Zoas not looking happy

[jambon]

I picked up a few small zoa colonies recently. They are not opening to there full potential. I dipped  them in fresh water and tried to dislodge any pests. 

  I have some lugols iodine which I am starting to dose as directed... I will see how that goes. I also have a few colonies which have been thriving for over a yr. 

  I also have a possum wrasse In another tank which i may move over to eat any pests. Question is will it eat the nudist which poster the zoas and will the lugols add to there gòd health? Any experience will be appreciated. 

[Tired]

What are your exact parameters? Not "good", actual parameters. Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, salinity, temperature, preferably calcium and magnesium as well.

 

Do you have other corals, and how are they doing? 

[jambon]

I do have other corals which are doing fine... no acros, mostly lps varieties. I am suspecting it may be high salinity, it sometimes gets out of hand. 1.026- 1.027 last time I checked.. a week ago. 

   Nitrites and nitrates are detectable but not too high. I don't check ca. And I  don't remember the exact #s.

I do regular water changes with red sea salt weekly and I don't have enough hard corals to use these up... I think there are enough trace elements to not have to worry about addatives with my livestock load. But...

   I will look into the magnesium . 

   It may just be a matter of the tanks maturity... It has been up for about 5 months, but everything was switched out from my 16cube. This is a 32cube.

   I have started using a skimmer this week, with doing so i am planning on feeding the corals weekly or bi weekly, till now they are relying on scraps of food from when the fish are fed. 

 

[Tired]

You should never have nitrites. They indicate an incomplete cycle. What test kit are you using? 

 

What's your salinity now? Likely you're having an issue with evap, to drive your salinity up. Add a solid lid, auto-top-off device, or increase your topoffs. And make sure you're using only distilled or RODI (preferably the latter) to top off, NOT saltwater.

 

Dosing iodine may not be the best plan if you don't have a kit to test for it. As a general rule, you don't want to add elements into the tank that you can't test for. 

[jambon]

Ok my nitrates are around 10 ppm. 

Nitrites are .25 +- .

Salinity is (was)close to 1.027... i just lowered it a point.  Now it is just over 1.025. Evaporation is never an issue with the biocube. I use rodi H2O.

I will give this a week and see what happens. There will be no more dosing.

[Tired]

Again, what test kit are you using? Some are inaccurate. 

 

If you do have nitrites, that's your problem. Your cycle is incomplete and your tank is probably unstable. Try to keep the salinity a little lower (make sure to check that your new water is the proper salinity during water changes, for one thing), and keep a very close eye on those nitrites. Large water changes may be in order.

[jambon]

My test kit is quite old... I think a new set is in order. I am narrowing the problem down to a. Nitrites b. Flow c. Location and light... they are under stock 32 gallon biocube lighting with about 8 hrs of full lighting. The colony I am concerned about is the one in red circle. Rastas and some eagle eyes. I just placed them higher up to see how that goes... next step is hide them under a ledge if this doesn't help.

 

  What confuses me is the other corals are doing well and I get partial opening of some of the zoas. I attached a picture with a lepastrea colony, acans, war coral, toxic splatter favia and another red zoanthid. I realize there is a lot of hair algae but it is much better than it was.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jambon]

I would like to give an update on this topic.... the zoas are opening up quite nicely now and I am not sure exactly why but this what I did.

 I started using vibrant at the beginning of the year, which is cleaning up my GHA. And  adding more snails. The algae is disappearing but not all gone yet. The extra nutrients in the water may be feeding the corals. Not sure if it is one or the other or a combination of the snails and vibrant but things are much better.

[Candymancan]

I doubt you have nitrites with hair algae like that.. most likely a bad kit.  To get rid of that hair algae get some mexican turbo snails. And a couple pin cushion seaurchins.   Clean up the long hair algae with a toothbrush and the urchins and snails will keep it from growing back.  They dont eat it when its long like that but they will prevent it if you remove it by hand.  Ive had hair algae like this before and that along with a foxface rabbit fish took care of my hair algae.. you just need to be more aggressive with manually cleaning it.  Youre letting it grow too wild.

 

How long have you had the zoas for ?  Usually for me in my 135g a new frag of zoas takes 3-5 days to open up in my tank.  They gatta get used to your water.

 

 

[mcarroll]

On 2/10/2020 at 6:00 PM, jambon said:

I would like to give an update on this topic.... the zoas are opening up quite nicely now and I am not sure exactly why but this what I did.

 I started using vibrant at the beginning of the year, which is cleaning up my GHA. And  adding more snails. The algae is disappearing but not all gone yet. The extra nutrients in the water may be feeding the corals. Not sure if it is one or the other or a combination of the snails and vibrant but things are much better.

Sounds good!

 

Can you post your levels for everything now?   (alk, ca, mg, no3, po4)   If you're still missing any tests, consider just going to the LFS and having them test for you, if possible.

 

I would cease the chemical additions and go to the natural method as candymancan described.

 

But I'd swap the toothbrush for carefully pinching out the algae with your fingers so little or none gets away from you in the tank.  Have a bowl of plain tap water to collect the pulled algae in and to rinse your fingers before going back into the tank for more.

[jambon]

Alk,ca and mg I rely on my 10% per week water change to manage. I dont have a lot of corals taxing my system to (lmho) need adding to these levels. SaL is 1.025. No nitrate and very low nitrite. 

   I have been manually removing the gha since day one...I vacuum the gha with my siphon hose and cut the roots with my thumb nail as I change the water.  I have added more snails and I do use vibrant. 

 Since the start of the vibrant use the gha slowly disappeared. If i had 100 % at the start i am now around 2 or 3%! I have started running a protien skimmer when I started with the vibrant. Sorry but i wont give up that bottle, it is working well for me.

   Also my zoas are wide open and the colors are intense with signs of new polyps around the edges. I think they just needed some time to get well established... 

Maybe the extra bacteria in the tank gives them a little extra nutrition.

My original post here was Dec 7. So it has been 12 weeks to get to this stage. I will snap a photo when I go inside to show the difference from the last photos till now.

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, jambon said:

Sorry but i wont give up that bottle, it is working well for me.

I'm thinking of the tank and the bedt way forward more than how easy this may or may not be for you.  (that is for you to judge)  This is all pretty standard guidance/questions though.

 

Removing algae by hand and relying on your cleanup crew are definitely the better way to handle the situation.

 

If things like removing algae and testing the water aren't your cup of tea even when you're having trouble and asking for help...I wonder if this is this going to be a fun hobby for you?

[jambon]

16 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I'm thinking of the tank and the bedt way forward more than how easy this may or may not be for you.  (that is for you to judge)  This is all pretty standard guidance/questions though.

 

Removing algae by hand and relying on your cleanup crew are definitely the better way to handle the situation.

 

If things like removing algae and testing the water aren't your cup of tea even when you're having trouble and asking for help...I wonder if this is this going to be a fun hobby for you?

I've been asking myself that for the last 35 or so years...  I guess another question since I am here to learn. What calcium and alk have to do with algae growth? 

[mcarroll]

On 3/9/2020 at 8:26 AM, jambon said:

What calcium and alk have to do with algae growth? 

Usually not that much, but depends on the algae.   In general, the algae we typically deal with like the same conditions that coral like.