case of the dissapearing zoas

[pascal32]

I seem to be slowly loosing zoas. I've been away from the tank for a while with work and found about 5 plugs empty two weeks ago. another 4 today. Seems that only the pricey stuff is vanishing A few have a brown/green film on them.

frag tank: The tank is a 50 gallon brute connected to the main 120 with SPS (all doing well) with 4 small powerheads (koralian nano 425's) and low light (4 T5s about 18 " up to 8" of water - PAR about 100 max) The light bulbs are old, probably a year. I'll get new ones ordered this week. I did a H202 dip on the king Midas - the original polyps are gone, only the new growth on the side remains.

starting to see some green stuff and losses on the nuclear candy canes in the display, also the multi-colored frog spawn is down two heads, bi-color is looking rough.

72 tank (stand alone) - missed a lot of water changes here, catching up (12% 3 times a week) and slowly bringing carbon and GFO back to proper amounts - In another tank, the Galaxy's wont open, but look clean. Green cloves are melting and have a film on them. also did H202 on these. the king midas look much better a week later, cloves are improved, galaxy's are still struggling.

Just did a 10% peroxide dip on eagle eyes, AOGs, galaxy's, and 5 others.

dips in H202 and CoralRX don't show any pests. some small starfish and pods, nothing I believe to be harmful.

SPS look great.

120 tank:

KH- got up top 11.5 (this crept up on me, dropped about .3-.5/day back to 8.5)
Ca - 430
PO4 - 0 on hanna
NO3 - showing up yellowish instead of pink? usually between 0 and 1
Mg 1400
Salinity 35ppt against calibrated refractometer (35ppt calibration)

If the flow is too low in the rubbermaid I can try to increase, I struggle with getting flow in the tank because its so shallow. any advice is appreciated!

thanks!

 

[feixjai]

IMO, definitely increase the flow. I've read that algae films that form are from lack of flow.

There may be something else also since the other corals are acting up too. Any kind of stray voltage?

I'm sorry, not much help. Just throwing out suggestions

Good luck

 

[MikeandNicole]

Algae films are generally from lack of flow and high nutrients. It sounds like you let things slide for a bit and it allowed the algae to take hold. You are on the right track now with water changes and what not (remember take it slow). The dips will work but also a light scrubbing with a tooth brush will help too. H2O2 can be a harsh dip so rotating it with some scrubbing might give the zoas some time to recover.

 

[pascal32]

took some pictures. the LPS are starting to take a beating. a gorgeous multicolor in the display is hurting and another LPS in the display is receding.

sorry for the lack of color balance, I need to buy capture NX2

The ugly:

this says it all. H202 no effect:

galaxy paly - been through 2 10% H202 dips, still will not open

LPS starting to get affected -



frogspawn:

Favia:

on the other hand some stuff is doing great:

 

[RokleM]

The first issue I see is that it appears to be crushed coral or some sort of freshwater rock in the bottom of the tank instead of bare bottom or reef sand. That could be a major contributor to your issues. What is that substrate?

 

[pascal32]

the substrate is caribian sea "live sand" - it was all I could get in black. the pieces are about 1/8-1/4" at the largest, most of the sand with it settled at the bottom.