I'm stumped...

[~reefchik~]

I bought some zoas (Flaming Fire Frogs, Red Hornets and Ultimate Rainbows, from zoanthids.com) and they arrived March 16. I acclimated them gently, put them into my tank on the sand. Days went by - nothing opened. At that time, I did have PC lighting supplemented with LED strips (Aqua Rays). As of last weekend, I now have T-5s along with the Aqua Rays.

Water params were fine except that pH was a bit low and alk was a bit low (7).

I tried some Vitamin C dosing which seems like it's helping the tank, but not the zoas. They haven't reacted at all.

The pH and alk are fixed...still the zoas don't open.

What do they WANT?? :sad2:

 

[scuba guy ron]

i've had zoas that took aprox a month to open. keep them low in the tank and they should adjust and open....patience is key. if they are all still there and not melting or as long as you dont see pods on them at night they should eventually open. In my experience i've had pods attack acclimating zoas at night. I've since started using a small frag rack to keep everything away from newly acclimating corals and havent lost anything since i implimented this practice.

by the way, what are you keeping your salinity at?

 

[~reefchik~]

Salinity = 1.025 (using refractometer)

I guess I'm doing the right thing then, keeping them low in the tank. I'll try to be patient! One colony looks like it's melting or disappearing - the "bumps" are getting very small. The others just sit there closed up.

 

[scuba guy ron]

can you move them to a frag rack to keep everything off of them?

 

[Friday Night]

Pics?

 

[~reefchik~]

I had to move one bunch of them to a shot glass up on my frag rack, because it came unglued, and was rolling around in the bottom. I recently put on a Koralia 4 and have LOTS of water movement.

Anyway, :bigeyes: that one is opening up tonight for the first time. Guess they like living inside a shot glass.

Here's a photo of what it looked like before:

Here's one I bought locally, it was beautiful at the LFS, and got it home--now this:

There are two others that are so small you can't make them out, so I won't bother, but they look the same, just smaller.

 

[90greefman]

I bought some zoas (Flaming Fire Frogs, Red Hornets and Ultimate Rainbows, from zoanthids.com) and they arrived March 16. I acclimated them gently, put them into my tank on the sand. Days went by - nothing opened. At that time, I did have PC lighting supplemented with LED strips (Aqua Rays). As of last weekend, I now have T-5s along with the Aqua Rays.

Water params were fine except that pH was a bit low and alk was a bit low (7).

I tried some Vitamin C dosing which seems like it's helping the tank, but not the zoas. They haven't reacted at all.

The pH and alk are fixed...still the zoas don't open.

What do they WANT?? :sad2:

I have tons of zoas and here are my parameters:

Salinity 1.025
Temp 79
Calcium 420
Dkh 9
I noticed if my calcium or dkh ever gets low my zoas are the first to show signs of it
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
ph 8.2

I start all of my new zoas at the bottom of the tank until they open and then I will move them to a spot where they look nice in the lighting and do well. Once they are in that spot they do not move. I have most of them in medium to high water flow.

Good luck.

 

[scuba guy ron]

if the one in the shot glass is now opening and im guessing it is protected from alot of the flow then maybe you should consider that you may have too much flow for your zoas.

 

[650-IS350]

polyps usually like good UN-Direct flow... keep them low till they get acclimated to your lighting.

 

[~reefchik~]

I appreciate all the help. I guess mostly I need to just be patient then, because everything about my water matches 90greefman almost exactly. Except that my alk did take a dip when they were new. Now that it's fixed hopefully they'll all get happy.

I have them in shaded areas with as little flow as possible - so now I guess I will just wait it out.

 

[650-IS350]

little flow as possible you want flow on them, they like good to strong flow but not direct as in right infront of the power head.

 

[~reefchik~]

Well, I'm judging by the colt right next to them, and it's moving but not much. I hope that's about right.

 

[650-IS350]

Just for info, my 37cube, has 2 MP10's, and 2 Hydor #2's for flow.

 

[~reefchik~]

That's a hard one to quantify, isn't it? Flow. Well, the ones in the shot glass are almost totally opened but none of the rest are. I don't even know what to make of that! :hmm6:

 

[90greefman]

Here is another thought I had. I have received zoas in the past that were stressed severly during shipping. IE missorted and shipped to the wrong state and then to me 2-3 days later. They either got too hot, too cold or the box was tossed around like a football. When this has happened it has taken up to two weeks for some of these frags to open. Another thought I had was how long were the frags in the tanks at the store you ordered them from? Maybe they were only in their tanks for a day and then shipped to you. Unfortunately sometimes there are some external factors we have no idea about that obviously have negative effects on our corals.

 

[~reefchik~]

Here is another thought I had. I have received zoas in the past that were stressed severly during shipping. IE missorted and shipped to the wrong state and then to me 2-3 days later. They either got too hot, too cold or the box was tossed around like a football. When this has happened it has taken up to two weeks for some of these frags to open. Another thought I had was how long were the frags in the tanks at the store you ordered them from? Maybe they were only in their tanks for a day and then shipped to you. Unfortunately sometimes there are some external factors we have no idea about that obviously have negative effects on our corals.

Some good thoughts there. I guess we can't know what they were subjected to in transit. I suspect my mail order days are over, if this is what happens.

 

[jmking33]

did u change from pc to t-5's right after getting these? maybe they are still acclimating to your conditions, its just taking longer because you changed the lighting.

 

[90greefman]

If it makes you feel better I had some raptor rainbows and sunny d's come in that weren't doing to hot. I put them at the bottom of my tank in a low to medium flow area, didn't move them and almost 3 weeks later they finally opened. :rollface: