HELP...My new zoas are just not opening

Erics210

New member
OK, Have the two A360WE Kessils and Fluval 2.0 Reef in between, and ordered a package from Aquarium Depot. Chalices are looking good, but many/most of the zoas are not opening up all the way.
I have them on the bottom of the 29inch deep 210 gallon tank.
I have the Kessil settings on Active 1.

Shipment from AquariumDepot. Shipped & Arrived 2/17/2017
I purchased about 10 frags of 10+ polyps and a larger colony of radioactivedragons eye with 200+ polyps.

Recently added new lighting for me, but prior to purchasing the zoas.
Have one Kessil A360WE at each end and a 3 foot Fuval Reef 2.0 LED in the center of my 6 foot tank.

I have a Tunze 6205 on the right side and dual overflow and returns with PanAm HD40s. I also have two smaller powerheads near the surface on each end.

I have the polyps at the bottom of my tank.
Tank is a 210 gallon, with a 29inch depth.
I have been using ACTIVE 1 automatic mode for the Kessils that has a varying intensity but color stays toward Blue, so not as intense. Think the Color maxes out at 30-40%. Intensity has been going up to 80 & 100%

Should I change the light settings? Should I increase the intensity/color?
Should I move the Zoas to a higher location?

I dont know what the Aquarium Depot uses as a light source or depth in their tanks. Sure it would help to know...


Out of the 8 frags/colonies I receives, only about 10-15 polyps total are opening at all, and not all the way.

OK - Zoas are still withering away or not opening fully as of today...
Here are updated TEST RESULTS 2/28/2017

Temperature: 79 Degrees
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0 (maybe 0.25ppm)
Nitrite: 0PPM
Nitrate: 40-80ppm
About to do my bi-weekly 40 gallon water change and filter sand bottom so this will hopefully drop a bit.

Magnesium - 1410
kH: 9cKH, 179ppm
Calcium "“ 600 (using Instant Ocean basic salt this time instead of Reef Salt, may lower the calcium a bit as nothing was drawing the calcium when I was using the Reef version previously.

So frustrated...
Gave it a week or so without moving them or altering lighting...no change!
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions????
 
OK, Have the two A360WE Kessils and Fluval 2.0 Reef in between, and ordered a package from Aquarium Depot. Chalices are looking good, but many/most of the zoas are not opening up all the way.
I have them on the bottom of the 29inch deep 210 gallon tank.
I have the Kessil settings on Active 1.

Shipment from AquariumDepot. Shipped & Arrived 2/17/2017
I purchased about 10 frags of 10+ polyps and a larger colony of radioactivedragons eye with 200+ polyps.

Recently added new lighting for me, but prior to purchasing the zoas.
Have one Kessil A360WE at each end and a 3 foot Fuval Reef 2.0 LED in the center of my 6 foot tank.

I have a Tunze 6205 on the right side and dual overflow and returns with PanAm HD40s. I also have two smaller powerheads near the surface on each end.

I have the polyps at the bottom of my tank.
Tank is a 210 gallon, with a 29inch depth.
I have been using ACTIVE 1 automatic mode for the Kessils that has a varying intensity but color stays toward Blue, so not as intense. Think the Color maxes out at 30-40%. Intensity has been going up to 80 & 100%

Should I change the light settings? Should I increase the intensity/color?
Should I move the Zoas to a higher location?

I dont know what the Aquarium Depot uses as a light source or depth in their tanks. Sure it would help to know...


Out of the 8 frags/colonies I receives, only about 10-15 polyps total are opening at all, and not all the way.

OK - Zoas are still withering away or not opening fully as of today...
Here are updated TEST RESULTS 2/28/2017

Temperature: 79 Degrees
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0 (maybe 0.25ppm)
Nitrite: 0PPM
Nitrate: 40-80ppm
About to do my bi-weekly 40 gallon water change and filter sand bottom so this will hopefully drop a bit.

Magnesium - 1410
kH: 9cKH, 179ppm
Calcium "“ 600 (using Instant Ocean basic salt this time instead of Reef Salt, may lower the calcium a bit as nothing was drawing the calcium when I was using the Reef version previously.

So frustrated...
Gave it a week or so without moving them or altering lighting...no change!
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions????

you nitrate is high and perhaps calcium
 
Thanks for the reply. I added some Vitamin C as the Zoa page was big on that which created a Skimmer surge and all the waste collected in a week+ was returned into my tank. So may have some part to do with it as well as me skipping the sand filtration last water change.

So that will account for the higher nitrates. WIll have to do my water changes tomorrow morning...Took longer than expected to get my RO/DI water.

As far as shipping, they did have multiple heat packs. Things looked OK coming out of packaging but as you stated, not a whole lot of water in each frag.
The Aqua Acro had no chance, Was filmy and in a cloudy white liquid when received.
The snails were OK. The Snails were 4 out of 5, but think one died a few days later.
My two chalices looked great and still do. Zoas BLAH!
Within a few hours a few of the HUGE colony of Dragon Eyes opened and have partially opened since.

The Red People Eaters Opened!
And one or two others.
About 6 did NOT open.

Hoping to get the Dragons eye to settle down after teh watert change and wont feel totally cheated.
no more Aquarium Depot for me!
 
yea, they need to be close to 0. So 40 Gallon change may not be enouph

OK, Maybe I do a 60 gallon change tomorrow then.
Not using the REEf crystalks(orange) tomorrow, just the regular Purple Instant Ocean, which has less calcium ( i think) so should reduce calcium issue as well.
We will see.
 
yea, I been to your house so we sort of friends, I'm the guy who bought the worms from you... not the best money I spent :)

I don't remember you having lots of live stock, why are nitrates so high?
 
The Branchi Nudibranch didn't work out for you?
I am so sorry - They cleared my Aptasia problem with ease.
I swear by them.

That has been one of my most successful journeys.

I left to work out of state in June/July and my cheap azz China T5s had the ballast quit after just 5 months. So I picked up a couple Marineland Saltwater LEDs. Sadly they werent the stronger REEF versions, and over the next few months lost more and more of the corals I did have due to lack of proper lighting.

Have since switched over to Kessil/Fluval Reef 2.0 combination.
Things have been ding better since then.
BUT after the order of Zoas came, they just did nothing. Will try the water change and cleaning the sand. See if that helps.
 
The Branchi Nudibranch didn't work out for you?
I am so sorry - They cleared my Aptasia problem with ease.
I swear by them.

That has been one of my most successful journeys.

I left to work out of state in June/July and my cheap azz China T5s had the ballast quit after just 5 months. So I picked up a couple Marineland Saltwater LEDs. Sadly they werent the stronger REEF versions, and over the next few months lost more and more of the corals I did have due to lack of proper lighting.

Have since switched over to Kessil/Fluval Reef 2.0 combination.
Things have been ding better since then.
BUT after the order of Zoas came, they just did nothing. Will try the water change and cleaning the sand. See if that helps.
haha yea I used shrimp instead
 
I had similar incident with my zoas and after relocating them to an area with less water flow they all opened and started growing. height wise they're in the middle of my tank
 
Whats your PO4, and are you using GFO? When i stripped my water of phosphates, my zoas shrunk and disappeared. Your nitrates are high so that might be unlikely, but good to check if you don't know. I don't see it on your list of parameters.
 
Parameters 3-3-2017

Temperature: 79 Degrees
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.6
Phosphates: 0.25ppm
Ammonia: Between 0 and 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0PPM
Nitrate: 0 - 0.25ppm ( were 80ppm before water change and sand filtration)
Calcium: 560
Magnesium: 1410
kH: 11dKH, 196.9ppm

Adjusted the flow slightly as well. Seemed to have a channel of flow at the bottom front of my tank on both sides. Broke that up a little.

Awaiting my Kessils to start up this morning to see what begins to open.

Next step: On the Zoas forum, people suggested placing an air stone in the refugium/sump to help raise pH to 8.3 -8.4 and they claim better Zoa results with the higher pH.
Worth a shot. Aside from that gonna see how the water change affects everything. Also had cut back on feeding.

Any other suggestions?
 
That PH is definitely a bit low IMO.

I also don't know Kessil units that well, but maybe turn down your LED's for half a day and see how the Zoa's respond.

Mine typically were a lot happier with less light before I acclimated to my current settings over multiple weeks when I switched to my new LED setup, hard to say if lights are the definitive issue though.
 
If it was me I wouldn't focus on the chem levels, I'd try the simplest solution 1st that would have the least consequence on rest of tank inhabitants by placing the zoas in an area with the lowest water flow until they're fully acclimated to your tank parameters (give it about a week or so). Zoas don't like high water flow. Mine was knocked over few times by crabs and some polyps didn't open until I finally found it a spot in my tank that made it happy (which took several weeks). Now it's fully open and growing new polyps. Just be patient and don't play around with the water parameters so much if it's already stable.

Your water parameters seem fine, don't focus on the ph so much as it fluctuates depending on time of day and whether tank is near window and is the window open etc...Melev's Reef has a very good article about not focusing and chasing the PH level... http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/dont-chase-ph
 
I HAD to do that big water change yesterday. Nitrates were 80+.
Some other specs were off too.

So I did a very good cleaning and numbers looking much better than I have had in a while.

Good read.
I went ahead and placed a light over my refugium as i do have a softball clump of Cheato in there since June. No growth in the Algae ball size.

As for the Zoas, many of the large colony of 100 polyps of the RadioActive Dragons Eye open, but not fully. I have a frag of 10 Red People Eaters that opened nicely today. Almost all of them.

I also have YellowFaces that opened slightly.

The Fire and Ice, Fruit Drops and Eye of Rahs have NOT opened at all.
I will post pictures shortly.
 
Just took out some of the Zoas that were withering. Soaked them in Half Hydrgen peroxide and half tank water and then used a q-tip to wipe away a thin layer of alga/bacteria that was covering the polyp heads. I did this for all the remaining polyps that hadn't withered totally away yet. Took about 30 minutes to do them all, but the alternative was just to watch them disappear over the next few days. Time will tell.
 
Quick Update:

Water parameters have stabilized after that big 80 gallon water change and sand filtering. Brought the nitrates down from 80 to 5ppm.

Then I installed an air bubbler pump and airstone into my sump to add some air and raise pH from 7.4/7.6. NOW 8.2

Lastly - for anyone with new Zoas that have a film of algae over them...the Hydrogen peroxide bath and q-tip rub really did work.

Have opening of 4 or 5 of the 8 colonies that had no hope just two days ago.
They havent opened fully like some, but after the beating they took, may take a couple days.
 
Quick Update:

Water parameters have stabilized after that big 80 gallon water change and sand filtering. Brought the nitrates down from 80 to 5ppm.
.

Are you sure? If you are running a 210G and change half of the water, your nitrates should be cut in half. Is my reasoning off?
 
I would think yes. Not only was it a water change, BUT an AWESOME job filtering the sand bed. Usually I do 5 gallons of filtering sand on each side, 40 gallons total every other week, but the head of the filter really didnt let me get in the nooks and crannies. This time, I actually moved some of the rocks to allow me to get a good deep clean. That water was so cloudy. Changed my socks a few times during right after that cleaning and cleared the skimmer 2-3 times as I was running it really wet. Everything seems to be going well. I am happy. Hammers and Forgspawns are as happy as ever and the Zoas are opening more and more.

May not be 100% perfect, but its a learning process.
 
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