Zoas and GSP not opening

[Heydude]

Hi,

 

Just a bit of advice please guys.

 

So I have put in my first corals, got them last Saturday, drip acclimated and up until today both are still closed tight, LFS said they will be for up to 48hrs after adding to tank, have contacted them again as now on day 4, they tell me not to worry, are they right?

 

Tank is a AquaOne Nano 35, running since Nov 17 with live rock, weekly 10ltr water changes.

 

Current livestock, 1 x Blue Damsel, 1 Blue Leg Hermit, 3 Nassarius and 1 Cerith Snail.

 

Water - 1.025

PH - 8.2

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - <5

 

Any advice would be appreciate.

 

Cheers

[OPtasia]

My routine for adding new coral frags is to dip them in revive for 15 minutes to get rid of hitchhikers, then place the frags into the tank on the substrate for a few days or up to a week or so. I don't attempt to mount the frags on my rock work until they open up and adjust to the new lighting and water conditions for a while. Once they start looking happy, i'll move them onto the rock work. 

[Heydude]

Thanks for your reply.

 

They are on the sand bed at present, did not dip them in anything though, LFS did not mention this to me (is this critical?).

 

How long do you think it should be with them not opening before I get concerned?

[markalot]

What kind of lighting are you using?  For starters dimmer and mostly blue should work, we tend to over light a tank when new.   

 

Check your KH (Alkalinity).  It's the most important measurement you can take.  

 

Stop testing PH, it will lead to more mistakes than it's worth.  Just for future reference, never ever try and correct PH, it alters KH rapidly and will kill corals.  I know, you didn;t say anything about PH, but this is a very common early mistake.  

 

If your KH is fairly stable, the lighting is appropriate, and flow is good then they will open up eventually.  

[Heydude]

Thanks for your reply and advise.

 

Lighting is the standard that came with the tank - the Mariglo, which is blue and white light, I have them on a timer (Blue 12 - 10pm and White 2 - 8pm).

 

Not got a KH test kit but will get one sharpish.

[markalot]

1 hour ago, Heydude said:

Thanks for your reply and advise.

 

Lighting is the standard that came with the tank - the Mariglo, which is blue and white light, I have them on a timer (Blue 12 - 10pm and White 2 - 8pm).

 

Not got a KH test kit but will get one sharpish.

 

That light may have too much white, not enough blue.  Looks like 2 strips of white led and one strip of blue?  Should be the other way around.  

[Heydude]

17 minutes ago, markalot said:

 

That light may have too much white, not enough blue.  Looks like 2 strips of white led and one strip of blue?  Should be the other way around.  

To be honesty I am not 100% sure, can't seem to find an image of the one on my tank, so will check when home later, from memory I think there is more than one row of  Blue but may well be wrong.

 

If you are right and there are more White than Blue should I have them on Blue longer to compensate?

[markalot]

Hard to say.  I might keep the blue the same but change the white to only be on for 3 hours and see what happens.  I have no idea how bright that light is so it's har dto give advice, and even then the advice might not be right.  Never any clear answers in reefing.   

[Heydude]

5 minutes ago, markalot said:

Hard to say.  I might keep the blue the same but change the white to only be on for 3 hours and see what happens.  I have no idea how bright that light is so it's har dto give advice, and even then the advice might not be right.  Never any clear answers in reefing.   

Okay, will give that a go and see what happens.

 

At what point do you think I should contact my LFS if they still haven't opened and all parameters are good?

[markalot]

I never contact my LFS about anything, there is very little reefing knowledge in most LFS, usually just enough to keep corals alive for as long as it takes to sell them.  I figure if it never recovers it's my loss, but both your corals should recover, even if it takes weeks. 

[Heydude]

23 minutes ago, markalot said:

I never contact my LFS about anything, there is very little reefing knowledge in most LFS, usually just enough to keep corals alive for as long as it takes to sell them.  I figure if it never recovers it's my loss, but both your corals should recover, even if it takes weeks. 

Thanks for all your advice, really appreciate it. 

 

Think you're probably right, they don't look poorly so hopefully time will be key. 

 

Thanks again. 

[Pjanssen]

They should eventually open. Sometimes Zoas are just like that! If they aren't disappearing then no need to worry.

[Heydude]

8 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

They should eventually open. Sometimes Zoas are just like that! If they aren't disappearing then no need to worry.

Thanks for reply, 

 

All you guys are certainly putting my mind to rest. 

[Heydude]

On 06/02/2018 at 1:47 PM, markalot said:

What kind of lighting are you using?  For starters dimmer and mostly blue should work, we tend to over light a tank when new.   

 

Check your KH (Alkalinity).  It's the most important measurement you can take.  

 

Stop testing PH, it will lead to more mistakes than it's worth.  Just for future reference, never ever try and correct PH, it alters KH rapidly and will kill corals.  I know, you didn;t say anything about PH, but this is a very common early mistake.  

 

If your KH is fairly stable, the lighting is appropriate, and flow is good then they will open up eventually.  

Looks like the GSP is thinking about opening, very small signs, also measured KH today, came out at 9dKH

[Pjanssen]

9dKH is perfectly fine, as long as it's always 9dKH (or very close anyway). Stability is crucial. Also should be balanced with your calcium. This article by Randy Holmes Farley is very helpful. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-04/rhf/feature/index.php

[Heydude]

Thanks for all the advice guys, taken a couple pics, how do you think they look? 

[Zorya]

Sometimes my zoas prefer different lighting levels. One in particular likes a shaded area and will get stumpy if it’s in too high light, the others look like they are stretching to get more light. It will get more intuitive as you keep watching the tank  - I promise! As for the gsp, i don’t have enough flow on mine, so there’s sometimes a little buildup of the skin it sheds which acts as an irritant. If you see a brown layer on it, you can blow it off with a pipette. I think gsp can be temperamental... mine usually opens up with great extension, but sometimes doesn’t open up during the day.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Although closed, the polyps look healthy for the zoas. Gsp is kind of indestructible.

[markalot]

I would seriously consider running all blue for a couple of days and see if anything changes, whites are mostly for you, not for the corals.  

 

Also double check salinity, do you use a refractometer?

[Heydude]

Hi All,

 

Apologies for late reply, not been able to get on for various reasons.

 

Have been running blues only for a few days, all parameters seemed fine from my checks. So decided on my day off this week I would take a sample to my local store to test.

 

Turns out my salinity was too high and that my refractometer although calibrated and reading to what I was expecting was giving a reading 12pts high at 1.037, so we have most likely solved the problem, refractometer binned and new one purchased.

 

I have slowly over the last 2/3 days being reducing the salinity with small water changes and as of yesterday it was down to 1.028, another small water change due tonight which might just get us where we need to be.

 

Already I can see a difference in the Zoa as they seem to be plumping up.

 

One thing that has happened though is a slight build up of brown algae on the Zoa tops, how should I remove this, or should I just leave for now until they are opening at least?

 

Really appreciate all the advise given by everyone.

 

Apologies again for the late reply to the 2 most recent posts from Zorya and markalot.

[Zorya]

3 hours ago, Heydude said:

Hi All,

 

Apologies for late reply, not been able to get on for various reasons.

 

Have been running blues only for a few days, all parameters seemed fine from my checks. So decided on my day off this week I would take a sample to my local store to test.

 

Turns out my salinity was too high and that my refractometer although calibrated and reading to what I was expecting was giving a reading 12pts high at 1.037, so we have most likely solved the problem, refractometer binned and new one purchased.

 

I have slowly over the last 2/3 days being reducing the salinity with small water changes and as of yesterday it was down to 1.028, another small water change due tonight which might just get us where we need to be.

 

Already I can see a difference in the Zoa as they seem to be plumping up.

 

One thing that has happened though is a slight build up of brown algae on the Zoa tops, how should I remove this, or should I just leave for now until they are opening at least?

 

Really appreciate all the advise given by everyone.

 

Apologies again for the late reply to the 2 most recent posts from Zorya and markalot.

Hey that’s good to hear. It’s pretty easy to lower the salinity because organisms like going down the gradient than up! 

 

For the brown algae, you can lightly rub the tops of the zoas when they are closed at night to get it off. Make sure you wear gloves and wash your hands afterward for the toxins. You could also do a dip for it. I think it’s around 30/70 3% h2o2/ tank water. Only dip them for a couple minutes and then rinse in tank water without peroxide. Make sure your polyps are all closed BEFORE dipping. I got some algae on my gsp and the clean up crew has that ‘attraction’ shut down for maintenance.

[Heydude]

2 minutes ago, Zorya said:

Hey that’s good to hear. It’s pretty easy to lower the salinity because organisms like going down the gradient than up! 

 

For the brown algae, you can lightly rub the tops of the zoas when they are closed at night to get it off. Make sure you wear gloves and wash your hands afterward for the toxins. You could also do a dip for it. I think it’s around 30/70 3% h2o2/ tank water. Only dip them for a couple minutes and then rinse in tank water without peroxide. Make sure your polyps are all closed BEFORE dipping. I got some algae on my gsp and the clean up crew has that ‘attraction’ shut down for maintenance.

Hi, 

 

Thanks for that, I'll certainly try to give them a bit of a brush later on, see how it goes. 

 

Fingers crossed I'm on the road to recovery, and will soon have a couple of blossoming corals to marvel at. 

 

Tony.