't melted away or just be gone by now even though they haven't opened since like January 15th.  They are not damaged or eaten (besides the one I found out of my tank with the bristle worm, which has healed already) they are just irritated and not opening.  Does anyone have any other recommendations?  

[ReefWeeds]

And nopox will lower nitrates but not do much for phosphates at all. Look into possibly stopping nopox and go with phosphate RX or phosban or something. Just a suggestion. 

[Dreichler]

2 minutes ago, stellablue said:

How are you getting readings below 1 on an API kit? Reading levels are 0-5, 5-10 etc. are you certain your nitrates are under 1? 

My mistake, I just redid the nitrate testing because I got it confused with nitrite, -and my nitrates are between 10-20 reading and the nitrites at 0.  My bad...

[Dreichler]

8 minutes ago, stellablue said:

And nopox will lower nitrates but not do much for phosphates at all. Look into possibly stopping nopox and go with phosphate RX or phosban or something. Just a suggestion. 

I'm already using 2 bags of chemipure blue in my 2 chambers.  Wouldn't that help lower the phosphates pretty well?  Along with the 15% weekly water changes and RO added daily?

[ReefWeeds]

15 minutes ago, Dreichler said:

I'm already using 2 bags of chemipure blue in my 2 chambers.  Wouldn't that help lower the phosphates pretty well?  Along with the 15% weekly water changes and RO added daily?

I'm not as familiar with chemipure blue to be honest. Does it actually lower phosphates? When I was using nopox, my nitrates were low but phosphates skyrocketed. 

23 minutes ago, Dreichler said:

My mistake, I just redid the nitrate testing because I got it confused with nitrite, -and my nitrates are between 10-20 reading and the nitrites at 0.  My bad...

No worries! That makes more sense. Seems like they're in line from a chemistry standpoint with phosphates (10/1 ratio). I would work on getting both numbers down. I can't honestly see high nitrates or phosphates bothering zoas TBH so I'm not sure that's the problem. 

[Clown79]

I've used chemipure. To be honest, it wasn't worth the cost. Never saw any reduction in phosphates.

 

I use my regular carbon and phosguard for phosphates...got better results and cheaper in the long run

[Dreichler]

53 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I've used chemipure. To be honest, it wasn't worth the cost. Never saw any reduction in phosphates.

 

I use my regular carbon and phosguard for phosphates...got better results and cheaper in the long run

Personally though I have good results with chemipure blue.  Best I've tried in the past 3 years or so.