colony of zoas dissapearing and shriveling

[Kigs]

I have a colony of zoas that hasn't been doing so well. First they shriveled up, now a huge chunk from the middle (5 ~ 8) polyps disappeared from the colony.

The only thing I did to them was inject an aiptasia with Joe's Juice. I noticed that Joe's Juice got sprayed on some of them, could this have killed them? The damn aiptasia is still alive, btw. Everything around it is dead.

I don't think it's nudis or crabs, just never had a problem with those. Also had this colony for the past two months, and never saw any signs of pest hitchhikers, except this baby rock crab (2/4'') I removed on the first day.

Any suggestions?

 

[hot4teacher]

Re: colony of zoas dissapearing and shriveling

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8270858#post8270858 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kigs
The only thing I did to them was inject an aiptasia with Joe's Juice. I noticed that Joe's Juice got sprayed on some of them, could this have killed them? The damn aiptasia is still alive, btw. Everything around it is dead.

Yes.

 

[Kigs]

that really...sucks, for lack of a better word. Most people reported great success with Joe's Juice. I can't believe it did the exact opposite for me. ;\

 

[adamsky27]

One time I tried to put some Joes Juice on my aptasia that was in my zoos. Some of it leaked onto the colony, and killed everything around the aptasia, including the zoos. Good thing for me the zoos were good growers. From that day on I trashed the Joes Juice and bought 2 peppermint shrimp (110 gallon tank). To this day I don't have an aptasia problem. I have some aptasia in my sump, but I'm going to buy another shrimp to put down there. Peppermint shrimp really do work!

 

[Kigs]

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one to go through this experience. I'm going to trash the Joe's Juice as well, but I'm afraid I don't have any other alternative.

I've already tried peppermint shrimps and they would pick at the zoa polyps, forcing them to retract.

 

[titan04]

Let them pick... if the Zoa retracts it can get at the aptasia... it did this to one of my colonies and some other corals around the tank... after that there was no aptasia and the debrit and algae that had formed on some of the skirts and mat were gone as well and now they pick at some of the zoas when they have something that floated onto them and they come right back out ... they have gotten used to the cleaning

 

[Kigs]

i've always interpreted it as them trying to eat it because i heard that aiptasia are somewhat in the same family as zoas, gsp, yellow polyps, etc?

in the beginning, i ignored their behavior but i started to notice few polyps disappearing.

 

[titan04]

Weird... they ate the few aiptasia I had and then just keep everything tidy as far as extra food... they will still a few large pieces from other corals sometimes but they haven't been a problem yet.

Coming from the LFS they did, I actually didn't expect them to live this long but I guess they are in for the long haul...

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Ficklefins caught a few of these shrimp eating the skirts off zoanthids, and half the oral disk of another. IMO, if they are hungry, they will forage on zoanthids... I don't keep any in my tank anymore after seeing Fickle's pics of it...

Plus, if polyps are disappearing, it usually isn't an Act of God...


Laurie

 

[ReefBuilderNJ]

similar things happened to me. joes juice is awesome but you gotta move it away from the mouthes of zoas, mushrooms,etc.