Zoanthids closing and melting

[SWTanker]

Hello fellow reefers,

 

I am pretty disheartened for months I had a great reef tank going. My zoas were growing like weeds. I got a new shipment of LPS corals to add to try a new challenge. Well about as soon as those came in my zoas have shut and are beginning to melt away they turn red. Spit out the white whispy stuff and then get really contracted. My green dragon eye colonies seem to be the worst hit and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. I dipped the new arrivals twice in an iodine based dip and didn’t really seem to have anything come off besides some bristleworms. I don’t see any zoa eating nudis or zoa eating spiders. And also doubt I would get those since I didn’t add any zoas but I’m not sure. 
 

tank parameters

salinity 1.024

ph 7.8-8

ammonia 0

Nitrites 0 

Nitrates 5

phosphate 0.00

alk 7.8

cal 400-420

mag 1240

im starting to think I’m just gonna lose these colonies with no explanation. There isn’t really a way to dip the corals. They’re affixed to a pretty large piece of live rock which I’m now regretting 

 

any advice is greatly appreciated 

[SWTanker]

For comparison of what they used to look like. These pictures make me sad 

[Pjanssen]

Have you actually lost any Zoas? Just because they are closed up doesn't mean they are melting away. Mine will often close up for several days to even weeks. Maybe it's some kind of protective mode.

 

I don't see the LPS you said you added. If there is any chemical warfare going on from them, then you can try adding some carbon to your filtration. 

 

Also, if you really have zero phosphates, then your tank is too clean. Zoas need nutrients and generally prefer a little bit of dirtier water.

 

Any temperature or alkalinity swings? Those 2 things will aggravate corals.

 

You can also dose Iodine to the tank, Zoas like that. But get yourself a test kit first-Overdosing can be fatal.

[SWTanker]

I don’t think there could be chemical warfare going on but maybe. I have a Duncan, small hammer and blasto added. Which seem to be thriving oddly enough, I have filter floss, 2 chemipure blue nano bags and a lot of bio media in my filter. 
 

I’ve tried upping phosphates by over feeding because I think the lack of nutrients caused what I believe to be a minor Dino bloom. I have lost some on the red colony. And I think I have a few that are about to kick the bucket on my first green colony. 
 

I’ve kept my heater at a pretty constant 76-78. And alk has been constant too.  
 

I was thinking about trying iodine. I’ve just heard mixed things about potentially killing other things in the tank. 

just about the only thing I noticed was a hair algae die off roughly a month before the first zoa colony closed. Which I initially was happy about but I’m wondering if it signaled something bad occurring 

[Daniel92481]

Sorry about your zoas. I would agree with getting your phosphate up to measurable levels.  

[Pjanssen]

What caused your algae to die off suddenly? Could be the same thing causing problems with the Zoas.

If you are trying to raise your nutrient levels, maybe start by getting rid of the Chemipure (slowly), as it's job is to rid the tank of excess nutrients.

[SWTanker]

I have no clue. I didn’t really change anything at the time. I was still doing my weekly water changes and maintaining the tank as usual and they just seemed to die back and coralline started to grow. I assumed it was maturing but maybe it was the opposite. Okay I’ll try taking out the chemipure and seeing if it helps. 

[Pjanssen]

Coraline is a good sign! Remove the Chemipure blue in stages.

[SWTanker]

I’ll take one baggie out this week and the other next week. Hopefully these little guys manage to bounce back. 

[SWTanker]

@Pjanssen do you think I should try and figure out a way to dip the zoas? I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how to; and I feel like dipping the whole rock is not the best thing to do. 

[Pjanssen]

8 hours ago, SWTanker said:

@Pjanssen do you think I should try and figure out a way to dip the zoas? I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how to; and I feel like dipping the whole rock is not the best thing to do. 

I would not dip whole pieces of  live rock in iodine, may cause too much die off and a cycle to start. Try removing the chemipure and dosing the tank with iodine (after testing) to see if you get any improvements. If you still feel like you need to dip, then figure out how you can remove chunks of the colonies and just dip those portions.

[debbeach13]

Just throwing this out there. Did you examine the zoa's with a magnifying glass? You stated that you have not added any zoa's in awhile so it is unlikely but I would check for zoa pox. Do they open up at all? Maybe squirt some liquid food at them. When I thaw out frozen shrimp I squirt the juicy water at corals with a baster. 

[Mystichrome]

Feed more and get phosphates up, I had the same question a few weeks ago. Ever since I upped my nutrients, all opening back up now. Obviously, it could be a pest but I didn't want to dip and remove anything without trying this first and it worked.

[SWTanker]

1 hour ago, debbeach13 said:

Just throwing this out there. Did you examine the zoa's with a magnifying glass? You stated that you have not added any zoa's in awhile so it is unlikely but I would check for zoa pox. Do they open up at all? Maybe squirt some liquid food at them. When I thaw out frozen shrimp I squirt the juicy water at corals with a baster. 

I didn't examine them under a magnifying glass. I don't notice any white spots on any of the mats/stalks with just my blind eye. The two colonies that seem to be the angriest have 1 polyp each that opens. I squirted some frozen mysis shrimp at them but didn't get any response really. Hoping that maybe a few more might open today. I do keep blasting the healthier looking colonies with frozen shrimp juice when I feed. I haven't done reef roids lately just because I'm afraid it will cause the dinos that I'm battling to go off the charts. 

32 minutes ago, Mystichrome said:

Feed more and get phosphates up, I had the same question a few weeks ago. Ever since I upped my nutrients, all opening back up now. Obviously, it could be a pest but I didn't want to dip and remove anything without trying this first and it worked.

Hopefully I can have the same results. I've gotten my nitrates up from zero, but can't seem to raise phosphates hardly at all. Not sure if it's getting sucked up by the chemipure blue I was running or the healthy zoas. I'm considering getting some neophos from brightwell once I get rid of the last chemipure bag just to see if I can raise it a little bit. But it always makes me nervous to add something outside of routine though.  

[Mystichrome]

31 minutes ago, SWTanker said:

I didn't examine them under a magnifying glass. I don't notice any white spots on any of the mats/stalks with just my blind eye. The two colonies that seem to be the angriest have 1 polyp each that opens. I squirted some frozen mysis shrimp at them but didn't get any response really. Hoping that maybe a few more might open today. I do keep blasting the healthier looking colonies with frozen shrimp juice when I feed. I haven't done reef roids lately just because I'm afraid it will cause the dinos that I'm battling to go off the charts. 

Hopefully I can have the same results. I've gotten my nitrates up from zero, but can't seem to raise phosphates hardly at all. Not sure if it's getting sucked up by the chemipure blue I was running or the healthy zoas. I'm considering getting some neophos from brightwell once I get rid of the last chemipure bag just to see if I can raise it a little bit. But it always makes me nervous to add something outside of routine though.  

From what I read, i might be wrong, dinos are more likely in low nutrient environment. What I did was, removed half of my chemipure and started feeding reef roids 2 times a week instead of once. I skipped one water change and let it go up and then went back to my normal routine. Keep in mind, after making the changes, it took 4-5. days to see a difference and still not 100% but in the right direction I think.

[SWTanker]

1 minute ago, Mystichrome said:

From what I read, i might be wrong, dinos are more likely in low nutrient environment. What I did was, removed half of my chemipure and started feeding reef roids 2 times a week instead of once. I skipped one water change and let it go up and then went back to my normal routine. Keep in mind, after making the changes, it took 4-5. days to see a difference and still not 100% but in the right direction I think.

That's my approach right now, my tank had a weird spell. It was doing great, some hair algae in places but not enough for me to freak out. The snails were keeping it relatively mowed down. Then all of a sudden it died, but my coraline started growing so I didn't think too hard about it. I even added the duncan/blasto/hammer because the coraline was encouraging me. Then about a month after that my first zoa colony closed. I kind of just thought it was mad about something but that it would open eventually. About two weeks after it started to melt some, then the second colony closed. Then I had some dinos appear. I continued with my weekly water changes all during this time, I did one and the brown stuff in the sand EXPLODED. So I did another water change/siphoned the sand bed, a couple days later and boom they bounced right back. So I started googling and learned I probably have dinos from "too clean" of a tank which could also explain the algae/zoa struggles. So I initially just fed heavier but kept everything the same. This is the first weekend I haven't done a water change since getting the tank...and it's kind of driving me crazy, but the sand already looks better. I might have some cyano popping up, but I've dealt with that before and it doesn't intimidate me too much. I took one chemipure bag out, and will probably take the second one out next week. So really that'll leave me with filter floss, and some seachem matrix (that should be pretty well colonized by bacteria). Hopefully the tank begins to swing back to what it used to look like. would be great to see a tuft of green hair algae pop up (never thought i would say that ha). 

 

The weirdest part is that I didn't really change anything in my routine, beside the seasons changing. The only thing I can think of is that I ran out of my old supply of chemipure blue so I bought a new set, but it was the same product in the same nano bags and I switched them a week apart like I always do. I don't know, maybe they changed their formulation and it sent my tank into a spiral. Or I just got a defective set or something. I might just run the filter floss, and biomedia in the future and avoid chemical filtration, maybe just a carbon sponge cutout to capture toxins. 

[mcarroll]

20 hours ago, SWTanker said:

Nitrates 5

phosphate 0.00

This will upset photosynthesis AND provoke dino blooms.

 

Stop whatever you're doing to remove nutrients from the system.  If that's not enough to bring phosphates up to >0.10 ppm, then you might have to dose phosphates.

 

38 minutes ago, SWTanker said:

chemipure blue

Especially this.   More than likely your phosphates levels were on a slow slide toward zero and your replacement of the Chemipure put things over the edge.

 

Filter media should be generally unnecessary for most reefs most of the time.  👍

 

1 hour ago, SWTanker said:

I squirted some frozen mysis shrimp at them but didn't get any response really.

Feeding corals is generally a waste.  It's better (if possible) to feed your fish and let them (poops and pees) feed your corals.

 

1 hour ago, SWTanker said:

I've gotten my nitrates up from zero, but can't seem to raise phosphates hardly at all.

Raising nitrates without raising phosphates can actually create a problem where none existed....and certainly will make worse a problem that was already festering.

 

1 hour ago, SWTanker said:

I'm considering getting some neophos from brightwell once I get rid of the last chemipure bag just to see if I can raise it a little bit. But it always makes me nervous to add something outside of routine though.  

Unfortunately you weren't nervous like that about adding the Chemipure – that's what you should have had feelings about.  Totally unnatural.  Yank the ChemiPure and start dosing phosphates yesterday.

 

Dissolved nutrients are not only natural but an absolute requirement.  (Especially phosphates, which figure in particularly with photosynthesis.)

 

Post back when you have phosphates in hand and can dose the tank up to 0.10 ppm.   That level will help dino's fall back AND help your corals by stopping the damage to them.  

 

BTW, both cases (blooming dino's on the sand and rocks as well as the unhappy endosymbiont dino's inside your corals) are due to the dino's getting irritated by your husbandry method of keeping the nutrients (especially po4) at zero.

[SWTanker]

Last question for now hopefully. Should I place in basic carbon (like a carbon filter pad) just to prevent any sort of toxin buildup when the dinos die off? I honestly had the the chemipure in there to eliminate any potential coral warfare or toxin in the tank, i wasn't aware that it also acts a nitrate/phosphate remover, bad LFS advice I guess. Or should I just have filter floss/seachem matrix in the filter? 

[growsomething]

I second the reply about upping reef roid feedings.  It is a major cause of too much phosphate in tanks that struggle with high levels, but here it would help you.  It's what I am using to keep mine detectable. 

Also look for spaghetti worms.  They caused my zoas to do exactly what yours did by constant irritation, then pox can attack the stressed zoa.  Maybe they are in your zoa rock now too.

On the other hand increasing feedings encourages spaghetti worms 😎

[debbeach13]

Some nice replies and good things to try but you should go slow and do not try to do every thing all at once. Remove half of the chemi pure and do not add carbon. 

 

 

[SWTanker]

Thanks for all the advice. Hopefully I can have a happy update in a month or so!

 

[mcarroll]

5 hours ago, SWTanker said:

I honestly had the the chemipure in there to eliminate any potential coral warfare or toxin in the tank, i wasn't aware that it also acts a nitrate/phosphate remover, bad LFS advice I guess. Or should I just have filter floss/seachem matrix in the filter? 

It's hard for anyone but you to really know what your tank needs, so it's not that helpful to point blame at the LFS IMO.  Lots of folks here end up with the same generic advice somehow without ever going to a LFS at all.  🤷‍♂️

 

Chemipure blue is a combo of activated carbon and resin that apparently acts similarly to GFO. (Can't find anything about GFO on their site page for Blue.....I actually thought this was similar to the old Elite product, which is still carbon, GFO and resin.)  Basically, you'd use something like this as-needed, not as a preventative.  I would look at activated carbon and filter floss the same way – under normal, everyday conditions I wouldn't use either one.

[burtbollinger]

I have never had consistent luck with zoas...IMO they are a lot of headache and I try to avoid them, and for this last tank, I almost wanted no zoas in it...why?  they randomly melt, and or stay closed.  They can go great for months or years, and then just melt away.  very frustrating.  

 

If i had zoas that were melting, I personally would not do anything in regards to trying to feed them or switch up something major in the tank IF everything else looked good.  Focus on the LPS. They are odd, and their 'beginner' reputation is unfortunate.  I cringe at how much money I have tossed over the years when I was 'into' zoas.  Huge waste.  Just my 3 cents.