are my zoanthids dead? :(

bigwood

New member
ok so im brand new to saltwater tanks, I set mine up roughly 8 months ago, after about 5 months of it running with nothing but saltwater, substrate, and liverock I shut it down because I moved. 3 months later (4 days ago) I set it up again and just the other day i put a small zoanthid in it. we left the house for the rest of the day and when we came back they had closed up, didn't think anything of it, went to bed and woke up and they were still closed, I noticed a sundial snail on one of them so I reached in the water to remove it and HOLLY $#!# was the water hot.. bought a thermometer to get an accurate reading and it was nearly 90 degrees :/ took a whole day to lower it back down to about 78.. did i kill them :( trying to add an image of them..
 

Attachments

  • 20140707_110507.jpg
    20140707_110507.jpg
    84.7 KB · Views: 0
Bigwood, welcome to RC. Someone who knows how can give you one of those fancy dancing fish that says "welcome". I'm too poorly trained on the computer to do so. :)

you might want to get them into an iodine dip with new, pH synced water. Get some coralRX or lugols coral dip. They seem to be not happy campers right now. Its not just that they are closed tight, but they have a thin film of mucus surrounding their tissues. Something is irritating them.

Check ALL params give them a dip, place them by a window and monitor.

I suspect that you will find traces of ammonia in your water. If this is the case at any point you should find a new home for the zoas or they will most likely perish. You see, systems require many months of seeding before they are stable enough to host corals. I can tell by the barrenness of your rock that your tank probably isn't fully "seeded" - unless this patch of rock is an anomaly.

And yes, although Zoas are hardy, all corals can't take temps much higher than 85 F. Its recommended for both the humane treatment of the corals and your pocketbook that you really should have a system or way of telling when a tank goes beyond a certain temp. Usually a controller.

P.S. Its really helpful for us and you if you start a post with the following parameters:

alk:
cal:
sg:
pH:
po4
no4 but should always be as close to zero as possible.

Thanks and I'm sure you'll find the people of RC a valuable asset when your tank is in trouble.
Happy Reefing
 
tank stats

tank stats

ok so i tested my water today and this is what i got,

TANK SIZE - 30gal
PH - 8.2
(NH3 / NH4+) Ammonia - 0 ppm
(NO2-) Nitrite - 0 ppm
(NO3-) Nitrate - 80 - 90 ppm
salinity / gravity - 30 / 1.022
temp - 77 degrees

As far as the alk, cal, and Po4 I have NO IDEA :/ Is there a test kit I can buy for those? the kit I used for the upper test's is MARINE SALTWATER MASTER TEST KIT...

AS A SIDE NOTE : today I just added some more live rock and reef rock with a lot of growth on it :D as well as 3 damselfish..
 
Hopefully they open back up for you. I've had some zoas not open for a month before. Think I had a crab ****ing them off but they recovered
 
tank update pic

tank update pic

:fish1::fish1::fish1::fish1:

so this is my tank now with 2 new pieces of live rock (one is reef rock), and 3 damsel "like" fish's. also did a 5gal water change to try and lower the nitrate levels a little.. but anyways here is the pic, the 2 live rocks on the left are the newest of them.

:fish1::fish1::fish1::fish1:
 

Attachments

  • 20140709_130911.jpg
    20140709_130911.jpg
    42.8 KB · Views: 0
Once my garage and went from 78-84 when we had a short heat wave. I have a few more sensitive zoas melt on me. However, some DID make it. Hope it works out for ya
 
dang that sucks you lost some :( but thank god some survived and they grow fast huh, or at least thats what im told. soooo how will I know if they are dead, right now as you can see in the pic they are still heavily covered in a mucas or whatever it is and closed.. they don't seem to be slouching or anything like that however.:headwally:
 
Bigwood the kit you are looking for is API Reef Master Kit, you can get it at amazon or ebay. Man when I first started messing with saltwater tanks I killed a lot of stuff! I still consider myself a newbie though, but I quickly learned that monitoring all parameters and having a log book is the key to keep any coral alive. Is the mucus stuff brown? If its kind of brown that's not good. I remember when my corals used to die, that's how it was. Anyways, I hope everything works out for you bud.
 
Might sound silly but have you smelled them? I would pull them into a tupperware container and blow off all the gunk with a turkey baster. Pull them out and smell them. Zoapox, melting and any other death will smell bad. If they smell like the sea you are ok.
 
You should raise your salinity to 35ppt, 1.025 or so. Your nitrates are really high as well but I think you figured that already from a previous post.

Any updates?
 
yah try to bring the nitrates at least to under 40, I try to maintain mine below 5-10 at all times and thats if they register at all. How old is the tank? You might still be at the end of the main cycle when the ammonia and nitrites have been turned into nitrates and your bacteira is still building to be able to handle that.

I also agree to try and bring the PH up a couplle tenths, 1.022 is common for fish only tanks but for coral you definitely want to be in the 1.025-1.026 range as a general rule.

Right now I use the Red Sea pro test kit for Cal/Alk/Mag, it isnt the cheapest kit but damn worth it to me as it helped me notice an alk swing in my tank.

As to the original question, time will tell, I have had two frags come in via mail in a hot container and one survived and the other didnt. Long as they dont completely recede or melt away there is always the chance they will come back.

Side Note: You added more live rock, was the rock out of water for an length of time at all between the store and you? If so you might see a tiny cycle from whatever dies off from the rock and may raise the nitrates again. If I get LR local I try to make sure it isnt exposed to the air more than the few seconds from bin to bucket to tank.
 
Back
Top