Zoas help!

[Thomas Ged]

Totally new to coral and this hobby so was wondering if these zoas are normal or, only put them in 2 days ago but don’t seem to be opening anymore that half, should I be worried or? Cheers

[FlytheWMark]

Something is not right, mine will usually open within a few hours when I introduce them.  Have you tested your water? Do you have COC walking over them alot?

[specore]

Take my advice with a grain of salt as zoa's are one coral I've never had a lot of luck with.  Generally when I see something not opening I try a lower light/lower flow area.  

[ReefGoat]

When my zoas close up they close up really tight and it's usually only for a min or two. They are still really puffy and "inflated" if you know what I mean. Yours seem to be curling up or melting away looking rather deflated. Just looking at the bottom of your tank you seem to be having some other issues. Is your tank new? That's a bit of algae, are your parameters out of whack? 

[Aurortpa]

How were they acclimated and dipped?  They look like they are on the bottom of tank already, yes?

 

To me they look like they are attempting to protect themselves...what is alk, cal, and mag at?

 

I’d def keep at lower light but in my experience  I increase flow to distressed corals—just medium, not a blast.  Sometimes corals do take time, like a few days or up to a week to even start to get settled in. Try not to keep moving them tho, pick an ideal spot then leave it otherwise they will get potentially stressed being move repeatedly.

[Thomas Ged]

Tanks been running for just over 15 weeks now, 4 blue legged hermits is all that’s in it, ph is 8.1 alkalinity 3.5 meq/l nitrite 0.01 mg/l nitrate 5mg/l and free ammonia is 0, salinity 1.027 light is a 10w led and it’s 49 litre tank, coral was from the LFS and was totally open when I bought it! Don’t have a quarantine tank as just getting into the hobby so just floated it and drip acclimated it! Hope that helps

[Aurortpa]

Hmmm params seem in order. The algae could just be traces of organics still leeching from your rock and sandbed as your tank starts to age. I assume you must have at least decent flow and filtration to test nitrates that low and still have algae so that’s good thing.  Also sounds you acclimated it correctly—how long did you float and drip for?

 

At this point, I’d just keep it at the lower lighting level but you can move it horizontally so it can receive more flow. Also, just in case, look for any weird critters that might be on the zoas especially at night. Try to “surprise” them when lights have been out a while and just shine your flashlight on the zoas looking closely for any predatory little creatures.  Altho, unless completely infested, don’t see how they’d be affecting the whole colony at once.

 

I’m leaning towards just being patient and ensure it doesn’t further deteriorate.  Maybe add some fresh carbon, purigen, or Polyfilter to your filtration for good measure. Corals often do take a bit to settle in.

 

 

 

 

[Oldsalt01]

Keep in mind that tank is only 3 months old and still maturing. I had very poor luck with zoas for the first year of my tank. They would not open completely, and eventually just melt away. 2 years later my zoas are spreading well and are obviously happy. Maybe it's just a matter of letting your tank mature some more.

[KNelson]

Zoas and palys were among the first corals added to my tank (at 1 month from getting wet) and the palys took off immediately.  One of the zoas took a couple of months to start growing but was never sad.  Another zoa grew a second polyp immediately but stopped for growing for 9 months and is now taking off.  A cinnamon paly grandis I added later grew 2 polyps pretty quick then got stung by a duncan and has never fully recovered but has never looked like it was dying.  

 

I think there's many more factors than tank maturity.  I've read that some of the more special zoas are slower to grow and more difficult to keep.  OPs zoas look like they're very pretty. 

[sadie]

How is your coral doing?  I never had any luck with zoas, they always melted. 😔  I hope it is doing better.

[Thomas Ged]

Yeah mines melted away aswell😔 added green star polyps and leather finger coral since and they’re growing like weeds haha! Gonna try zoas again in the next few weeks, I ll let you know how I get on👍🏻

[BlennyBoi]

On 7/4/2018 at 4:55 AM, specore said:

Take my advice with a grain of salt as zoa's are one coral I've never had a lot of luck with.  Generally when I see something not opening I try a lower light/lower flow area.  

dude, there so easy! never had the fancy ones tho, just generic green/orange/brown.

[FlytheWMark]

I've had similar issues so I'm following along.  I have some Zoa's/Pal's that are flourishing, adding new heads, etc and others that have melted away in just the past month.  I even get it on the same rock.  Half of them doing great, the other half I had them melt.  My parameters are good (10 on nitrates which I've read Zoa's like) Alk 8.4-9 depending on the day, etc.  I even started dosing Vitamin C about a month ago.  I have noticed a difference on the ones that are doing well (opening alot better) but it did nothing for the ones that melted.