Dying Zoanthids - brown gunk - what to do?

[kyley]

Hi All,
I've battled zoa nudis (successfully), zoa pox (mostly successfully), and now this brown gunk on my zoas - all my other corals do great in my tank - even SPS! Is this a fungus or something? Or maybe even a variant of the zoa pox? Any ideas what I can do to treat them? They're on large pieces of LR, not frag plugs, so I need to do something that wouldn't kill off other life on the rocks... Here's a pic:

Note, this was after a Furan-2 dip for the zoa pox; that's why they're all closed and you see little bits of yellow stuff on them (generally they're all open despite the gunk on them).

Tank is a 65g Red Sea Max 250 with T5 VHO lighting, 80 degrees, alk 9.5, ca 460, mg 1320, NH3, NO2, NO3, PO4 all 0, sg 1.026. Brown stuff is on several of my colonies on live rock (have had them all for most of the time I've had my tank - 7 months old). Additives are Alk, Ca dosing, Mg, occasional Strontium, and Special Blend (used to help get rid of cyano). Thanks in advance for any help!
--Kyle

 

[FrankenReef]

Have you tried Coral Revive by two little fishies? It works great on all my coral and seems to be mild to zoas as well. I have also heard of people using 50% peroxide/ 50% saltwater for 5 minutes on zoas but I haven't tried personally.

 

[kyley]

I have not tried that, no. Do you know if these will destroy life on the live rock? One of the colonies actually has a small clam dug into the rock that I'd hate to lose. Others have sponges, feather dusters, etc. Do you think that's something I'd need to do repeatedly, or a single dip? Thanks,
--Kyle

 

[mfinn]

How much flow is in your tank?.
I'd try to add more flow to the area where the zoanthids are.
Not a narrow stream powerhead, but something with a wide flow.

 

[kyley]

Quite a bit of flow throughout - the two circulation pumps (one is 600 gph IIRC; the other is smaller), Koralia 1, Koralia 2, and a Vortech MP20 are all running - they get plenty of current... I could see about directing something at the zoas though. Thanks,
--Kyle

 

[mfinn]

ReVive is called a coral clearner, so that also may be a option.
Smells like pinesol.lol

 

[justnmatt79]

+1 on Revive. I used it following treatments of Furan-2 for pox and my zoas have recovered nicely. After that keep your lights off for the remainder of the day, and keep the zoas in good flow (but not directly blasting them). Also, if you haven't tried, it might be worth dosing vitamin c. There is a thread on it started by Pufferpunk, and it has its merits. I would link it but am on my phone, so I can't at the moment.

Have you changed anything in your tank at all recently? If you have changed things chemistry-wise while your zoas were recovering, that may have caused this. While healing from the pox treatments your zoas may have a lowered resistance to any swings in the water.

 

[kyley]

Thanks. I might try ReVive or Coral RX - though they really seem to just be for treating hitchhikers (nudis, red bugs, etc.) - not so much for a bacterial / fungal growth (or whatever this is - protozoan)? I found an interesting article by Julian Sprung here that just recommends siphoning out the gunk and doing a 1 minute freshwater dip (which doesn't seem like much) for this brown jelly stuff... Others say peroxide - for fungus - but this doesn't look much like the white, fluffy, loose fungus I've seen in other pictures. So - maybe either FW dip or ReVive? Thanks,
--Kyle