help needed with zoa losses

Bummed. I thought the Vit C was making a difference. One of my friends was over and things looked great - next day 6 affected frags, dipped in H202, only one is open now. Today I lost almost half of a large purple death colony. SPS is doing great, though i believe the growth rate is slightly down.

I'm on the verge of pulling all my zoos into a friends tank.

Loosing a multicolor frogspawn at the rate of 1 head per week while the other frogspawns are fine.

definitely the most frustrating reefing experience yet, make the dino battle for 4 months seem lame in comparison.

I have replaced the T5 lighting, today i added flow to the sump.

water params are good, out of packets to test phosphate which I think is a touch higher than normal as there is a touch of algae. more HC GFO on the way.

bummed
 
I have noticed that I pull a few starfish on my dips almost every time. not sure if they are jumping in because the polyps are suffering, or if they are causing it. thinking of adding a harlequin shrimp.
 
Just added interceptor, though i have nothing that indicates this will benefit. In my experience with interceptor is does a fantastic job on redbugs and some invisible (to me) bugs that took out inches of chalices in the last year.

No new closed up zoos found today

I will say that I'm finding a RAPID response with 20% H202 on Zoos to be highly effective - the key seems to be the rate of response. I had some Sunny D's that got stung by a piece of aptasia which started coating brown - cought it the day of and they are recovering well.

This has me wondering if the brown coating is a generic response for a zoa in distress. if the film is algae (which I'm hypothesizing based on the response to H202) could low phosphate in a tank be an inhibitor to this happening as it reduces a key nutrient for algae?

thoughts?
 
Just some random thought,I really have no idea.

Maybe some of the losses are causing a chain reaction,sorta like sps and spreading rtn from the toxins/growth inhibitors that are released?Just a guess.

I know you have an auto water changer but thinking maybe its not enough to dilute it.I'm sure you've probably already considered and know even the best skimmers and carbon dont remove everything.I think as tmz put it maybe organic buildup of the "wrong flavor".
Maybe a big waterchange with a good gravel vacum could be useful.
Just thinking outloud,
 
looks like the PPE's vanished since yesterday, that was quick. Couple zoos that were dipped are coming around, a couple I can tell are goners.

purple torch looks like it is starting to recede, todds is looking good.

checked from stray voltage - about 7V from return pump. I believe this to be an OK number. I have a grounding probe (disconnected for test) which should trip the GFI if there is notable current in the tank.

water test:

Copper - 0
Iodide - 0
Iodate - 0

PH - 8.31 - against calibrated replacement probe
salinity - 35ppt, checked against 35ppt solution
KH -9.6
CA -450
MG - 1450
PO4 - 0 on the regular hanna meter (last test with the ULR phosphorous was .046 after conversion)


tomorrows plan -

* siphon the substrate.
* 50 gallon water change (that my max on hand, can get more at a friends house if needed.
* move affected pieces into quarantine.
 
interceptor seems to be helping the frogspawn, doing another dose tonight

Purple torch is pulling in and starting to reced. giving him one day before dipping and moving to quarantine. shame, grew that from one head.

The todds had some excrement coming out of it today which I have seen before, keeping eyes on them

quaranteen system is running. 50 gallon brute, dinky skimmer, carbon, two powerheads, heater, some live rock, and acrylic stands for the corals.

current affected by alive zoas have moved in.

drained the main tank into the quarantine and filled with fresh mix. about 30 gallons. have more mixing to do gravel tomorrow.

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Re-dipped the quarantine frags in H202 and 3 more stars. Quarantine now has a harlequin.

On the main 120 system I saw a touch of some sort of slime at the location where I lost the nuclear candy canes. I tried to siphon it off and it wont budge. This has me thinking it could be bacterial.

as such I'm doing something I would normally never so - red slime remover - on the basis that is is an antibacterial.

as far as running a skimmer at the same time, there is nothing I can do to tone down the reef octopus XP3000 with the bubble blaster pump. so two airstones in the sump baffles with a fairly large air pump. carbon and GFO are off
 
The losses seem to have come to a stop.

the red slime remover treatment went well with no losses, though i can't say if it was the two interceptor treatments, red slime remover, vit-c, or all the water changes.

The red slime remover did beat up the SPS a bit. took a few days to see any PE.

regardless, it is progress.

the SPS look like crap, then again they have been through a lot. I'm almost at 1/3rd dosing of what I was 4 months ago and I'm hovering at 10KH - as expected growth is non-existant. There is some PE on some the SPS again, so I'm hopefull they will recover over teh next few months from what has been some turbulent conditions.

losses totaled around 1/2 of my Zoa collection which I spent a year building - about 30 frags. about 5 heads of frogspawn, a piece of LPS I have had since 3 months into the the hobby that I never identified, a fungia, and a black wrasse which has vanished.

just happy to be pulling out of the slump :)
 
thanks. I'm going to let things stabalize and make sure I'm really past this before adding anything new. With this clearing up I can go back to making the 72 a 75 or a 90 :)
 
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